Decade

 I've just realised I've been doing this blog for ten years. I started it with a Rickman Ranger, a Fisher Fury, a wife, two daughters, a share in the house we all lived in & permanant employment. Now the Ranger's gone, the Fury's gone, the wife & daughters have gone & so has the house & the job. In thier places are the Quantum, plans for another build, my son from a previous marriage, his wife, their son, a house that's all mine & contracting when there's work about for me to do.

With the exception of the Ranger being sold, I saw none of that coming until it happened.

Funny old world innit?

Tiny Steps

Yesterday I fitted the exhaust & "knife & Forked" (bodged with style) the Mass Air Flow meter onto the intake so the ECU would get readings from it, so apart from the intake air temperature sensor (still on the kitchen worktop) all the engine sensors were fitted & working.

I turned the key & the engine fired straight away & ran smoothly - but (there had to be a but) it ran smoothly at about 3,000 rpm. I turned it off.

Suspicion fell on the Idle Speed Control Valve, I had put 12 volts across it when the engine parts came home & it reacted, now I put a hose in one side & triggered it while blowing. Much like the UK Government in the current pandemic, the ISCV didn't shut the ports when it should've. New ISCV on order.

Also on order is an alternator drive belt so I can have the cooling system running with the engine & so run the engine longer for tesing.

In the post today was an intake duct. I'm not sure it'll be staying, it was cheap & it'll do for now, but it seems stiff, so may well break or rub through, but I wanted some of the parts that came with it - we'll see.

So what's still to do?

The wiring loom still needs tidying, shortening & wrapping.

The radiator needs fitting & filling.

The relay for the headlamp flaps needs bringing into the car - currently it's on the bonnet right in front of the front wheels getting wet.

The dashboardneeds putting back together.

Ideally it needs five new tyres, front discs & pads.

It would benefit from some general tiddivating inside.

So, not too long before it's roadworthy again - unless the ISCV isn't the problem.

IT LIVES!!!

 

Yes, the traditional "it lives" post. A lot has happened over the last few days, a fair bit of stuff has arrived in the post that's enabled me to finish a few things.

On Friday I picked up a box of fasteners from Margnor that allowed me to change all the exhaust studs for M8x50 stainless grub screws & attach the manifold with new nuts & lock washers.

A new sump plug arrived & was fitted, I picked up some oil & a filter which allowed me to turn the engine on the starter for the first time - there was no oil pressure, so I had to take the exhaust off again, take down the sump & poke a whole pot of Vaseline up the oil feed (many lewd remarks left on anti-social media), then put the sump back up, re-fill the engine & this time the oil warning light went out.

A relay arrived which allowed me to connect the ECU to the ignition feed & turn it on for the first time.

Other fasteners in the box from Margnor allowed me to finish mounting the throttle-body onto the plenum, which in turn allowed me to finalise the routing on the fuel & vacuum lines.

So small parts allowed big advances.

Finally everything was in place to theoretically allow the engine to start. The wiring loom was still unfinished (to say the least), but with a couple of the sensors on the garage floor but plugged in - & one on the kitchen worktop & forgotten - I switched on the fuel pumps & turned the key.

The engine turned over for maybe 10 seconds, then it got faster, faster still, did it seem to be 1/2 running? I pushed the throttle, it turned faster still & yes - yes it was definitely running!

No exhaust pipe, no cooling system, no alternator, the wiring in a mess like this:-

Also before I'd turned it over with a spanner I'd squirted oil down the bores & the exhaust manifold had had a lot of work done which had dislodged soot, so it was VERY loud, smoky & sooty.

A little while later I turned the key again & this time it started instantly, but ran at about 3k revs for 2 seconds then cut, when I tried again it did the same, so I'm hoping that when the sensors are in the right places & the ECU can tell what's going on it'll work better. Also the exhaust will be on by then so it won't be MAKING SO MUCH NOISE!

Since then I've tidied & wrapped the loom & clipped it down. The next job is to fit the LAMDA sensor in the exhaust & get that on the car. By then the air filter & ducting should have arrived so the remaining sensors will go on & we shall see what we shall see.

Lots Of Things

It's been a busy week - or however long is is since I last made a contribution to this organ.

I printed a plate the same as the one I needed to weld to the end of the plenum & checked it for size, shape, would it fit on the plenum & block all the holes etc, then I checked it could be cut from the scaffold foot my brother had given me - all was good, so I drilled & tapped the holes (using the printed one as tooling, I marked the edges & cut it out, then took it to my brothers & mounted it in his lathe to cut the big hole out. Then he welded it on for me.

