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

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Haven,t been on for a bit Barry but nice work mate she,s certainly coming together well loving your attention to detail Oh and if you decide to sell her when she,s done you,ve got my number :grin:
 
Hi Martin
Thanks for that, it isn't very far off now. Have you decided what you are doing with yours yet?
Barry
 
tuonokid said:
Hi Martin
Thanks for that, it isn't very far off now. Have you decided what you are doing with yours yet?
Barry
New rear suspension bushes and an MOT she,s nearly got to 50k miles but feels brand new,I,ll run her through the winter and see what develops Barry :wink:
 
Next up was sorting out the floorpans where the factory had covered them with rubberised underseal. I'd replaced the underseal but now the colour didn't match so first off I had to clean the existing floor with petrol.







Floor before cleaning.













Floor after cleaning. There were a couple of areas with some light rust on due to the factory not having good quality control ie no underseal in some areas.


No underseal at all on this area


I probably took off the underseal here whilst trying to de-rust the floor



The seat mountings at both sides were slightly rusty.
These 4 areas were de-rusted and then etch primed and covered in joint sealant ready for painting.

After the joint sealer had gone off I applied white primer so that the black colour of the sealant wouldn't tint the final red coat.




Then the final red coat and finished (Maybe have a splash of shutz over the red overspray)



 
Back to the exhaust again. I'd cut out a notch from the pipe just to the rear of the new cat as it was running the exhaust onto the O/S heat shield and would have knocked during driving but when I fitted the rest of the exhaust system it pulled the exhaust over to the O/S again and put a fair bit of strain on the whole system.


Pipe just about touching heat shield.



My plan was to cut the exhaust pipe just after the bend and weld an extension in to move the centre of the exhaust to the nearside slghtly.


So exhaust off and cut and I had a rummage in the garage and found a piece of stainless I'd cut when making a Westfield system. All this was cleaned up with a grinder and then finished off with a stainless brush.


With the exhaust put back on and propped up but in a relaxed position I can see how much extra pipe wants welding in.


I tacked the extension sleeve onto the front part of the pipe and then re-fitted it to make sure the rear part fitted up ok. It did fit ok so I will tack the rear half to the front and then remove it from the car to finish the welding.


New gap to the heat shield with the exhaust in a relaxed position. Clearance should be ok so no knocking.
 
Awesome job Barry, I'm only jealous that when mine comes back it make look all good from the top, but all the bottom is still to do. Love the red floor so it looks factory.
 
Hi James
Cheers for that but I'm sure you're ready to put all the hard work in now. After all the welding work on yours you should be able to do it as one rather than bitting and batting like I did. When's the ETA now?
Barry
 
Finished welding up the exhaust and re-fitted it to the car and it fits a treat with no tension in the system at all plus it's moved away from the tunnel side so it won't knock.

Next job was re-fitting the tank. I was going to clean up the rust but when I got it out of storage it wasn't worth the effort so my plan is just to waxoil the rusty bits for now.



All the bits needed for the tank including new S/S bolts with penny washers and 6 and 8mm chimney nuts. Also a large jubilee clip in case the standard fuel filter clip can't be re-used.

So I waxoiled all the rusty bits at the top of the tank where you can't get to once it's in situ and also waxoiled the chimney nuts after installing them.



So I started to raise the tank up below the car and then realised that the exhaust I'd put on the day before was in the way so I had to take it off yet again!!!!!



Finally got the tank on and piped up and even managed to re-use the existing fuel filter clip.

Another little job I had to do was the passenger side brake hose bracket. I'd finished the drivers side and made the pass side strut clamp so I just needed to attach the guide to the bracket



Guide welded with rubber piping to protect hose.


Bracket in place.
 
tuonokid said:
Hi James
Cheers for that but I'm sure you're ready to put all the hard work in now. After all the welding work on yours you should be able to do it as one rather than bitting and batting like I did. When's the ETA now?
Barry

Friday I hope Barry!
 
Keep my fingers crossed for you James. If you read my tonights thread and want to learn from my mistakes jot down the order that you take stuff off the car and then if it takes you 2 years like me you won't have forgot :grin: . If you want anything off me now I should be able to help as my floors are done now. Do you want to borrow a shutz gun etc?
Barry
 
Next up was the dreaded cambelt change. I'd been gathering all the special tools as shown in the Ford TIS guide and all the replacement bits I would need as shown in the photo.


