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Post by buildityourself on Aug 5, 2018 20:09:47 GMT
Many hours later....primer removed back to clean metal. Second attempt on the first wishbone. Looked good after cooling, so carried on with the others. The front lower ones are a tight fit in the oven, so care had to be taken not to knock the powder off. Really pleased with the end results. Now this is done it should release some trial assembly progress on the suspension.
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Post by buildityourself on Oct 14, 2018 20:01:44 GMT
It's been a couple of months since our last update. Progress has been slow, mostly because I bought a new daily driver which has been a bit of distraction. Also the UK heatwave has not helped. The forum has been pretty quiet so I don't think we were alone in this. A few more parts were diy powder coated. We reamed out the wishbones to remove the powder coating from the inside of the eyes to help the bushes fit. Then fitted the bushes and inserts along with the grease nipples that will allow further lubrication without having to remove from the car. This was fairly repetitive work so we switched to other jobs to keep it interesting for Mikey. Mikey fitted the new clutch slave/release bearing. We fitted the new clutch friction disc and pressure plate. I don't have a clutch alignment tool so we made a temporary one using various sockets and extension bars (I forgot to take a pic though) I was n't too confident about how successful this would be for refitting the gear box back onto the engine but it went together without having to re-adjust the clutch. This is now all ready for later fitment. Its looking good for a 15 year old engine and gearbox. A new problem has arisen as Mikey's feet have been growing at an incredible rate over the last year. This means we can't find a pedal height position to suit both of us so the solution is to have a removable section in the floor. Cut out a section in the upper floor panel. An aluminium frame created to support the cut out section. Then another frame to support the surrounding floor. Checking that they fit each other after having them welded up. Next stage was to prepare the chassis for the seat runner mountings. Mikey marked out the chassis first learning about centre lines and then drilled the holes. After much forum searching how other builders tackled the seat mountings we decided to use crush tubes so needed to drill the holes larger. I bought an incredibly cheap step drill set from Aldi not expecting much but it worked a treat on the chassis rails to open up the holes to 14mm to allow fitting of the 3mm wall tubes. As these will protrude above the chassis to pass through the upper floor they were welded in so that they were n't just taking the load on the lower wall of the chassis. Whilst the welder was connected up Mikey had his first go at welding on a piece of scrap. After enlarging the holes in the upper floor trial fitting to check the crush tubes protruded ok. Finally today's efforts in fitting the lower floor. This is the first step in the build manual so its great to get this done at last. First a game of spot the difference on a small pic to make it harder. We are bonding the floor as well as rivets to avoid any later rattles. The most famous shot on the mev owners forum, the rivet floor shot. The arty shot! I think he will have sore hands tomorrow ;-)
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Post by buildityourself on Nov 18, 2018 21:37:15 GMT
As I've been let down on some parts, time for a quick update. Filling in the floor voids for the sandwich floor. Aluminimum welded frame to support upper floor around cut out for big feet Mikey. Removable floor section again in aluminium that sits inside the cut out. This will be used when Stu is driving. We decided next to fit the engine early for several reasons. The thought of lifting it in once the GRP panels were on seemed risky as the 1.6 hasn't been fitted to the sonic7 before so there was a chance it would have to come out again if a problem was found, and second working out how/where to route pipes and cables without the engine was proving to be a head ache. Finally it will be a big moral boost to progress. We got the engine on a hoist into this position and then realised it wouldn't go in until the gearbox mounts were removed. So they were removed before continuing. Once in place onto the chassis mountings it was clear that the engine was not level. After checking and studying other build images it was clear that although the engine mount on the 1.6 is similar to the 1.8 & 2.0 its position on the engine is much higher near the cam sprockets. This is something I overlooked when measuring the engine up. After some initial playing with the hoist and a spirit level, the following temporary solution was obtained. This solved the level issue, so then checking the other mounts and clearances. Engine clearance itself was not a problem. However the gearbox selector was very close to the chassis rail when in 2nd gear. So this is how the engine currently is in the car. After visiting Angus and the demo car at the Classic & Kit car show and discussing, it became clear creating a spacer to replace the block of wood to lift the engine mount would not help as the engine cover slopes inwards right above the normal mount. Its a hard puzzle when you don't have all the pieces in front of you, but this picture hopefully shows the issue. The mounting point on the engine can't be changed as its a complicated alloy casting that also supports the alternator. So a custom engine mount is required to support the engine and clear the engine cover. This work is currently in progress and blocked as one of the parts bought delivery was delayed over a critical weekend and then incorrectly supplied for this weekend! Its not going to be clear if its worked until the body is on but its going to be very close.
