kishy's 2005 Focus

[kishy]

Some serious rust in that last photo. Got to hand it to you - all in all a LOT of work put into this car. I believe you mentioned it is Mom's car so you are doing a good thing!

You must not live somewhere that there's salt...that's what we call surface rust.

Additionally, the camera flash always lights up rust worse than it looks to the eye.

[87gtVIC]

At the rate you are moving currently you have a shot at reaching that deadline.

[friskyfrankie]

You must not live somewhere that there's salt...that's what we call surface rust.

Additionally, the camera flash always lights up rust worse than it looks to the eye.

Lived in NY and Northern Vermont in addition to cold climates all over the world. Quite familiar with rust.

[kishy]

Took mom out to dinner tonight, so didn't do a whole lot to this car. After dinner, I did knock out a few things though:

• Removed sway bar end links and then reinstalled and greased them, because I determined they're still tight. Not sure what made me think they weren't.
• Re-bled the brakes on all 4 corners (did get some air out), achieved excellent pedal feel and no more warning light when pushing pedal hard.
• Test drive! (due to lack of license plates, this was done strictly on private property and all movement there and back was clearly done on a flatbed tow truck)

Couldn't find my OBDII cable for my laptop, but the ABS and traction control lights cleared themselves after a short distance rolling, so evidently I got the rear tone rings on properly and undamaged. Brake performance and feel is great. The charge light did not turn on once. The non-tinted side windows make it possible to actually see the mirrors at night, which was not really possible previously. The exhaust sounds quiet but healthy and power is great. The engine does not rock on its mounts so they are probably fine.

Got a little scared when I was listening to it idle after the drive; there's a rattly sound that I couldn't pinpoint with the stethoscope but it's definitely inside the powertrain somewhere. Eventually determined that it goes away with the clutch pedal down, so it's something inside the trans, maybe input shaft bearing wobble...not doing anything about that until it's catastrophic. I'll double-double check the oil level in that to be safe, but it shifted great.

[Tiggie]

Sounds like progress to me. Always good to have some fixes actually fix stuff. Stuff like this really helps my mentality.

[kishy]

OMG.



Safetied.
Insured.
Plated.





50km shakedown drive tonight. What a fantastic car to drive, really. It puts up a fight to work on it, but man, it drives nice. Late evening cruise with the windows down and moonroof open...top notch stuff.



Some discoveries in that time:
I think one of the rear wheel bearings, which came over from the parts car pressed into the drums I swapped over, is starting to fail. There is an occasional chirp and sustained driving at specific speeds can bring it out. My torque wrench doesn't go high enough to properly torque the spindle nuts (wrench goes to 150, spec is 170-something), so it's entirely possible I've introduced this problem.

Speed/cruise control does not work; no function and no indicator light. Wondering if it's because there would be a stored DTC for the ABS+TC; the condition has been cleared but I never cleared the DTC, so if the computer says no cruise when there's a DTC, that explains it.

A very thorough wash is required, inside and out.

I wouldn't call it "done", but it's pretty close. I wouldn't feel bad handing this over after a good wash at this point and just say that I'll take it back from her in the coming weeks to tackle more.

It drives so nice.

For those wondering: hovering somewhere around $1900 Canadian into it, including original purchase price, and purchase price of parts car, without taking any off for scrap value (as I let my friend who towed it keep the scrap money). A very expensive "$500 car" but I doubt I could have bought it for 2k as it sits now.

[DerekTheGreat]

...For those wondering: hovering somewhere around $1900 Canadian into it, including original purchase price, and purchase price of parts car, without taking any off for scrap value (as I let my friend who towed it keep the scrap money). A very expensive "$500 car" but I doubt I could have bought it for 2k as it sits now.

Don't forget to add your labor into it. Skill and ability too, those are all items of value which most don't factor in when they reveal how much they have into a vehicle.

[Giraffe]

Thanks for posting the progress on this. I enjoy your thoroughness.

[kishy]

I don't recall if it was established in this thread yet, but the original goal had been to make the car a Christmas gift. As you've all seen, I kinda overshot that. A lot.
The next most sensible gifting occasion was Mothers Day, and well, didn't make that work either.
Next up is her birthday, Tuesday. I'm feeling 100% confident that I can present it to her that day, but I'm almost equally confident that I really should hang onto it after doing so to put some finishing touches on.
It needs a thorough detail and it's not clear to me I'm going to have time.

Yesterday, returned the unused flex pipe (RE: evaluated fitment of both 52488 and 52489; ended up using 52489). A hundred bucks back in my pocket.
Last night, I swapped the winter tire+wheel set back off, and put the original ones back on. I drove around a bit then called it a night.



Today, I went to a junkyard in Detroit in the Focus. This is a really decent car to drive. Power is good, steering is weighted about right, it's just nice. Junkyard trip yielded me some Focus items: the noise suppressor I mentioned recently above, a set of axle nut dust covers, a couple axle nuts, an inertia switch (mine works but I broke its mounting ears), more spare climate control cables, and a driver interior door handle. The door card I removed it from was already laying on the ground, so the effort was minimal. I've been warned that they are a failure item.

After the junkyard, I made a return to Harbor Freight. While there I noticed that they carry R134A. My next stop had been intended to be AutoZone for that exact thing.

