My Millennium

[caprixpack]

Perhaps something like this?
https://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/head-units/ute-93dab

You can adjust the colour to match it exactly to the interior of the car...

This arrived today.

 

[caprixpack]

And fitted.

 

[Wild E. Coyote]

And how is the sound?

PS. If the plastic around HU is detachable, I would respray it in moondust silver to match it better to the rest of the car. In fact, I did it in my build with very good results. https://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?t=21157

 

[caprixpack]

It's very detachable, one of the tabs is broken. I bought these yesterday.


The ford to iso leads are to replace the mile and a half of nonsense that was fitted by the previous owner.

As for the stereo, it sounds very good and has a far better range than the old Sony unit. I think I could do with some better speakers though.

 

[caprixpack]

This arrived this morning.

Hopefully over the next few days I'll get it fitted.

 

[caprixpack]

I had another play with the stereo today, replaced the ridiculously long iso lead and fit the new single din adapter.

And to give you a better idea on how long it is. (Excuse the state of the car, a 6 year old sitting in the front and eating is never going to go down well, it's well overdue a clean)

The old adapter broke while trying to remove the stereo cage but you can see the difference in shade.

 

[caprixpack]

Yesterday I decided to do the gearbox mount, it's not a job I've been looking forward to with there being two different part numbers for the mount but only the threaded style available.
So I order the febi part which is threaded, Naturally mine has the non threaded mount.

Anywhere, here we go.
I removed the intake hose, battery and box. This gave ample room to access the mount, or so I thought.



Getting at the 2 bolts that secure the mount to the side of the chassis was an absolute nightmare even with a bendy ratchet spanner. I removed the bolts from the top of the gearbox part of the mount allowing it to move about and giving a bit more wiggle room.
The old and new mount side by side. After measuring things there's very little difference between the two besides the threaded parts and the part where the mount sits on the studs.

I drilled out the threads and removed the suds from the bottom part of the mount and opted for some febi shank bolts o had spare with the same thread as the studs.

They're a bit long but will do.

I cleaned up the lower half of the mount and cleaned up the battery support and prepared it for painting.


This morning I removed the studs to allow me to clean up the mess from the old leaking hose and oil that was sprayed everywhere from the previous owner fitting the vent the wrong way around. Also allowing me to fit the top part of the mount far easier.

 

[caprixpack]

Bit of an update post.

I finished the engine mount job but never got around to uploading the pictures, so I'll do that first.

 

[caprixpack]

Once that was done I replaced the passengers side control arm and track rod ends on both side. While the hub was off I replaced the other wheel bearing and hub and cleaned up the abs ring. I also took the opportunity to replace the strut top mount and bearing.

 

[caprixpack]

Continued.






Moving onto the strut, always fun job.

 

[caprixpack]

Then it was just a case of putting everything back together.


Once everything was all back together, I booked it in for a go on the hunter laser alignment machine.

 

[caprixpack]

The next job, fitting a new screen wash pump and filter was supposed to be a nice easy 10 minute job.

It turned out to be a bit of a oh shit kind of a job.
I pulled the arch liner off to find this.

An inch and a half of compacted dirt and road grime. Fearing the worst I started digging it out fully expecting bits of the wing to come with it.

Once I'd got it all out and given it a good wash and scrub I was left with this.

Not ideal, but not terrible. I set to it with a wire wheel and small wire brush drill bit and cleaned it up the best I could. I then gave it a good dose of rust treatment and left it to dry. Once it had dried I gave it several coats of paint.

I gave it the rest of the day and overnight to dry then gave it a dose of waxoyl, while I was at it I cleaned up the entire arch and coated that too.

 

[caprixpack]

The most recent job was fairly simple, fitting some new door speakers.
It took me a few weeks of trawling through the internet looking for the correct speakers. I wanted the biggest I could fit without needing adapters or without cutting the door.
I finally settled on these. Although quite expensive for a pair of speakers.

Thankfully they fir perfectly without any modifications, although I did make a small wiring adapter to go between the speaker terminals and the original ford plug.


While they were expensive, I think it was worth it for how good they look and sound. The only problem now is the rears need doing as they can't keep up :roll:

 

[red]

some good work going in there! The speakers look like they were made for the job.

 

[Lorenzo Zaga]

Amazing work :clap:

 

[caprixpack]

This arrived today.

 

[caprixpack]

These arrived today so got started on the next little project.
A mishimoto oil sandwich plate with 3 1/8 npt ports.

And a cheap puma dash surround off eBay.

I removed the big vent from the surround and removed the directional fins.


Then using a 2" hole saw cut through the remaining fins, and using a Dremel tidied up the cut and trimmed things so a 52mm gauge would fit snugly.



For now it's just mocked up with an old Revotec gauge but I'm intending to use a spa design dual oil temperature and pressure gauge. I'd thought about removing both vents and making a plate to cover the hole and fitting 2 individual gauges bit I think the single gauge set in the vent will look neater and still leaves the other vent still functional.

 

[Neil]

Nice work so far - love a Milly

 

[caprixpack]

An update on the gauge fitting.
The spa design dual gauge arrived, and fitted in the vent.


The sandwich plate fitted with the sensors and ready for fitting on the car.

I trial fitted the gauge in the spare dash, thankfully only a small amount of trimming was needed and the vents can remain functional.

 

[caprixpack]

I had to wait for the weather to improve but I finally got around to fitting the gauge this afternoon. Thankfully it was relatively easy and no cutting or messing with the bulkhead was needed, I managed to get the loom through the bulkhead hole behind the fuse box.

Wired up to a switched 12v feed.

Sandwich plate and sensors fitted.


All wiring connected.

I had a play with the settings for the gauge today, these are all accessed via a single button I have fit in the blank button on the dash.
Psi changed to bar.