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Post by drbrian on Nov 19, 2018 17:41:26 GMT
That motor mount looks like a tricky problem, but I think you can get it easy enought since you can weld. Look for a piece of square tube at a scrape yard with a deficient wall thickness that should do it. Try something like this from McMaster www.mcmaster.com/steel-hollow-bars
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Post by buildityourself on Nov 19, 2018 20:21:43 GMT
That motor mount looks like a tricky problem, but I think you can get it easy enought since you can weld. Look for a piece of square tube at a scrape yard with a deficient wall thickness that should do it. Try something like this from McMaster www.mcmaster.com/steel-hollow-barsV1 is attempting to avoid welding, as the engine is a heavy lump and it wouldn't look pretty. The focus is on keeping plenty of rubber insulator. i'm hoping to have that solution trial fitted the next weekend if I can obtain all the right bits and fittings. This will allow the engine hoist borrowed for 1hr to return to its owner 3-4 weeks later. I won't really know if its worked out 100% until the body panels are on.
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Post by buildityourself on Nov 24, 2018 22:12:56 GMT
A cold and wet damp day today when we made and assembled the parts of the custom engine mount for the 1.6 zetec se engine. Started with a 20mm slab of aluminium to make a spacer from. Traced around the rubber mount and a super neighbour milled out the rough shape to save manual cutting. We then filed and sanded the edges to smooth off. The spacer is sandwiched between 2 MGB rubber engine mounts. I chose these based on the height and width, but mainly because the thread is offset from the centre. This means that the upper mount can be flipped around to move the thread inboard towards the engine. Had to make a spacer for the bottom thread as the threads were smaller than the hole in the chassis. The final component is a 2009 Ford Fiesta Diesel engine bracket. This has the 3 engine holes the same as the 1.6 zetec, so saved making one from raw aluminum. I forgot to take picture of the standard bracket before modifying it so here is a stock one. The end of the bracket was cut off and the hole drilled to match the mount position. The focus mount was removed and the new one fitted. The custom angle of the top bracket will now hopefully clear the engine cover if I've got the angle and measurements correct, but its going to be very close. With this challenge out of the way, we drilled the gearbox mount bolt holes and bolted some of the engine parts back on. The drive belt pulley is one from a Fiesta without power steering or aircon, so no custom bracket is required like on the 1.8/2.0 engines. The Fiesta belt will be used too. The exhaust manifold is a Ford Fiesta stainless aftermarket one with a sports cat. There isn't as much room now for a silencer as I thought there would be. I'm wondering if we need a 'T' and a smaller silencer each side of the manifold joint, rather than a ubend and a long single silencer above? So overall some good progress made.
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Post by buildityourself on Jan 1, 2019 21:21:19 GMT
A few small jobs done over the Christmas break. Bonded the spacer to the upper floor. Will probably rivet this to the lower floor from underneath later. Checking inplace. Now the engine is mounted in the chassis could get to the sump to clean it up and paint it, as it was sat in the engine cradle before. Picked up a bug, so started cleaning up and looking at the Focus wiring loom in the warm. Started with the front engine loom. This just will need the main battery cables extended depending on the final battery location, so can go on the engine for now. Things escalated quickly. But the approach is remove all the cable ties and insulation, remove the un-required circuits. Then work out the component locations and where the loom will need shortening and extending. I was hoping to condense the 2 fuse/relay boxes into one, but this looks to be tricky without a second loom to fill in the blank sections. The focus wiring diagrams linked elsewhere on the forum are invaluable, although I did find some slight colour errors on some of the wires. One thing to note is the power steering pressure switch needs bridging rather than leaving disconnected for normal pressure, other wise the ecu (increase idle rpm) or dash (warning light) will think its high pressure condition.