I ended up buying an 18oz can of R134A plus stop leak, with included charging hose. A snag in the use of the hose I already have: it is the piercing style, but new USA-market R134A cans have a self-sealing valve and use a new type of can tap design. The all-in-one solution just made it easier. Now of course, being uncertain about if I am allowed to even possess the stuff in my own country, I went to a friend's house (in the US) and refrigerant became present inside the car. It now produces reasonably cold air, consistently. It was a fairly hot day, high of 82, and the car was quite comfortable. Clutch still cycles periodically, could probably use more refrigerant, but the intent here was to try to get the stop-leak into the system and then monitor over some time to see if the clutch cycling frequency increases, indicating an active leak that stop-leak can't handle. No point putting more in if it leaks rapidly enough to need another can so quickly; more proper repair is justified in that case.



The location of the low side port is kind of sucky. Inside a cavity within the front bumper cover, below the right side headlamp. You can run a hose to it from above through the engine bay, but you must go in from below/behind (wheel well, inner fender liner) to actually put your hand on it and attach anything to it.

The cycle looks approximately like this:
Compressor clutch engages. Cool air is produced. Low side pressure increases.
Cooling fan comes on near the top of the green/filled section of the gauge on the hose.
While fan runs, low side pressure drops until it dips just into the low section of the gauge, at which point the clutch disengages.
Low side pressure increases to the top end of the yellow section of the gauge.
Repeat.

The (probably) wheel bearing scream is becoming more consistent. This is one of the reasons I can't truly give it to mom yet.

Put gas in it today. The light had just turned on minutes before. 10.1 gallons to fill.

I swung by a place I'm rather fond of, which is a favourite of many in the Urb Ex hobby. To understand how far Detroit and area have fallen, you have to understand how high they once were. This is a decent read with some neat photos: http://www.detroiturbex.com/content/...phs/index.html

It was recently the victim of arson, destroying the auditorium.

[friskyfrankie]

Usually after adding any Stop Leak you want to immediately add refrigerant so that the port does not get "jammed up". Of course, we car discuss using Stop Leak at all but I do understand your need/wishes.

[kishy]

Usually after adding any Stop Leak you want to immediately add refrigerant so that the port does not get "jammed up". Of course, we car discuss using Stop Leak at all but I do understand your need/wishes.

The product in question is a can containing both, so there isn't much choice in the matter of which order they go into the system.

I do not know the history of the vehicle; e.g. does it get annual recharges or is what was in it before today the remains of the factory original charge?

I am a strong believer that A/C systems are not supposed to be leaky, but some loss over the course of 17 years is to be expected. This was really just an exercise in trying to determine next steps (if any).

[Lutrova]

It's a damn shame about that auditorium.

Old buildings are a lot like classic cars. The new ones may be better mechanically, safer, less polluting, but they'll never match the beauty and charm of what came before. Not because we can't reproduce the work, but because the society that made them no longer exists. Today safety, comfort, and ecology leave no room for aesthetics, decorum, and ambition.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but if today's bureaucrats had preceded it, it never would've been built at all.

[Tiggie]

At the risk of going well off topic in this thread, that high school was amazing, in design but also programs offered. We offer nothing nearly as great as that. A high school that actually prepared you for a career. How far we have come, and how far we have wondered from the original goal.

[friskyfrankie]

Didn't see the can had both so you're covered. My statement was more of a general admonishment for those that choose to use it separately. As for the low amount of refrigerant, especially the older systems (R-12), a small amount of seepage is allowable to keep the front compressor seal from drying out. Even using the "cheapie" gauge that comes with some cans, you can now establish a base point and monitor the drop, if any. Kudos for taking it on and getting the car comfortable for Mom!

[kishy]

Walking the halls of that place as it stands today (well, maybe before the fire) is something else. It's very nearly in ruins, and with multiple generations of HVAC retrofits, multiple generations of lighting and multiple layers of drop ceilings just hanging all over the place, it isn't as pretty as it would have been when new, but it's a very special building. Of course, all of that is secondhand knowledge. Probably.

Today, I headed to my friend's shop to try to get the detailing work done on the car, and also brought my bike (admittedly for the opposite sex and aging not gracefully) so we could do some riding. The bike rack performed splendidly.



The detailing tasks include:

• General interior vacuuming for pet hair and debris removal
• Clean seats with carpet shampooer
• Clean carpet and floor mats with carpet shampooer
• Clean door cards, dash and console with alcohol (hard plastic, seems any usual interior products may make them feel mildly sticky)
• Thorough exterior wash
• Exterior clay bar
• Exterior polish
• Exterior wax
• Thorough glass cleaning inside and out
• Possibly apply Rain-X to windshield

I put in about 5 hours and somehow only managed to get the seats, carpet and floor mats done. Super bummed about that. Decent results were achieved though. No real before/after shots as I didn't think the interior colour would really show results, and I was kinda right, but it is way better after regardless. Still a lot of pet hair I couldn't get out, it's embedded itself into the fabric in a few areas, not much to be done about that unfortunately.







Hoping to knock out the remainder tomorrow evening, but that seems optimistic. Gotta try though.

I did also install the junkyard-sourced noise suppressor and inertia switch today.