Bigpower

Right then, I've had the XR3i Turbo for a while now (nearly 9 Years ) and being a daily-driver any mods or repairs have been limited or carried over and squeezed into a weekend. It's now got to the stage where I've got several things to do and the parts are piling-up, so I've had to now pull my finger out and get them done! Must concentrate.... pmsl

Here's the car in a clean-ish state (it doesn't happen often :oops: )-




So to start-off, the little things like perished/rotten window scraper mouldings which just make the car look tatty-




A dented bonnet, due to a combination of old engine mounts, a throttle cable sitting on the cross-over pipe, a bonnet mounted too low, and 200+ APT horses :lol: -



A rotten tailgate due to water ingress through the rear wiper motor grommet (I had the grommet chopped out and smoothed-over but the damage had already been done, plus the filler is now cracking anyway :roll: )-



There's new wiper arms, window mouldings, bonnet and tailgate waiting to be fitted thanks to a chap selling-off his XR shell on Passionford.... shame I had to go all the way to Reading to get them, then get stuck on the M25 in traffic :roll: :pmsl:


About three weeks after the track day in Jan I had a general check-over under the bonnet and found a few issues-

Firstly, all the nuts holding the Turbo elbow had worked loose by a couple of turns- one stud/nut had even gone missing! Soon had them retightened and stuck a bolt in as a temp fix-



Before the track day I was keen to fix a small oil leak from the turbo oil drain pipe which it's always had (Gary's had a go himself but to no avail). So I stuck another new genuine gasket on, ran it upto temp and drove around the block a few times, and to my joy it was still dry!


Thrashed it merrily around Snetterton all day... to then be greeted by this-



LEAKING AGAIN! And now there's a light misting of oil around the bearing housing where it meets the compressor. Sodding thing. What next?- I'm open to suggestions? Is my enjoyment of 'chatter' to blame? :-k


Now for the painful stuff. Bodywork corrosion.

Rear sills have been scabby for ages, but they aren't getting through the MOT this year-




And O/S/R chassis rail-




The worst is yet to come.......................

So I thought I'd start stripping out the rear in order to access the tailgate hinge nuts and also to disconnect the wiring, aerial and washer hose.

Pulled off the boot seal, peeled back the headlining and found the nuts all ok. I then thought to myself, out of sheer curiousity while I'm here, "I wonder what state the sunroof tray is in?" #-o

Christian & Gary can probably guess the rest... :pmsl:










Anyone who's into the Ford scene will know their poor design causes them to be a water-trap, rotting both the sunroof tray and the roof skin from the inside out. I don't know what I'm going to do here- maybe if I ignore it it'll all go away, LOL [-(




So with a deep breath, I carried on. The new tailgate has all the wiring included, so the next task was to trace it. Annoyingly not all of it runs along the roof, but instead it goes down the 'C' pillar and then to the front. Typically the trim I needed to remove was behind another panel, which was covered-up by another panel, which is held in place by the rear seats :roll:

Started on the Driver's side first, and after various screws, rivets, sound-deadening, etc I found the wires. But I also found this-



Okay.... a little surface rust..... no big problem.... structure seems all ok. [-o<

Now for the passenger side. Cue more screws, rivets, trims etc. And then....





This..... ](*,)






Ever wanted to be able to check your rear tyre tread depths without leaving the car? :pmsl:








Oh C*ck!

I can grab the top of the shock and move it sideways about by a mm or so! And to think barely 500 miles ago it was being ragged around Snetterton! Might explain the twitchy rear-end.

On a lighter note I found a broken wire for the boot lock actuator which explains why it stopped working (woohoo!). After not knowing whether to laugh or cry, I chose the former. :lol:

I then slung the various parts in the boot and took a (very) leisurely drive to Chris at H Tech to see if and what he could do. It's booked in for April 6th, and while it's there he's going to do an estimate for the sills and sorting out a paint blemish on the new bonnet. :thumb:

More money I don't have! :roll:

The reasons to move-on and get something else are starting to stack-up.... :?

And you have that car on th track this year!

You are lucky to be alive!

The joys of ford ownership . The thought of getting something else will always be there but generally does your put a smile on your face. How does it make you feel when you are driving it .At least you know what is wrong with this car and unless you strip the interior out of what ever car you intend to buy next you won't truely know what condition it is in.

What ever you decide good luck and by the way nice car and power figures :-D

pablo wrote:The joys of ford ownership . The thought of getting something else will always be there but generally does your put a smile on your face. How does it make you feel when you are driving it .At least you know what is wrong with this car and unless you strip the interior out of what ever car you intend to buy next you won't truely know what condition it is in.