While I was there the printer was working again making the adaptor block - this is the thing with the cunning airway through it so it was quite interesting to watch (ish).

 

 

 

^^ That's like a time lapse of two DAYS of printing. The "tracks" round the airways are recesses for the original Ford seals.

 

So there it is mounted. After that I looked at the coolant hoses, I had planned to get all silicone hoses & had worked out what I needed, but it was getting close to £200, so I looked around & remembered the engine had come with a Focus bottom hose - it fitted! Now there were some spare hoses I found I could make up the heater hoses from lengths I aleady had & even managed to make a top hose as well, though as it doesn't fit terribly well, I'll replace one of the bends with silicone.

 Today many things arrived in the post, the cam position sensor, which got fitted, the sump plug to replace the rounded off one that came with the engine, that got fitted & the engine filled with oil, a remote charge lead, so I can connect the battery keeper without lifting the boot floor - and even that got fitted.

But mostly, today was all about sorting out THIS....

 

Fuel

 

Another couple of significant steps forward today. I designed & printed a box / mounting for the battery cut-off switch in the engine bay & made off all the wire ends right round to the starter motor, so I now had 12v at the front of the car. I hooked up the ignition feed to that, so in theory there is now power throughout the car. I've stripped the binding off the looms from the bulkhead forward, so as I cut wires out of the system, I can re-bind it all neatly. I then moved some relays & re-connected some wiring & on turning the key, the low pressure fuel pump started. Having flooded the system, I then connected the high pressure pump & ran them both, with no leaks!

The exhaust is all-but finished, I need to fit a LAMBDA port & probably adjust the route a little, but the complex stuff is all done & I have an extra inch of ground clearance.

Hoses

 The silicone hoses I ordered to attach the plenum to the intake arrived - this is important because it defines the position of a lot of things. Firstly though, a big thumbs up to JS Performance, not a company I've used before, but they were the only one offering 42mm diameter & the hoses arrived fresly made, in good time, over the Christmas peiod, during a lockdown. Theys are also nice quality, two plys of fabric reinforcing & the Co. logo prnted on rather than just stickers.

So the first thing I did was cut them up.

The plenum was too far back, so I first cut 2" off of one leg of each, that got it close to the cylinder head, then I cut an inch & a half off the othe leg to lower it, but I haden't anticipated the problems that would come from the throttle body being so high - it was going to stick through the bonnet.

So I took another 1/2" off the hoses & started looking at how I could rotate the throttle body to make everything clear. It's going to be close, but I'm pretty sure it'll all fit & it's looking properly like a car again.

New Year

 I woke up late on my 60th birthday, that could be considered a good thing, normally I would've been woken by the thumping & gurgling of the central heating, but not today. Then I found out why - the central heating was dead.

I tested a few things & established it was the heating servo-valve, I replaced the hot water one a couple of months ago. So I ordered a replacement & set about fixing it. My brother arrived 1/2 way through, so he had to sit & watch while I faffed about.

With that mended (& working better than it has since I moved in) I cooked us some lunch & we headed out to the garage to review progress. The fuel system is now complete & could be run if there was any electricity in the car. The radiator is mounted - a little further forward than previously because I don't need to use the standard hoses, so I can have a little more space.

So it was time to look at the exhaust. 

I'd been putting it off because I didn't have much of an idea, I did have three exhaust manifolds though. One was a big old cast job for the Zetec, easy to fit & route, but not to connect to as the outlet is about 3 inches across. The second one was described as an "ST170" manifold, it's very wriggly, but doesn't look like a Ford part & it won't fit because one of the wriggles hits the front transverse member in a big way. The third is the CVH manifold that came with the car - obviously it won't fit on the engine.

 

 

 My brother & I looked at fitting the first two, then it occured to me that the pitch of the exhausts was the same between the  Zetec & the CVH, so in theory I could cut the mounting flange off the ST170 & weld it to the CVH.

This developed into cutting the pipes a couple of inches from the mounting flange & inserting the CVH pipes. As you can see this worked just fine, but will it fit on the car?

 

I'd left the straight sections as long as I could, so I started shortening them little by little until......

Yes, yes that's going to be too loud, the joy of the CVH manifold is that it comes to bits, so I can fit it together in stages.

Looking good so far.