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Post by buildityourself on Jan 13, 2019 19:52:51 GMT
Tried to layout the separte loom parts in the rough shape of the sonic chassis and connect them up to get an idea how much changes would be needed. The large rectangle hole in the middle is the cockpit and the closer smaller one the engine bay. Looks hopeful but needs a trial fit to check. Spare hour today after cleaning cars and cutting the lawn in January! and feeling better now, so we took the box of wiring loom out to the garage for a proper test layout.
Based on the loom layout the engine ECU will need to go on the rear bulkhead. (you can see the large connector above the white cardboard box). Heat/water may be a concern here as in the Focus its inside the car. The connectors hanging to the ground at the back connect to another loom section for the rear lights. Oddly this is probably not needed apart from a short section. The close connectors above are for the General Electric Module (GEM). This is basically only doing the indicators/hazard flashing and saving the battery if something gets left on. Half empty under bonnet fuse box stays at the front. As does the other fuse box (hanging upside down in the pic). The fuel pump connector just reaches the tank, and there is plenty of wire for the headlights. So at first glance it appears that just 2 parts of the loom need extending, between both sides of the C80 & C61 connectors. This is 29 individual wires, but just pure extensions which is fairly easy to sort out. The red arrows below indicate the two ends of the connections that need to be joined by the extension. The first is about 2ft on the drivers side inside the side panel. The second is from the back of the chassis to the passenger footwell. Considering the engine has moved from the front of the Focus to the back of the Sonic and the fuel tank from the back to the front I think the actual wiring changes when using the focus loom is fairly straightforward. Definitely the hardest part is removing the unneeded circuits. Top tip, don't buy a Ghia as a donor vehicle, buy the most basic trim level you can find. A lot of builders start from scratch especially if using a custom ECU, but if you are keeping the ford ECU and dash etc it makes sense to reuse the wiring too. The benefit of the Sonic compared to a Rocket is the bulky ford wiring can be hidden inside the body panels etc. The downside is that the fuse boxes and amount of wiring are quite heavy and ugly. I'm not sure yet whether to replace some of the bulky Ford connectors now that they don't have as many wires in them.
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Post by kiwicanfly on Jan 13, 2019 23:18:42 GMT
Although I built a Rocket and not a Sonic and I used a new loom from RTR (essentially and bunch of unterminated wires without connectors) I would leave all the wiring alone at this stage and do the tidy up at the end, almost last job.
It is surprising how all of a sudden a part gets installed that means re-routing the wiring and it seems to be that the shorter the wiring has been cut the more it needs to re-route.
Same with the fuse boxes and connectors.
Get it running and everything installed then trim the loom and change boxes/connectors when you sure things are final.
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Post by buildityourself on Jan 14, 2019 19:43:37 GMT
I would leave all the wiring alone at this stage and do the tidy up at the end, almost last job. Get it running and everything installed then trim the loom and change boxes/connectors when you sure things are final. Good, thats the conclusion I came to too. Until we have the other parts in place the loom tees, fuse boxes etc might need slight repositioning. But at least now I know roughly where I want it to go to avoid fitting other items in the way etc. The only issue with this is the side panels, as the loom needs to be in place before them, as it would be hard to feed/secure the loom afterwards. This was really just a good indoor job that fitted in well with illness and winter, and quite a few other tasks being blocked on solution thinking/parts etc. Suffering a bit from the "ideal" build order syndrome. One thread for example; the accelerator pedal can't go in until, the front bulkhead, until the steering column position is known, until I make something, until I have an idea of what to make.... Try explaining this to a teenager!! Although according to this article the worst should be over! Teenagers Brains
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Post by chris2000 on Jan 17, 2019 12:18:55 GMT
Hi Build it your self
i know what you mean i did that too with a lot of mine putting things on taking them off. Ive re done things more than i can remember on mine and still changing things on it ended up towards the end "will the pass? IVA ill change it just in case" when i took mine for the test the guy said well run it though all the checks then tell you what you need to do to pass!
