S1 Rebuild(s)

[Dave Adams]

some pics of the rebuild process,

the top trailing arm bracket is broke......

the diff is sloping back a little (looking up) so that will need sorting.......

As you can see there isn't a lot of bracing in an S1 chassis, that will be sorted.

[Adrian Southgate]

Good call on the 'not distorted' receptacle.

[James Doulton]

That looks like a good job there Dave. I wonder how quiet it will be when you use the loud pedal properly?

[Dave Adams]

I believe this silencer came from some one who IVA'd a car then  ebay'd  the quiet silencer and bought a noisy one to replace it......it really is quiet!

[Jim (across the pond) Adamek]

I love to hear my old girl sing when I take her out Dave. :-))

[Steve Kerswell]

Daniels Stealth Melos, was very quiet but distinctive in tone. I like quiet cars when on a run but a bit distinctive on the loud pedal. If noise regs get tighter you're on a winner .

[Dave Adams]

The exhaust is now fully fitted and clamped into place with a "mini car" exhaust rubber at the rear allowing just enough movement to prevent the exhaust cracking from engine vibration....

this is a 10" laptop / tablet cover from Asda, i thought it would be a perfect waterproof cover for the ecu in the way of belt and braces protection........it led to an interesting fault. the car would not start after it was fitted.....no power to the ecu at all, i checked fuses and relays and then started to remove everything again to fault find. i also had my OBD reader plugged in to read codes, that was also dead.......i removed the ecu from the bag and placed it on the chassis and the OBD reader came on.......it turns out the ECU itself needs to be earthed. so i added an earth wire to its chassis and everything is back to as it should be....better than my first attempt at starting the car, it had been earthing through its unpainted mounting bracket.

i also swapped the dip stick from my Mondeo engine, its a different shape from the Focus one and sits much closer to the cylinder head.....its also exactly the same length. it does allow me to have the dip stick fitted and close my bonnet now.

[Dave Adams]

i was hoping for my birthday in early July.....but it shouldn't be much later......looking forward to driving it.

[Dave Adams]

lambda in place.....and a very crowded engine bay. on the plus side the car runs very well, no smoke or rattles. i do have a coolant leak from the heater matrix.......it might stop with some rad weld. and i have a brake fluid leak from the rear pipe above the axle. a pain to get to.....but it looks like the flare is no good.

[Dave Adams]

two new brake pipes made.......and fitted with no leaks...

but the cooling system is also giving grief ...my mk 1 mini heater box / matrix is knackered as after only the second or third time of starting the car it burst the matrix, and filled the car with antifreeze.

i dont have a spare matrix....so i went back to my home made heater box which never fitted and thought to alter it......however i have altered my wiper motor mounts since i abandoned the heater box.....and it fitted with out any issues. other than the fact that the heater pipes needed all replacing.

the up side to all of this is that the car was able to be started and run up to temperature. the heater gets very warm very quickly ....as ford designed it to. also the cooling fan cuts in and out as it should.....all controlled by the ECU.

another problem ......the alternator i fitted to the car was knackered....no charge whatsoever which may be a result of a broken connection on the excite wire.....or not. anyway its kaput so in the bin it went ....after removing my inlet manifold because i needed just 2mm extra clearance. Ho-Hum.

a trip to the local breakers and £20 later.....and a nearly new replacement was found. 14 V at tick over.....RESULT!

[Paul Sheridan]

Have you decided on a color scheme yet Dave?

[Dave Adams]

for this year just because the log book says so....RED. Nissan 526 to be precise.

[Jim (across the pond) Adamek]

lol, Use a British color red not a Jap color. :-)