Axle Possibly Cured.

 Having obtained some new O-rings I found that the size wasn't quite right & the bearing was reluctant to go into the axle. So I drew up the O-ring & printed a seal in polyurethane. This might work & it might not, there's no relative movement, no real heat & no pressure, so it might well work, time will tell. if not I'll try harder to fit the O-ring.

For the corrosion, I've now cleaned the non-adhering paint & rust off the chassis in both rear wheel arches, also cleared the mud off the inside of the bodywork. There wasn't any bad corrosion, just a bit of surface rust, so it got a coat of CBS "Wunderseal" on the steel work & the inside of the GRP & that was overcoated with stone chip paint, so that should be all sorted. The suspension is all back together & I just have the perennial problem of lining up the holes in the passenger seat with the holes in the floor so I can bolt it down (sigh).

Axle Not Cured

 ARSE!

It was dry - then when I returned home from my Girlfriend's house, the off side very much wasn't. A brief investigation revealed that I'd caught & cut the O-Ring when I pushed the halfshaft in.

I measured & ordered new O-rings, but the closest size I could get was reluctant to go into the housing, so I drew up & printed one & a seal for the end of the housing. will this work? Well it fitted together nicely, but only time will tell if it seals or hardens & as the car is now on a SORN (again), that may be some time.

While fitting this all back together I noticed the end of a chassis tube was wet, the last time the car saw any water was almost a month ago. I poked a screwdriver between the floor & the GRP sill & water came out - quite a lot of water. That in the bowl plus all the water that ran out while I was looking for that bowl. It seems to be coming in at the front & getting trapped, so I'll need to put some drain holes in the sill.

Also while I was round there I made the mistake of poking the inner wheelarch & some paint came off. It turns out that what appears to be paint is in fact a waffer theen smear almost - but not quite - in contact with some rusty steel. I've peeled off a fair bit of it, but it'll need many more unpleasant hours under the car with a selection of wire brushes before it's all ready for a re-paint (sigh).

The main area of concern is right at the front with the trailing arm bracket, it's not in any danger of failing - it's not even pitted, but it's going to clog up with mud again, the passenger side has a sizeable gap for water, mud, sheep doodoo etc to escape through. I need to cut something similar on the driver's side.

Axle Cured

When I bought the car the rear axle was leaking (just one of many problems it had), I read up on it & the internet suggested that the oil could leak round the outside of the wheel bearing. It wasn't a problem for Fords as they force-fitted the bearings, but as the axle got older & perhaps the bearings were changed, the tolerances weren't what they once were. I pulled both 1/2 shafts & put some sealant around the bearings & all was good.

Scroll forward 3 or so years & they started leaking again. At Camberley car show I found myself talking to some people who ran a local garage, not a "£50 to service your Fiesta" place, but proper engineers. They were stood by their 1930's Riley which had been cleverly modified with parts they had designed & manufactured themselves. I took a card & squirreled it away.

So when I needed the rear wheel bearings replaced - not a simple job - I knew where to go. The bearings are held in place by a shrunk - on ring which needs to be carefully cut off, then the new bearing fitted & a new ring heated up & pressed on. I took them in, went to my girlfriend's house for a few days & they called me to say they were all done. I picked them up when I got home, fitted them that evening, checked the axle oil level & put the car back on its wheels (I swapped the front & rear wheels as the LSD is starting to wear the rears a bit).

I got the new bearings from Burtons & interestingly (interesting if you're like me - other opinions are available) they now have a thin O-ring on the outer face to stop the oil leaking

Today I took the car to work & the engine was fine after all its' troubles & when I got home the inside of the back wheels are DRY.

So, this is a BIG thank you to Harding Auto Services, who are based near Woking & have excellent people & facilities. It's wonderful to find a garage that can do more than plug in a laptop & replace whatever it tells them to replace.

Oh yes - I said "took it to work" - my third attempt at retiring has failed, I'm back designing stuff for Surrey Satellite. So that'll be 49 years in Aerospace then 😧.

Is It Now Finally Sorted? Is it? Is it Though?

 I took the Stylus out last week for a test run, I trundled round the houses for a bit, then out onto the main road & back, then along to Blackbushe. All was well, so I got brave & decided to drive to Winchester. It was perfect & I was a happy bunny.

Two days ago I decided to drive to Portsmouth to visit a friend, I went out to the garage, started the car - "squeak, squeak, squeak squeak" it said in time with the engine, just like before.

Looked like I'd be staying at home then. It sounded mechanical, like a dry bearing, but on a hunch I tightened the Jubilee clips holding the silicone hoses onto the inlet manifold stubs & when I got to No.3, the tone of the squeak changed & then turned to a small hiss.

Gotcha!

I really dislike the inlet arrangement, it consists of the throttle bodies from a motorcycle - which is fine, but they are attached by silicone hose cones on a not-wide-enough flange & on the engine side they pass over a pipe welded to the inlet plate. the pipe is round at the free end, but oval at the engine end, so where the jubilee clips fit, they are trying to clamp a round thing to an oval thing, there is obviously little pressure at the centre of the flat at the top & bottom, so it leaks / whistles. As a temporary fix I tightened the jubilee clips resulting in one of them stripping. Arse!

So what to do? The obvious answer would be to spend £££ on a set of Jenveys, a new airbox & a rolling road session.

OK, what else can I do?

I did some careful measuring & drew up a sleeve to fit over the inlet manifold stubs, it's very thin - only 1mm thick mostly At the engine end I made it the oval shape inside, but round outside, at the other end it's just round. I printed a test article in 95shore hardness polyurethane & tried it on the engine, it was a little loose. The next one was a nice tight fit, so another three were printed & fitted between the silicone hose & the stub pipe. Even with the stripped Jubilee clip this seemed to work, but would the polyurethane take the heat?  I ran the car until the fan cut in, then a little longer, I tested the temperature where the stub pipe is welded on (the theoretically hottest point) & it reached the low 60 degrees mark, turning the engine off raised this to 65ish degrees (it's air-cooled when it's running), so with the bonnet closed it shouldn't get above the mid 70s, so should be OK.