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Post by buildityourself on Apr 7, 2019 19:50:36 GMT
Lots of thinking/planning/spending and not much doing lately except for some small tasks. I finally got the Focus front hubs removed from the knuckles. Unfortunately the bearing broke leaving the outer race on the hub. The garage said just need to angle grind it off. I'm really not sure how to do this without risking wrecking the hub? Cut the dashboard out for the steering column so it would sit on the chassis rail (assumption made that this is correct before the side panels are fitted, from the shape at the end of the dash). This took two attempts as we forgot to try both reach and rake positions which require different cut out shapes. Other focus has been on the fuel tank. I wanted to avoid drilling holes in the tank to secure the focus pump lid as other builders had done, so when stripping the Focus over a year ago I cut out the threaded section of the fuel tank. The idea was to use this to secure the lid to the tank somehow. An idea was to use an alloy collar to bolt the threaded plastic to with blind bolt holes which snowbird1 coincidently also did. This would be welded to the tank. The bottom of the plastic thread section had to be sanded down as the plastic was not perfectly flat. I drew up a sketch with the dimensions to get it made. Finding local companies turned out to be difficult when most close early on Fridays for the weekend, so I actually found someone on ebay offering laser cutting. I asked for the waste circle cut out from the middle as the price was for up to a certain size, but annoyingly this never arrived with the ring. Marked this out for drilling. We then did the same for the plastic thread. Unfortunately when Mikey drilled this the taper on soft plastic pulled the drill off centre. We ended up making the ring match the plastic rather than using the carefully marked angles, as neither fancied getting another focus fuel tank. Lesson learned. The blind holes in the alloy collar were then tapped with a 4mm 3 piece tap set. We then cut out a seal from VITON fuel resistant rubber, and made the bolt holes with a belt hole cutter. Final result seemed to have worked out ok. I then had the alloy collar welded to the tank and the vent hole capped off, as we intend to fit a roll over valve for safety. Originally our intention was to use as much of the focus as possible, however as the build has progressed this has changed a few times to make the car better. One of these was decided after a ride in petes car, when the fuel gauge danced on every bend. This was because the focus sender unit is designed for a wide shallow tank whereas the sonic7 tank is double the height. I bought a vertical sender from china on ebay for a grand total of £16. Unfortunately this sender needs drilling into the tank! I had intended on doing the same using the waste alloy circle. As this was smaller and does not need to be removed to clean the pump filter etc, I decided that this could be tapped and fitted to the tank. I fitted the sender at the end of the tank in the small section behind the baffle plate, and also midway from the front and back so it will be less susceptible to fuel slosh. The only remaining task is to position, drill and fit the expensive roll over valve, this has a nut which can be accessed via the main hole. With hindsight, I think the focus plastic tank thread could have been done the same as the sender or nuts fitted as the cap could have been removed to fit the nuts inside!! This would have saved a lot of expense. Lesson learned. We are looking forward to catching up with equilibrium and other owners at Stoneleigh next month, for some "finished car" motivation as seeing the bare chassis over winter was not enough!
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Post by kiwicanfly on Apr 7, 2019 20:38:34 GMT
Finally got the Focus front hubs removed from the knuckles. Unfortunately the bearing broke leaving the outer race on the hub. The garage said just need to angle grind it off. I'm really not sure how to do this without risking wrecking the hub? Carefully grind a flat onto the outside of the bearing, as the flat gets wider it is reducing the wall thickness at that point and eventually it will break open. You do need a disk with a sharp edge though, an old worn one is likely to make contact in undesirable areas of the before you get all the way through. Don't use a slitting disk in the obvious direction though as the radius means it will hit the hub before splitting the bearing. If you do nick the hub slightly it won't be an issue though.
