My New Project Puma ....potentially

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Jammy

New member
Joined
Jul 4, 2019
Messages
11
Hi everyone,

Just joined, my wife and I have had a silver 1.7 ford puma since first purchased in 1999. Unfortunately we sornef it after a bump about 5 years ago, couldn’t bear to let it go. Now looking at getting it back up and running. Looks like the fuel pump has gone, need to do some work to passenger sill but can see you can buy new ones now. New wings and front bumper required so thinking of buying a spares or repairs donor car.

I’m sure I will be posting more in the future as me and my 2lads 18 and 16 get into it

Cheers Paul
 
Good luck. It's a voyage of discovery!

Sills are available... sort of. Search for my thread about the work I had done, which was similar to your list. Sills came from Poland and weren't a brilliant fit but were persuaded to fit. Front wings, I got lucky and found some 2nd hand ones which weren't too rusted. As far as I know, brand new wings are impossible to get now, although there's talk of a production run at a classics panel specialist.

My advice would be to protect any areas that are starting to go, have a look under (over?) spare wheel tray around rear floor and where floor meets sills. Scrape off the worst of the rust, treat it, zinc primer then chassis black or schultz if you prefer.

What did the bump do, was it one of the wings? From memory there are a lot of donor bits for Puma on eBay at the moment, and silver seems to be a popular colour. I know this because I need a medium steel blue rear bumper...
 
Or, if you want to spend a lot of money:
https://www.steelpanels.co.uk/news/ford-puma-sills/
 
Welcome to the site, 20 years of ownership then? That's good going :grin:

I do hope you're able to restore it to it's former glory, we'd love to see the progress!

Good luck!
 
Hi Guys

Thanks for the friendly reception. So essentially we have had VTOC since August 1999 bought brand new from the main dealer by the Castle Bromwich Jaguar Plant.To be honest it has been a great car. My wife Sheridan has loved having it, probably did about 6k miles a year and serviced regularly. Never let us down and we never felt the need to change. We then had an unfortunate coming together with the rear tow bar of a Pajero. No damage to him but a big hole in the bumper and bent front cross member. I managed to pull together a temporary repair with the use of a cricket bat a rope and the tow bar of a landy which bent it sufficiently back into shape to screw and tape it back together to get a new Mot. However long term we decided to SORN the puma and get another car until I had the time to do some repairs properly. So now the time has come where I have bit more time to have a crack. Essentially the bumper is toast. The wings are both rotted out at the base and the bottom of the drivers door is also rusted to the point where a replacement seems like a good shout. The fuel pump seems to have packed up to. Having said all of this. It was a great car and I will get it into the garage this weekend and up on Axel stands and start planning. Ok sounds a lot of work but the great thing is it is not our main car and we can take our time. Economically this will make no sense but will hopefully be a bit of fun and my lads may join in. Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions and I will keep you all updated. Have a good weekend all
 
"Economically this will make no sense"

Welcome to the money vacuum!

I would suggest taking your time, diagnose fuel pump fault properly. Check inertia switch by passenger ankles first.

IF pump needs replacing, go slow, soak tank fixing bolts liberally with penetrating fluid first. Take the opportunity to do some rustproofing on the floor above tank while it's off. My tank was a bit rusty at the rear too.

The bumper should be relatively easy. I can get you some screen grabs of workshop manual if it helps.

The good news is that I would expect bumper armature (the transverse bit) and crush cans (short brackets that bolt onto main chassis rails) all to be cheap. This is because their replacement cost directly influences insurance group so it's in Ford's interest to keep parts prices low.

And bumper skin should be easy to track down 2nd hand.
 
Silver car with good bumper and wings (maybe) being broken Somerset

https://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=32818
 
Thanks G

I have checked the inertia switch and the fuse has blown twice for the pump, hence my suspicions it is the pump.

I will take my time as you suggest and drop the tank following appropriate safety precautions. Good shout on the rust prevention.

I have been in touch with the thread you kindly pointed outs and all the parts may be available. Will hopefully move in market once I have made an objective assessment to ensure the chassis etc is still viable.

Cheers
 
Hi
If you need sills you can get them from Expressed steel panels based in Yorkshire. They produce panels for a number of different manufacturers but their Ford panels have been officially licensed by Ford so they should be pretty good. I've been waiting for rear wheel arches for my 1.7 Thunder. But they've just produced rear quarter panels for the racing puma I might have to use Peugeot 206 front wings instead. They will be increasing their range of puma in the future I hope this helps
Regards Lee
 
Thanks Lee, that is good to know I will have to give them a look when I get to the sills. From the looks of it there will certainly be a market for front wings in the future. Incidentally I looked on the website how many left and it would seem Ford Pumas are a rapidly disappearing breed only 3k of the 38k on the road in 2004 left with around 100 a month being scrapped.
 
No worries Jammy
I've got a nasty hole in my o/s rear wheel arch and a dent in the n/s rear quarter panel. I'm going to be at Ford fair in August and I was hoping to get them sorted by then. But it's not going to happen. You're probably right about the front wings though.
I've also looked into how many pumas are left, I'm happy to say that there are a few running around my area. Maybe people are starting to catch on, there used to be loads on ebay now I can only see 4
 

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