My Puma 1.7, more than a year on (A works in progress)

tuonokid said:

[post]354587[/post] Hi Ben
Ask James (XAF) for photos, he may have been the first to do this and furniture clinic has a code for the colour conversion now thanks to James it's DS3918 Charcoal. Also if you're interested I can bring all the silvertop sump setup apart from spacers to Fordfair and it's yours for £20. I have one more spare for my Westy so I can let this one go.
Barry

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Hi Barry,

That's really kind of you. After doing the research I found a silvertop sump doesn't line up with the MTX75 box unfortunately and once I'd had a look at the other modifications needed I've decided it's not worth it for now.

As for the colour conversion does this mean you can do the whole door cards as well as seats? I imagined it would be easier to swap the door cards with the charcoal 'leather' versions.

Thanks,

Ben

That's a clever little fix on the boot light. Both mine as split and broken and that is a clever idea! Might have to steal that one at some point.

Hi Ben and Dan
Glad to be of help Dan.
It's a shame the bolt holes don't line up as I thought it would have been in Fords nature to make stuff interchangeable.
This colourant is only for the leather so you could do the leather panels in the cards but you'd still be left with the rest in blue. I only paid £20 for the Thunder cards so it's pretty cost effective.
Barry

Glad to be of assistance Barry!

Ben, this is my thread on how I did the seats. The colour has been on around two years now, and still looks great. You actually take off the top layer of factory due to lay down the new colour, so not sure it would work on the door cards, just buy a dull interior and sell the seats separately.

http://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=25398&p=318804#p318804

Awesome, so I just need to get the door cards and then colour change the seats. Although my drivers bolster is a bit worn, gone through the top of the leather slightly.

Perhaps I will try and do this in the Winter when the car will mostly be off the road. Although I'm not getting too far with on the road at the moment :lol:

Hi Ben
I saw in another post you said your car was broken, I hope it's nothing more than the rad.
As for the leather on your seats this stuff will do repairs if it's only the top coat that's damaged. You could also cut down on the work by using the thunder rear seats but I'm going to do the Millie rears as they are stamped recaro on the back.
Barry

tuonokid said:

[post]354665[/post] Hi Ben
I saw in another post you said your car was broken, I hope it's nothing more than the rad.
As for the leather on your seats this stuff will do repairs if it's only the top coat that's damaged. You could also cut down on the work by using the thunder rear seats but I'm going to do the Millie rears as they are stamped recaro on the back.
Barry

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Should just be the rad, Barry. Although now the coolant is out its going to be a nightmare to bleed again. My heating does work properly, I had an air lock in it before as we all suspected. Fingers crossed this time around!

Yes, I agree I hopefully will be doing my Millie rears because they have the 3 ridges and Recaro stamp. Looking at mine I hope it is only a top coats that's damaged. It's gone back to that slightly fluffy leather where the colour has gone, feels a bit thinner.

Ben

James will probably clarify this but I think you can build up the finish in damaged areas and I remember Duncan from the Furniture clinic said if you can get your finger nail into it it's too far gone but an abrasive rub should be ok.
As for your cooling there's loads of takeoffs on the thermostat housing any chance of putting a bleed on there if you have a spare take off.
Barry

Just had a go at fixing my boot release (off the remote). Stripped the interior trim out and put my multi tester on the orange wire to the solenoid and got the voltage when I activated the key fob. So then I retrieved the solenoid out of my scrapper and tried that and it operated so obviously my existing solenoid is tired. I didn't want to take my bumper off to replace the solenoid as Andrew's not here at the moment and it's really a two man job so I just give the solenoid a few taps with a screwdriver and a spray of GT85 and it's working again for now

Still on with painting various parts of the car I realised that the rear arch (small) repair that I had done a couple of years ago needed a bit of work as I'd not clear coated it and also I'd not rubbed it down quite right.

170720162810_zpslpel8rsl by barry wilson, on Flickr

Also in trying to get a polish on the patch primer was beginning to show through at the edges.

170720162812_zpskx7rused by barry wilson, on Flickr

So I used a small piece of wood as a sanding block and got to this stage. Then I flatted the surrounding area with 1200 grade wet and dry.

170720162813_zpswprqezh7 by barry wilson, on Flickr

Then a little spray of white primer and another flat down

170720162814_zpsrpyecxgm by barry wilson, on Flickr

Then a spray of colour followed by a flat down again. Every time the area is getting bigger in an attempt to merge it into the existing paint

170720162815_zpsk6dwclcr by barry wilson, on Flickr

Followed by a good coat of clear coat before a final flat down and polish.

270720162888_zpswvvnkcub by barry wilson, on Flickr

After flatting and polishing. It's not perfect as you can see a diagonal line coming down from the swage line at the rear bumper where the clearcoat merges with the old stuff but it's a lot better than it was before.

Don't know what they told you in the shop Barry but if its 2k, you shouldn't really be polishing it for a week or so. Unless you have an oven to bake it in :wink:

I usually wait at least a week before I mop, gives it a chance to harden properly

Hi Rob
It's ok I did it last week and it did polish up ok today but as you know it's hard to get the merging in of paint and clearcoat. I suppose that's why body shops usually paint to a joint so it can be hidden.
Barry

True enough mate. Wonder if it would have been worth flatting the whole (half) panel up to the door, clear the lot?