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Post by buildityourself on Apr 19, 2019 19:47:29 GMT
Finally got out to the garage after being redirected to fit impulse bought new flooring in the hall! Managed to get the bearing tracks off the focus hubs thanks kiwicanfly , but did manage to nick the hub slightly :-(. Power tools are great but when they catch they are hard too quick to control. Also managed to cover everything in the garage in a layer of grit in the process.
We got stuck on the steering column as the steel bar i had got was 20mm (19mm is 3/4" and old school apparently) and it would not fit in a friends lathe to turn down to the required 19mm. So we finished off the fuel tank instead, first fitting the roll over valve and cleaning it out from drilling and general grit using an air compressor. We took the focus pump and removed the level sender arm as we won't be using this. Left the circuit part on the pump as connected to the lid. Ford seemed to have wrapped the wires around the fuel tubes, this makes the lid tight to reach the top of the Sonic7 tank. By removing the wire connector from the pump and removing the level sender circuit board. its possible to unwind the wires and gain some extra height. We cut out and fitted the first layer of baffle foam into the tank, and then locked in the pump into the retainer at the bottom of the tank. Layer by layer added more foam. The final layer we cut out a section by the filler neck to allow a bit of space to aid filling. Then realised that we had not fitted the plastic collar to the tank! Reversal of process to fit the collar first, and then refit. The tank is now ready for later permanent fitting.
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Post by buildityourself on May 21, 2019 20:59:09 GMT
Stoneleigh provided the "completed car" motivation to get back to the bare chassis build. Sorry we didn't get to meet the other attending owners as intended with their cars. We have been spending more time on the build lately but doing several task at the same time so nothing to report on complete yet so here a mostly complete update on the steering! One of the tasks that has been bugging us (me) for a long time is how to route/connect up the Focus steering column to the Sierra rack and this didn't start off too well. I've seen various solutions on builds but most involved welding something which I wanted to avoid. The focus column extension is tantilisingly close but the solution would then have 2 joints. I thought I had found a neat solution using a Ford Ka mk3 UJ, however despite photo appearances this had a different number of splines to the earlier Ford Ka/Sierra/Escort racks. Solution 1 and £25 discarded. Bought the correct Ford Ka UJ joint. This has a 36 spline and a hex type fitting at each end. The Focus column has a tube that accepts a DD 19mm bar. The best we could find locally after touring industrial engineering companies was 20mm bar. I thought I could get the bar turned down to 19mm by a colleague with a lathe but it would not fit in the chuck. So another dead end here. Ebay sourced a suitable 19mm bar for £10. After working out which way to route the column through the bulk head. I wanted to use the full telescopic part of the column so between the throttle and brake was selected finally to keep the column angle reasonable and away from the chassis brace bar. A hardboard template was made to work out where the hole in bulk head should go. Using nothing more than a hack saw, masking tape, an angle grinder and an M10 nut as a template I made a DD and hex shape on each end of the bar. This was tested for fit and then drilled for the pinch bolt. This took longer than making to ensure the bar was the correct angle for drilling. Turns out my angle grinding flat was within 20 thousands of an inch level! The completed bar fitted. The intention was to use a bulkhead spherical bearing to support the column. I incorrectly ordered a 19mm bearing to match the shaft, to later find out that it needed to be 24mm for the outer sleeve (25mm closest available) another £10. Because of the height of the column and being extended the bearing could not fit to the bulkhead as the shaft is much wider so a plan was hatched to mount the bearing on the front of the chassis somewhere here. Using CAD (cardboard aided design) we made a template, and then made 2 attempts at the real thing in alloy. (ok I got one of the fold lines wrong). To allow the column to pass through the bearing the captive nut had to be cut from the column. Not easy when fitted in the car. Temporarily clamped in place. Bulkhead cutout to match the template. We now actually have steering that works! Subject to proper fixing etc. For those future builders reading this, you can buy a 36 spline & DD UJ joint and a DD bar from rally design to avoid any of the complications we went through. But why buy ready made when you can cause yourself lots of grief. (this is a kit car after all). Since this we have actually removed more from the car than we had added in the last 6 months, but this will be explained in the next update.
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