PaulZ
Member
Some of you have probably seen me asking some questions on the forum so I thought I would start a project thread for my new toy to keep track of my progress and some of the adventures we get up to along the way. I will also take the opportunity to introduce/reintroduce myself properly so here goes. I hope you enjoy the journey/story and no doubt as many of you already have will help me with questions along the way so thanks in advance.
To start with my name is Paul and I used to have a black 1.4 puma which was my first car. She was a brilliant first car that never gave me any trouble despite giving her hell on track fairly regularly. Unfortunately she met an early demise on the 14th Feb 2018. A blind moron decided she didn’t know how to use a roundabout anymore, changed lanes without looking and crashed into the rear offside quarter pitching us into a spin which ended up with us backwards into a car waiting to join the roundabout. The double impact to the back corner seemed to shunt the rear beam mounting points across quite badly resulting in the car crabbing so she unfortunately went for scrap. I decided I didn’t want another puma because it wouldn’t be MY puma and settled on a Cooper S for its replacement (my wife’s choice).
Fast forward to the end of 2018 and I was in chatting to my Mechanic about servicing the mini and he had a Puma up on the ramps which looked very clean. It was in fact a car he had rang me up about the previous year but as I had my 1.4 at the time I turned it down. Anyway I ended up having a nosey around. relatively rust free arches, rust free sills and only 48K on the clock. It turned out the owner was thinking of putting it back up for sale shortly so I promptly told him to give me a ring once it’s up for sale. Time skip again to start of Feb 2019 and I get the call, A few days later I was the owner of my second Puma. The car was then stored till I had the space to put it in my garage and work could commence which is where we are now.
So the car? It is a 2 owner Moondust Silver 1.7 Puma with 48K on the clock. The previous owner was an older chap that bought it for his wife back in 2002 when he worked in sales at Ford and it came is as PX. Not much paper work to support the service history but my mechanic who looks after all my cars worked with him back at Ford and has serviced it regularly since he owned it in 2002, even after he left Ford and went independent. The original owner also bought and had it serviced from the dealer they both worked at so the car has and will remain local. Only negative points are that the paperwork or my mechanic don’t have any notes of the cambelt being done so first port of call was a cambelt and major service just to freshen everything up. The last MOT also threw up an advisory for a wheel bearing and a brake pipe so those will get attention at the same time.
Onto the plans for the car. I won’t give a full planned spec list as that ruins the surprise, it also may change along the way. However I plan to use it as a daily and track car as I did with my 1.4, although I may take it a bit further at a later date. The sole point of the car though is to just have fun down a B-Road and also get plenty of track days in throughout the year which is something that stopped once the Mini came along.
After clearing the garage out I decided to wait for the start of April to tax the car so just used the time to order everything for a major service and new cambelt etc. Had the below all fitted earlier this week so happy to actually drive it without fear of the cambelt letting go now.
The first picture of the car above was after a quick wash this evening but she desperately needs a thorough detailing session so I will make a start on that this weekend followed by some polishing sessions next week. Then it will be a case of putting some miles on the clock and then carry out any preventative maintenance that I think the car needs.
Once I am happy everything is running right I will refresh and modify the suspension, brakes and bushes in one big job. Whilst it’s all apart, I may take the opportunity to strip apart and paint the rear beam and other components like that. Engine wise I probably won’t do anything significant. Maybe an FRP map, FRP air box mod and then an unsilenced mid-section/cat back for some extra noise. Interior I have a set of FRP seats I bought from Blue3 many moons ago which I saved from my last puma so they will be going in along with the door cards being re-trimmed in black Alcantara. Externally I will fashion together or buy some form of front splitter. Other than that it will be fuel, tyres, brake pads and track days as frequently as I can afford really.
I have tons of questions for how people have gone about carrying out different things, little bits of detail around a job, part numbers as well as bolt torques required but I will ask about them when I get to that job as this post is already pretty lengthy. I will hopefully share my next bit of progress with a properly clean car soon.
Cheers
Paul Z
To start with my name is Paul and I used to have a black 1.4 puma which was my first car. She was a brilliant first car that never gave me any trouble despite giving her hell on track fairly regularly. Unfortunately she met an early demise on the 14th Feb 2018. A blind moron decided she didn’t know how to use a roundabout anymore, changed lanes without looking and crashed into the rear offside quarter pitching us into a spin which ended up with us backwards into a car waiting to join the roundabout. The double impact to the back corner seemed to shunt the rear beam mounting points across quite badly resulting in the car crabbing so she unfortunately went for scrap. I decided I didn’t want another puma because it wouldn’t be MY puma and settled on a Cooper S for its replacement (my wife’s choice).
Fast forward to the end of 2018 and I was in chatting to my Mechanic about servicing the mini and he had a Puma up on the ramps which looked very clean. It was in fact a car he had rang me up about the previous year but as I had my 1.4 at the time I turned it down. Anyway I ended up having a nosey around. relatively rust free arches, rust free sills and only 48K on the clock. It turned out the owner was thinking of putting it back up for sale shortly so I promptly told him to give me a ring once it’s up for sale. Time skip again to start of Feb 2019 and I get the call, A few days later I was the owner of my second Puma. The car was then stored till I had the space to put it in my garage and work could commence which is where we are now.
So the car? It is a 2 owner Moondust Silver 1.7 Puma with 48K on the clock. The previous owner was an older chap that bought it for his wife back in 2002 when he worked in sales at Ford and it came is as PX. Not much paper work to support the service history but my mechanic who looks after all my cars worked with him back at Ford and has serviced it regularly since he owned it in 2002, even after he left Ford and went independent. The original owner also bought and had it serviced from the dealer they both worked at so the car has and will remain local. Only negative points are that the paperwork or my mechanic don’t have any notes of the cambelt being done so first port of call was a cambelt and major service just to freshen everything up. The last MOT also threw up an advisory for a wheel bearing and a brake pipe so those will get attention at the same time.
Onto the plans for the car. I won’t give a full planned spec list as that ruins the surprise, it also may change along the way. However I plan to use it as a daily and track car as I did with my 1.4, although I may take it a bit further at a later date. The sole point of the car though is to just have fun down a B-Road and also get plenty of track days in throughout the year which is something that stopped once the Mini came along.
After clearing the garage out I decided to wait for the start of April to tax the car so just used the time to order everything for a major service and new cambelt etc. Had the below all fitted earlier this week so happy to actually drive it without fear of the cambelt letting go now.
The first picture of the car above was after a quick wash this evening but she desperately needs a thorough detailing session so I will make a start on that this weekend followed by some polishing sessions next week. Then it will be a case of putting some miles on the clock and then carry out any preventative maintenance that I think the car needs.
Once I am happy everything is running right I will refresh and modify the suspension, brakes and bushes in one big job. Whilst it’s all apart, I may take the opportunity to strip apart and paint the rear beam and other components like that. Engine wise I probably won’t do anything significant. Maybe an FRP map, FRP air box mod and then an unsilenced mid-section/cat back for some extra noise. Interior I have a set of FRP seats I bought from Blue3 many moons ago which I saved from my last puma so they will be going in along with the door cards being re-trimmed in black Alcantara. Externally I will fashion together or buy some form of front splitter. Other than that it will be fuel, tyres, brake pads and track days as frequently as I can afford really.
I have tons of questions for how people have gone about carrying out different things, little bits of detail around a job, part numbers as well as bolt torques required but I will ask about them when I get to that job as this post is already pretty lengthy. I will hopefully share my next bit of progress with a properly clean car soon.
Cheers
Paul Z