project XTC

[Shanosburgess]

Hi, I have many plans for my new t-plate 1.4 puma, hopefully they will all work fine first time but for those that don't I will post anyway so that you can all learn from my mistakes lol

I have chosen to call her project XTC as I am saving for my private plate S13 XTC (SB XTC) I think it will suit the old girl.

I got her from ebay (winning bid was £720)

Ebay add
For Sale,

My 1999T Ford Puma 1.4.

Had this car for two and a half years and its never put a foot wrong with me.

Its just passed its MOT without any problems again,

Cheap road tax and insurance, not as thirsty as the 1.7 version.

The car drives perfectly well, good little engines in these cars and a lot of fun to drive.

Includes Air con, Heated front and rear windscreens, electric mirror, electric windows and alloy wheels.

Only draw backs to this car are obvious wear and tear for a car of its age such as the occasional stone chips, and it has a small patch of exterior rust in one of the wheel arch's which seems to be a recurring problem with the Puma.

All together i will be sad to see her go. Tried to be as honest as i can with the listing but obviously coming to see it would paint a better picture, any questions feel free to contact me and i will try and answer your questions as well as i can.

after asking a few more questions and getting confirmation the cam belt had been done (just under 10,000 miles ago) my bid went in with 3 seconds to go, my nerves were on edge to say the least as the final second past, it seemed to take an eternity to come up and show that I had won!

I picked her up last sunday (with a friend that is a mechanic) we gave the car a thorough inspection and test drive, and although there were a few little niggles the car is basically sound.

We did find rust at the bottom of the front wings but it appears not to have gone to far, and we used this to knock an additional £60 off the price of the car.

I got the car home and gave it a good wash down and a quick wax and she looks ok (for now)

My insurance worked out just under £400 and includes the wife and full business use.

I set about trying to get some parts having read through various how too's on the site

1st lot came through today

Front drivers and passenger front wings in panther black
1.7 MAF
1.7 Throttle body
1.7 Air Box
Drivers and passenger seat belts
Left and Right rear speaker cabs/boxes
Hand brake leather gater and trim
Gear stick leather gater and trim

The whole lot including delivery... a very very reasonable £62!

I had ordered the rear arch quarter as it appeared to be good nick on the car dave was breaking, unfortunately when he finally got it cut off it was all filler not metal :-( and poor dave lost three quarters of his little finger when the grinder slipped (he is ok but as he put it in his words "I won't be going to any posh Tea parties as no pinky to lift up")
He was only charging me £10 inc postage for it, yet it cost him a finger.

I had a quick go at wet sanding on my work car a panther black ford focus (it is a lease car that is going back this friday, the previous driver battered and scratched it to fek), I figured try it on the focus before getting anywhere near my car!

The owes grade that I could get was 1200 grit and it made it a little time consuming buffing out the dullness that it caused with rubbing compound, but a bit elbow grease later and then a polish got it to this stage.

I got down to Halfrauds today and got some 2000 and also 2500 grit and hopefully this will make the job a little easier when I do the Puma, I also picked up a touch up pen kit to try and sort a few stone chips (will add this to the thread when I get round to doing it)

Speaker boxes
although they came through well packaged, one had cracked :-( but a bit of 2 part epoxy later its all good again, next came the dremel and a bit of hacking to get the 6x9's in (Infinity reference series)
they need a bit more finishing but for about an hour and a half work they are looking ok.
I'm tempted to see if I can get a 6" sub inside as well (have several unused spares from a project I did a while ago)

Running total for project

£720 for car
£8 for cleaning cloths, + scratch remover (own brand T-cut)
£62 for MAF/throttle body/air box/speaker boxes/both front seat belts/both front wings/hand brake gater/gear stick gater
£4.49 rear view mirror bonding kit
£3.99 4 sheets 2500 grit wet and dry
£3.99 4 sheets 2000 grit wet and dry
£1 2 sheets 1200 grit wet and dry
£11.99 panther black touch up kit
£7.88 iso adapter and face plate
£160 SONY CDX-GT540UI cd player
£65 MTX sub
£6.47 led lights

 

[Shanosburgess]

Just got the 1.7 throttle body out of packaging and thought I would give it a quick going over with the dremel, its still very rough at the moment (its proper hammering down and no way I'm going out to the garage to get my sanding/wet and dry)
I think it should come up nice, once I have done the outside its of to Jacko to be flowed along with my new MAF
I know its overkill to polish it but whilst its not on the car and I have a bit of time I may as well have a go.

 

[Shanosburgess]

whoops forgot to add photo!
I have only had a quick go at the bottom 1/2 inch so far, and as mentioned above not gone near it with wet and dry yet.