Regardless, It looks mint

Rob.

Still getting the car ready for Fordfair this weekend I'd had an EML for a week or so I got Andrew to hook up the Forscan and we found this the dreaded p0420. Some time after Fordfair I'll have to strip down the exhaust as it's popping and banging on the overrun quite a lot now so must be letting air in and affecting the Lambdas,

270720162884_zpsoxytb8i0 by barry wilson, on Flickr

Another thing that wanted doing was the fuel cap and on the photo below can be seen the red paint going pink as it seems to do really quickly on plastic parts.

270720162886_zpspeaj74nm by barry wilson, on Flickr

So I flatted it off and gave it a couple of coats of Colorado.

270720162887_zpsswys7sci by barry wilson, on Flickr

Then I flatted it down again and gave it it's first coat of clearcoat.

290720162890_zpsbelwh4w0 by barry wilson, on Flickr

And... disaster, a suicidal fly landed on it!!!!
So it looks like I'll have to flat it off again and put some more clearcoat on it....oh bugger. :-(

I wish I could patch repair paint like this... I haven't tried for years now but when I last attempted it was a dogs dinner! So I retired the rattle cans and always get any paintwork done by a mate which is the full works and costly!

Good work! Shame about the daft fly!

Hi Dan
More modern paint is much more slow setting and seems to have much more resistance to running so if you have a non metallic colour you can blather it on unless it's a vertical surface and prone to running. I must admit I wouldn't like to do what I've done in Moondust. I think that must be one of the worst colours to match.
The fly's not the only problem up here at the moment, it's bloody windy as well and I'm painting outside as my garage is full of projects
Barry

Well after a good few days of welding on Andrews Anglia and a short break in todays rain I finally got around to swapping the boot release solenoid on my Puma. Now this is much more work than it should be as the rear bumper has to be taken off to release the fixings as the screws go in from the outside of the rear panel.
I thought about using Rivnuts on the rear panel but I could only put them in from the outside as access was difficult on the inside so instead I used this;

170820162948_zpsdvltarem by barry wilson, on Flickr

2 x 19mm long s/s bolts with 2 x s/s washers, 2 x s/s shanked nuts and 2 x s/s locknuts. (all 6mm size)

And installed them like this;

170820162949_zpsvz7sl0yn by barry wilson, on Flickr

170820162951_zpsrc285hok by barry wilson, on Flickr

The bolt goes in from the outside with the washer under the head (so as not to scratch the paint) and then the shanked washer is tightened up really tightly creating a captive bolt on the inside.

I then drilled out the threads on the plate holding the solenoid with a 6.5mm drill.

170820162950_zpswr9kaohy by barry wilson, on Flickr

The solenoid the fits over the captive bolts and the locknuts hold it all in place but to make fitting easier remove the passenger side rear light and disconnect the cable from it's holder on the solenoid to gain access to tightening up the top locknut.

170820162952_zpsmzaxfrgu by barry wilson, on Flickr

The bottom locknut is really easy to get at and job done now, I can take off the solenoid without having to remove the rear bumper

170820162953_zpseuqxaxxo by barry wilson, on Flickr

Now that you made sure it is easily swappable, I am sure it will last forever!

Hi Sinisa
I wish that was the case, the original lasted 15 years and 39,000 miles and the one that I swapped it for was out of a 93K car but I know what you're saying
Barry

Anyway, as the weather was so nice today I thought I would have another go at my exhaust system as Andrew had said he could smell fuel when I drove past him and I was continually getting the PO420 fault code and an EML. My thinking was that a possible exhaust leak could be throwing the lambdas out.

180820162954_zpsskzfytfa by barry wilson, on Flickr

It took some prizing apart but eventually had the cat and the other two sections of pipe I'd welded off the car.

180820162955_zpsogurxym5 by barry wilson, on Flickr

It looks like the copper wire gasket I'd made previously had held up well.

180820162956_zpsussytr0k by barry wilson, on Flickr

I plugged up 1 end of each pipe I'd welded and filled them with water to see if there were any leaks. The short pipe was ok but the long pipe had 3 or 4 pinholes in it which I welded up.

I had a look on the internet to see if I could fill the cat up with water but I couldn't get an answer for that so I had to make a gas tight rig up for pressurising the cat, this was what I ended up with.
For the rest of the afternoon I ended up welding rust pinholes on the cat so I'm going to persevere with it tomorrow but will probably end up looking for a new cat.

180820162957_zpsuhvxomfw by barry wilson, on Flickr

Well I spent another couple of hours today welding pinholes in the cat and finally gave up just after lunch. After assembly it does seem to run a little cleaner and on warm up the front of the cat wasn't dripping water on the floor so I think it's more gas tight now. I also cleaned the MAF as one of the little springs was a brown colour and it does seem to be running a bit smoother now. I'll give it a try tomorrow and see how it goes.

So, how did it go? For sure it must have been an improvement, but by how much?