What ever you decide good luck and by the way nice car and power figures :-D

Cheers. I like yours too!

I know what you're saying, Christian and me have had many conversations on the reasons to keep or replace the car.... every year I say to myself it's time to move-on, but to what? And like you say- there's no guarantee the next car will not have any underlying problems.

If the engine was knackered I'd probably find it easier to move-on the something else, but it's an APT lump that's damn reliable and always brings a smile to my face on the occasions when I crack the throttle wide open.
I've got so many little bits to go on the car It'd be a shame to waste them, plus when the chassis is sorted out it'll be good keeping it a little while longer.... got to get my money's worth!

Get in there with the grinder and cut it all out mate.

Its not too bad once you get started and it puts you on a mission when you start putting in solid metal again.
Still worth it mate

Keep your chin up


Jay

If it wasn't a daily-driver I'd be more than happy to tear everything out and sort all the various niggles, but as it is I struggle to find temporary 'homes' for the bits of trim- the boot is full of stuff and I'm gonna have to get round to fitting the new tailgate and bonnet soon before I get grief from work :roll:

And seeing as it's going-in to have the rear end reattached (LOL) next week I'm having to get creative about getting to and from work without the car for a few days, and the meet of course!

Have you made a start on the Manta then, Jay?

Better update this with a few things that have been done, though if you've read Christian's thread recently this will all be a little underwhelming in comparision and not to the same standard, lol!

And forgive the camera-phone pics too... :lol:

This is what it looked like when it went to H-Tech-



And after, baring in mind all this is covered-up so I told Chris not to worry too much- as long as it was solid again!-




Couldn't get a quote for the sills and bonnet as he was stacked-out with work, but I've got time yet.

I finally got 'round to swapping the tailgate over on the morning of the Novice trackday.... no pressure then :pmsl:

Typically I encountered various issues, mostly with what the seller of the parts had done:

- Washer hose cut-off about an inch away from a joiner, so now it doesn't reach,
- boot solenoid wiring cut (you guessed it) an inch away from the multiplugs,
- clips broken on the rubber wiring trunkings.

So I had to use my original washer hose, repair the loom with the connectors from my old bootlid and bond the wiring trunkings in place to prevent water ingress :roll: . Then it was onto the rear spoiler. I knew the fixings were badly corroded anyway, so out came the battery drill and after some time drilling the heads off (corroded they may have been, but f**k they were tough metal :lol: ), leaving the old bootlid looking like this-




Next problem, could I find two 60mm long bolts with a fine thread amongst the various collections around the workshop? Nope ](*,)

So with time against me, it was bolted-on with just the smaller top fixings and the centre nut for the time being and until I could get something suitable. Then it was off to pick-up my brother and a hurried drive to Snett to sign-on/eat and prepare for the 20 min session.


Ragging the car on a warmer trackday has now highlighted that wrapping the exhaust won't be enough to keep the temps down (I had to back-off several times to give the temps a chance to recover which lost me a few laps of fun), so I'm thinking a decent oil cooler (rather than the standard oil filter modine (sp?)) will help to stabilize things.

Other than that, the session went well.... and now my brother has the track-bug too


Driving to work the next week, I noticed a gentle metallic 'ting' whenever I pulled away which (with what happened at the first trackday) I presumed was the exhaust housing nuts having worked loose. I promptly stuck it on a ramp and checked them- all tight... :-k Better just look under the car to see if the exhaust is catching anywhere.... all clear :?

Grabbed hold of the exhaust and gave it a wriggle-about- lots of movement!

Ah, this be why- :lol:



Downpipe only hanging-on by one (loose) nut, the other stud/nut having decided to leave without saying goodbye :pmsl:

Looks like I need to include checking every single exhaust nut and bolt as part of my pre and post-track checks!

I've been debating this for ages. I've always had a love/hate thing with my car (I love it on-boost, it hates me whenever I go near it with a spanner :lol: ) and at this point in time, having even less money than before now I've got a house to manage, it's in my bad books.

There's just so much work it needs doing that I can't do it and keep it on the road as my daily-driver... but I've no money to buy something else ](*,)

It's doing my head in. :?

Right time for some big power luvvin :-D

Set a sunday to one side mate and i will book off a day to give you a hand May even bring Suz along to make sure it gets done properly.
Make up a list of must do,s and would likes and we will have a day on her all guns blazing.

Jay