 

[quest63]

Might be worth a coat of laquer to keep it looking good

 

[Shanosburgess]

if you are talking about the throttle body the plan is to give it a going over with the dremel then differing grades of wet & dry, then a coat of clear.
But it will have to wait until after I have wet sanded the car :lol:
I have my spare air box now but need to get a bit of the drainpipe to mod it, just don't fancy buying the huge length in B&Q lol
The hardest part with having all these nice spares is deciding which order to do the jobs in....
Well saying that I think the first job will be sticking the rear view mirror back on to the screen as it fell off today lol

 

[quest63]

You'll probably find a pint of wet dirt behind the arch liner in the place where your wing is rusty

 

[Shanosburgess]

I'm not looking forward to the rear arch lol

 

[quest63]

Whatever way you deal with it you'll be needing to strip out the interior panels and deal with the corrosion going on in the inside of the arches,do a search theres loads of info on this common prob :thumbs:

 

[Shanosburgess]

did another couple of little jobs today the IR keys were not unlocking the car
followed this thread now all good (was so retro having to put the key in and turn, and an absolute pain as I often have my work kit in the passenger seat/footwell. so I had to go round to get it out then back round to drivers door to lock it :-(

http://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?t=39" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My thanks to the OP of that thread, now need to get another key cut and get it programmed (only came with the one key, so can't do it myself unless I have missed a trick), hope to meet up with allinking soon.

I also stuck the rear view mirror back to the screen with Locktite 319 kit from halfords, it came with a fine black mesh/gauze
this is placed on the mirror mount, and then the glue spread over it, then quickly placed on to windscreen, the instructions said to hold it in place securely for 30-60 seconds I held it there for 3 minutes to make sure it adhered
all seems to be well but I will update if it falls off!
I am also going to add a running total for parts etc on the car in the 1st post (mainly for my records)

 

[Shanosburgess]

Just found an extra 20 mins and changed the handbrake and gear stick gaters (they were silver carbon weave effect leather) as well as the chrome trim around the gear stick base and the chrome gear knob shroud ( gonna stick the old bits on ebay may get a couple of quid for them lol), all back to standard now except for the ball on the top of the gear stick (has a drilled out white pool ball on it at the moment (any one want to swap for a standard chrome ball let me know).
Had a quick look at the spare air box whilst in the garage, I think I may just drill out the resonator chamber and put her on the car like that for now (until I get the bits to do the full FRP air box mod, just wondering what I can do with the other 2.3 meters of drain pipe that I won't need lol), hopefully it will breath a bit better and sound a bit nicer.
I think thats it for today as we have friends over for a chinese feast, the wife has been a busy bee all morning lol.

 

[quest63]

I started a running total but gave it up as its depressing 8)

 

[Shanosburgess]

lol just got to ensure the wife never finds my thread lol

 

[Shanosburgess]

Managed to sneak out for half an hour and fitted the rear speaker boxes, I managed to get the old ones out and the new ones in without fully removing the seats (result but arms ended up scratched to buggery), made a school boy error I refitted everything with out checking they were working :? the left had no sound at all, so I stripped it down again and noticed that I had not connected the speakers up inside the box dooohhhhh slap head moment.
sounds so much meatier in there with the infiniti reference series 6x9's

 

[Shanosburgess]

forgot to mention I'm gonna need to buy some more trim clips as three of mine shattered whilst removing the trim :lol:

 

[Shanosburgess]

had a bit of spare time on my hands today, and thought I would do a bit more cleaning up of the throttle body before I attempt to fit it.
stage one: gave it a going over with a grinding bit in the dremel

stage two: rub down with emery cloth, followed by some 1200 grit wet and dry

stage three: a bit of polishing paste on a buffing bit in the dremel

 

[Shanosburgess]

I'm half tempted to keep going at it with a few rougher grades of wet and dry to get the scratches out, then work down to the polishing stage, but then again its already 100 times prettier than it was and a lot of the rough casting marks have been ground down.

I think time would be better spent wet sanding the car body work, but thats a big job for another day.

I also cleaned down the 1.7 air box and removed the resonator, I took it over to the car along with the 1.7 MAF and the throttle body (big difference in size over the 1.4 parts but looked to be a direct swap out, well it did until I realised the 1.4 air box has an attachment with 2 wires coming out near the top that is not present on the 1.7!

any ideas what it is and how I can swap the air box with or without it?

another pic showing it in place

 

[Shanosburgess]

picture of 1.7 air box to compare

ideas/answers on the back of a stamped address envelope lol

 

[Shanosburgess]

My wife is reading the 50 shades of grey books (she has been rampant, not that I'm complaining lol), so I managed to sneak a little more time on the car.
I popped the bonnet and followed Dal's thread
http://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=33&p=20547#p20547" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I have used a much heavier cable (had it from an old instal in my 89 prelude), it was a bit of a pain getting it through but its running down the sill and comes out of carpet just behind passenger seat.
I will add photos tomorrow.
I will be getting all of the speaker and RCA cables in place around the car, along with the earth and remote.
Does any one know if the ford 6000 cd player has RCA outputs? I would prefer not to use high level output to the amp.
The nice thing is when I get a new head unit I can pop out the old one and iso block to the new one.

 

[Shanosburgess]

I should stop looking on ebay, it always costs me money lol
just purchased one of these sets, I think we all know that I'm gonna end up buying a head unit lol

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FORD-ESCORT-FIESTA-SILVER-STEREO-FITTING-KIT-FASCIA-FACIA-ISO-LEAD-AERIAL-KEYS-/320763382622?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&fits=Model%3APuma&hash=item4aaefccb5e#ht_1837wt_1199" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[Neil]

Good work so far k: