Rear subframe bushes...

[craigie53]

i have never been a fan of white cars, but yours really appeals to me for some reason, you got a bargain there mate, it does look in good nick.

hope it gives you many miles of stress free driving.

[The Archaeologist]

2 hours ago, stef123 said:

Looking good, nice work 

Cheers!  Having fun anyway!

[The Archaeologist]

25 minutes ago, craigie53 said:

i have never been a fan of white cars, but yours really appeals to me for some reason, you got a bargain there mate, it does look in good nick.

hope it gives you many miles of stress free driving.

Cheers mate!  White has always been my favourite colour, and for some reason easy to keep clean.  Thanks for the encouragement, much appreciated.

[The Archaeologist]

I am thinking of replacing the cloth interior in my Zetec S with leather, ideally red, but then as the only red leather interior I can find is out of an ST (and is £500 starting bid on eBay!!) am I correct in assuming these won't fit my car because of an airbag light issue?  Most interiors are collection only, but I don't have time to travel 200 miles to look at a tatty interior that's described as "very good condition...!"

The nearest one to me is a mere twenty miles up the road but its beige.  I mean, I don't mind beige, and it includes the door cards, but not the carpet.  I wonder if the beige seats and door cards will look wrong with my standard black carpet?  If someone had a nice black leather interior near to me (Chester...) I would be very interested.....

[V6 Lover]

Nice motors..I've had a few mondeos a brand new 53 ghia estate 2.0 petrol.. then a 98 v6 ghia x Hatch and my present whip a 3.0 ghia x which I've had for 7 years now and has never left me stranded at the side of the road... in fact none of my my Mondogs or my foccy ever really misbehaved.....something i can't say about a few Ford escorts I owned back in the 90's....[emoji2] [emoji2]

The duratec v6 is pretty much bullet proof.... the 2.5 v6 HE in my mk2 (even my mechanic commented) was as sweet as a nut and super smooth....made a really awesome exhaust note when I fitted ( sorry demon tweaks fitted) a twin exit Scorpion, and a cold fed 57i... I was well chuffed...anyhow anybody running one of these mk3 beasties will know how nice they sound standard alone...there's a nice Colorado red v6 zs on a 02 on autotrader with just 72k mile totally standard and unmolested looks really good..the alloys look OEM finish too with no peel!! if I was buying it I would leave it completely standard apart from a good custom stainless steel exhaust.... some owners say the standard interior on the mk3 zs dosent quite "live up" to its outward appearance..although a boot spoiler was a cost option and the option of a half leather interior only appeared on the facelift mondeo...and facelift zs are alot rarer as only made from mid 03 to early 05.!....but looked good, leather bolsters and headrests dark blue patterned seat base and back ,,,....,

.........You don't see too many fast Ford's in the NW... by us it's all veccy C, Insiggys...and 'astra everything's'.....[emoji2] [emoji2]

White is one of the rarer Mondeo colours and usually either base model Lx still rare all the same or ex police[emoji2] ... alot seem to be silver in colour...juice green seems rare....with mondeos silver is the most popular followed by blue(all shades) followed by black...I could be wrong though...

PS...see your only down the road so to speak... my dad's regiment was based there years ago....[emoji2]

Sent from my Z220 using Tapatalk

[The Archaeologist]

Cheers V6 Lover!  Yeah, as I said in a previous post I fell out of love with Fords in 1990.  Prior to this I had a 1986 Fiesta Pop in red - everyones favourite "just passed my test.." car, and I loved it.  Little go-kart.  I traded it in for a brand new 1990 Fiesta (G plate) and it was truly appalling!  I swore I would NEVER have another Ford again.  I sold it in ten months and bought my parents VW Golf which was superb.  

I have had a P100 Cortina pick-up (....that I should have kept!) in red with only 30k on it, and superb condition that I purchased from a guy I knew who had only used it on his farm.  Other than that I have steered well clear of Fords, sticking mainly to Volvo's which I am a huge fan of - the old stuff I mean.  Since then I have had literally dozens of cars - Volvo, Merc S Class, E Class, 190, W124, W126, BM 3 and 5 series, Rover (eww!!) and a total of seven Volvo's.

My E320 CDi was getting a little tired and I saw my Mondeo Ghia X, drove it, and bought it for £450.  Paintwork I would say 98% mint, and a massive file of invoices for the service history.  It's had seven owners, but remarkably almost every one of them appears to have cared for the car as its in exceptional condition.  I have just fitted a new subframe and trailing arms and she now drives superb - I love it.

I bought my Focus 2.0 Ghia as a second car - first time I have ever driven one - and I am very impressed.  The handling and drive is fantastic, another little go-kart.  I saw my Zetec S before buying the Focus, but the guy wanted £900 for it, which was far too much considering its condition - hanging and three flat tyres!  I mean, if someone is coming to test drive, and potentially buy your car, the least you can do is make sure its roadworthy, and maybe even throw a bucket of water at it!  I offered him £200 and he told me where to go.  Never mind, he came back to me a week later and said would I give him £500....I said no....£300....I said no....£200...and I still thought hard about it!  I knew I could sort the cosmetics myself, but the car looked very neglected with NO service history and I didn't want to buy a mutt.  Anyway, I couldn't say no, and I am glad I didn't.  I have an oil leak to fix, and a creaky suspension on the rear nearside, and a little rust at the bottom of the rear nearside door which is usual for this model.  I love it....it sounds great and is pretty quick in all fairness.  It's auto, but I like to just point-and-shoot sometimes if I'm feeling lazy!

I drive past the barracks quite a lot - I'm an archaeologist and we work in Chester a great deal.  Maybe see you around.....cheers. Dave.

A couple of pics of my Ghia X attached after a thorough clean at the weekend....but still loads to do to get it up to snuff!

[V6 Lover]

I understand you liking mercs....have you ever watched " The Driver "..cult 70s film about a top getaway driver Ryan O'Neil ..anyhow he puts a classic Orange Mercedes through its paces in an underground car park...liked them since then...I've only had one Volvo....a t5 coup'e which I wrote off and walked away from totally unscratched, really good in a frontal impact at about 40 ish mph...

Not been on the forum much as the Mondog is just not giving me anything to worry about...but it never has except having to replace the esp system at 4 yrs old ,but that's a one off and it didn't leave me stranded either, just sort of no abs and no traction or esp...but the brakes just sort of reverted to standard no frills braking till I got it fixed at a £1250 stingaroo at Ford's...11 years down the line and everything still works as good as the day I got it...

I've also been a bit pre occupied with the need for acquiring an estate car..prefer another Mondeo and there's one local to me but 167,000 miles on a 2.0 petrol but has 6 months mot left and runs with no issues... £250...

[Jambeers]

On 9/9/2016 at 7:21 PM, stef123 said:

Ah yes the dreaded subframe bushes lol. I also need to do mine but I'm keeping the subframe and fitting polyurethane bushes.

I did mind yesterday. it was a massive job. 7.5hrs all in and i hit myself with a hammer. That did include a trip down to the local DIY store to grab some tools i was lacking though. 
I went with the method of dropping the whole subframe out which was 100 times easier than trying to do it on the car (which i tired to do about a month ago and took around 8hrs to do one).

The drop links were my biggest enemy as i didn't have the proper tools for it and ended up having to cable tie a 5mm Allen key to spanner for extra leverage.