The only thing missing was the aux belt idler pulley and after reading a post by El Dude I bought a genuine Ford one.

First important job was to check the timing pin and plate with a dial guage to make sure the existing timing agreed with the pin and plate. I couldn't get the plate in but that was because the paint needed sanding off one side of the plate (it was too thick)



Before I attached the crank holding tool I cleaned out the threads in the vib damper with a tap



To ensure that the vib damper puller would have an easy time I cleaned off the taper on the vib damper flange



Removing the plug from the VVC pulley can cause confusion as it moves the cambelt and the crank even though you're holding the cam with a spanner but don't worry because as long as it's all timed up with the tools all will be well



I cleaned the rocker cover gasket face and used an (expensive) motorcycle silicone gasket sealer to hold the gasket in place (just spotted) and left on the kitchen worktop to go off



I fixed the vib damper removing tool in place with the engine at TDC on 1 and 4 which ended up perfect for removing the bolt as I could place a 4ft pry bar above the crank holding tool but below the inner wing and put a breaker bar towards the front of the car and jack it up with a trolley jack. The bolt was tight but against the weight of the car it came off no problem.



Once the bolt was loose as it was screwed out it pressed on the shank of the vib damper remover and pulled the vib damper off.



Old Ford cambelt off and bolts on both cam pulleys finger tight so that the pulleys can move without turning the cams.



At this point my pile of parts off the car was getting bigger



The vib damper puller in use. It has a roller bearing on it's inner face so it doesn't turn the vib damper as it's pulling it on. It worked a treat



Vib damper fully on. It's vital that the new bolt is not used to do this as it's a stretch bolt and will pre stretch it.



New cambelt on and checking the tensioner release pin prior to tensioning. It actually fouls on the power steering pulley.



I bent the pin on the tensioner so I could remove it under full control as dictated by the Ford TIS and Gates bulletin



Cam belt tensioner on and correctly tensioned (slot to left of bottom bolt and kick plate about 3mm from belt tensioner post.



This was the set up I used to tighten the vib damper bolt. It's worth checking the new to the old as the original bolt was 19mm and the replacement was 18mm. First of all the crank holding tool rested on a heavy duty axle stand so it couldn't move. Then the vib damp bolt had a 3/8 drive 18mm hex impact socket onto a short extension onto a degree dial. This went onto a longer extension which rotated on top of another axle stand.



The new bolt was so tight! The 40nm and 10 deg was easy but for the rest of it I had to borrow a piece of scaffold pole. I had to trust my mate, a mechanic, that we achieved the 90 deg as I was wrestling with the scaffold pole!
 
The cam belt change was successful but another niggly job needed doing in the engine bay. The aluminium cover which supplies water to the rad and the HCV from the head had been leaking for some time before I got the car (common fault)



The coolant had crystalised and corroded the aluminium of the cover so, using the little copper wire brushes with a Dremmel, I cleaned it up as this.



As the existing gasket that came off was made out of metal I bought a Genuine Ford one rather than making my own. It was a pig to fit the gasket as it has tangs on two of the stud holes which make it really hard to put in place.
I also cleaned out the inside of both hoses as they were full of crystalised coolant then put it back together and filled it with clean water. Good job I used water as it leaked from the hose to the rad but soon rectified that and then filled it with a pink antifreeze/water mix.
 
The car's not far off being ready for an MOT now but there's a lengthy snagging list to go through before it's ready.
First off is to check the tracking as it's now on 40mm lowering springs.



This is my tracking rig which really only tells me whether there's toe in or toe out. I could work it out exactly using fairly simple geometry but as long as there's a few mm between measuring at the back of the bars and at the front it's usually good enough.
This is my speedo with the engine going. I don't know whether my brake mods work yet as I can't reach 12mph on my drive but the ABS and TC lights refuse to go out so I might have to go to plan C on that



Nice clean interior



The car has got most of the weight on it now so the stance is looking pretty good



Sideways view, it will go down a bit with a few more gallons in it



Front view with my rubber spoiler on, I think it looks pretty mean



View from behind.... looking cool

 
Looks fantastic mate.
Have you been able to get it up to speed for an ABS self test? That should take the lights out.
Paul
 
Thanks guys it's much appreciated.
Paul, no 12mph yet but you've sort of answered my thoughts as I tried looking through the handbook last night to see if both lights should be on and it doesn't mention the self test. I was aware of it but didn't know the TC light would be on as well....this new technology it's hard work!
Barry
 

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