The following day I took the car to Guildford & it was good, but on my return I fitted shiny new Jubilee clips to all four stubs & yes, the sleeves were just fine.

REALLY hoping this is the end of the saga

Boot Tidy

 No, not a cheaply made bag thing to store oddments, the Stylus' boot is now tidy.

When I bough it, the wiring in the boot was a mess. OK, the wiring everywhere was pretty bad - it's a kit car - but the boot was particularly bad. I did tidy it up a bit, but there were so many earth wires that I thought I'd leave it until I understood it better. With the engine now purring I decided that today was the day! Exhibit 1 is the rear bulkhead - it wasn't this bad, I had bound it in tape & tyraped it to structure, but there were just too many wires.

The fuel level sensor wire came a foot into the boot, then turned & went out again through the same hole - with an extension wire to reach, so that all got shortened & run nicely. There was a switch for the fuel pump - the one that gave all the problems a couple of months ago, so again, that got moved to a better place & the wires shortened. The mad earths which seemed to work in spite of me never really finding where it was attached to the chassis got given a positive path (see what I did there?) & the sheer quantity of wires reduced. I cut out the Fiat tail light connectors & shortened the wires - the nearside stop / tail light wires went right across to the off side, then came back, just so the Fiat connector could be used, but the wires to the off side lights were too short making the wiring cut across the corner. Having taped up the near side & clipped it to structure I then unwound the wrapping on the offside, to find that most of the wires were two feet too long & doubled back, only the earth was too short.

Having sorted all that out I did a final test. The near side brake light didn't work. Bu99er. I thought I checked things as I went, but now I was going to have to unwrap the loom to fault find, but just before that - check the bulb, just in case. The stop filament had blown. Phew. Easy fix. 

So there is is, all improved & properly clipped out of the way. Only took me three years to get round to it.

And of course there's some spare wire.

 

More Zetec Killing Attempts Thwarted

 I decided the Stylus was all fixed & I could take it out, so started it up & noticed a small squeak in time with the engine such as you might get from a fan belt, I revved the engine, it seemed to be only doing it at idle, so assuming one of the butterflies was whistling, I set off gently. After a mile or so I could hear it over the engine, so turned round & took it home. I was concerned that the valve that had the bolt was slightly bent & was now rubbing on the valve guide - it seemed unlikely, but needed looking at.

After a little investigation it was misfiring too!

Fearing the worst I took off all the throttle bodies, re-aligned all the hoses that connect them & re-assembled it. It was now worse.

Oh good.

After a look around I wondered if the coil pack had given up & swapped it & the leads in a "jury rigged" fashion, it ran but was no better, but on re-connecting the coil pack on the car, I noticed the centre pin in the connector was being pushed back. I sorted that out & started it up again, It ran better, it was lumpy at idle, but seemed OK when revved. Then I noticed "smoke" from the exhaust, then realised it wasn't smoke, it was soot & walking round the exhaust side of the car, found a very sooty patch on the floor (no, it's not a panda skin rug).

I took one of the spark plugs out & that looked like it had been upholstered in black velvet!

I called my brother & we decided it was over-fuelling, the ECU won't over-fuel it, so it must be a sensor, there's only four, so not many to check.

Not the Crank Position Sensor as the engine ran, Not the Inlet Air Temperature as that defaults to 20C, the hose to the Manifold Absolute Pressure was all connected, so......

<--- Throttle Position?

That'll be it then!

Clearly I had inadvertently pulled the wire out when fiddling with things under the throttle bodies & a little investigation revealed that all three wires were badly crimped. The ECU was being told the throttle was wide open & fuelling accordingly.

So the connector was taken apart & the wires soldered on to the terminals, re-built, bound in loom tape & re-connected. It now all seems to work nicely again.

And the squeak has gone, so that must've been a tiny air leak at the hoses.

You REALLY Can't Kill A Zetec!

 

Well, for the moment it's confirmed, the engine is good.

I've done a compression test & No.4 cylinder that swallowed the bolt - or at least got one stuck in it's throat - has the highest compression of all the cylinders! I'm not sure how that can be, but I ran the test a few times & No. 4 was consistently the highest.

I made a few minor changes while it was all in bits, I re-printed the trumpets in ABS because while the PLA ones had survived, they had visibly distorted in the heat. ABS has a higher heat tolerance

I also re-drew them as they were drawn in CATIA V5, which is OK, but I now use OnShape, so I have them on file there.

They are of course still orange.

Next were some new bolts, a bit of an extravagance these. They are titanium & drilled for wire locking. I would've been perfectly happy with steel, but it seems if you want them drilled, titanium is what they have to be. Yes, I could've drilled them myself, but that left the problem of de-burring inside the hex & the danger of burrs breaking away & getting into the engine.

So here they are installed (which was a real faff) & wired, not to aircraft standard - the older I get, the better I was - but they're not going to come out again. the two end bolts are wired to locking lugs riveted (with solid rivets) to the airbox back plate.

The airbox went back on with larger, less fiddly bolts, you can just see the lip of No.1 trumpet through the hose connector

The hose from the air filter went back on & that was it all back together. I turned it over & it fired up & settled into a nice smooth idle. I've not taken it out on the road yet, my girlfriend says I need to put the bonnet back on "because it's not a hot rod". So in the next day or so I'll just do that final test.

Phew! I am SO pleased the fix was a simple one.