I am hoping that someone might be able to give me some advice about the cat on a 1.0 ford focus.  I have just replaced the cat on a 2013 ford focus.  It turned out to be a much bigger job then I expected.  We bought the car a couple of years ago for our daughter.  In hindsight it was a bad buy.  We have been battling the dreaded PO420 code.  I replaced both O2 sensors and the mass air sensor(which along with the air filter was totally clogged).    A couple of months ago I discovered a hole in the flexible pipe of the cat, so decided that I should really get a new Ford cat and fit it myself.

Apparently the engine had been replaced back in 2019 by a ford garage (I believe under warranty) and that's why I thought the car would be an ok buy.  Unfortunately when I started removing the cat I discovered that the stud connecting the cat to the turbo-charger had been stripped and the nut was not done up, so it had been left with just the three bolts holding it to the engine.  I tried removing the stud.  I used releasing oil, I welded a nut on to it, I heated it up, but it would not budge.  In the end I just had to drill the stud out.  Took ages.

I replaced the cat and put a nut and a bolt where the stud had been.  Unfortunately the light has now come on again.  I wont have access to the car until this coming weekend, but I suspect it is the same code.  I have three questions.

1. I have a Haynes manual, but I could not find the torque setting for the bolts connecting the cat to the turbo charger.  I'm pretty sure I did them up tight enough.  But does anyone know what the torques setting should be?

2.  I think that I might have made a big mistake when I drilled out the stud.  I did make sure that the metal swarf from the old stud was removed and that it looked clean inside the turbo charger.  My mistake was that I used a small amount of 3-1 oil to lubricate the drill bits when I drilled out the old stud.  I really didn't think that it would be much of a problem???  Unfortunately when I started the car up it smoked a lot, which I think was due to that oil, and now I am wondering if I have knackered the new cat.  Could it have knackered the new cat?

3. One last observation.  Before I changed the cat the car when accelerated hard did misfire.  I assumed that this was probably because of the old cat.  It still does that, so I am wondering if it could actually be a bad coil that is causing the problem, which in turn might be causing the code? The spark plugs had been replaced last year. 

I really am quite a novice with this, and am wondering if you have any thoughts on the matter?  I am kind of hoping that it might be a coil causing this issue?

Thank you for reading this.

 

Are you really sure they changed the engine?

I've a 2024 mk4.5 so the engine is pretty different, mainly for the turbo position...I don't know if it is the same, but for the point1 in my workshopmanual, not Haynes, I read:

First step mount the three nuts using 3 Nm for all of them

Then close the three nuts at:

18 Nm for the one on the turbo

25 Nm for the two on the engine side

No idea how the turbo is placed and the cat as well on the previous ecoboost version, but the torque should be somenthing similar.

31 minutes ago, Ricci1972 said:

No idea how the turbo is placed and the cat as well on the previous ecoboost version, but the torque should be somenthing similar.

The turbo is on the other side of the engine for the older version.  So the cat pipe is much longer and runs underneath the oil sump.  I would not rely on the torque figures being the same for both engines.

Thank you all for your help.

Hi Dave.  I suppose I could contact the garage to confirm that they did, provided they still have records for it.  The service record has got it stated that the engine and gearbox was changed in 2019, with a garage stamp.  Maybe I should do that anyway.  To be honest I might be doing them an injustice, but I think they were the ones that damaged the stud, and maybe even damaged the flexible pipe... but I will never know.

Hi Enrico and Tom.  Your comments much appreciated.  I really need to get a workshop manual from somewhere.  Meanwhile I will ask the garage I go to, if they will be kind enough to tell me what the torque value is.

I have also, for my sins, got a 2017 version of the focus.  So this weekend I am going to swap out the spark plug coils on the cars and see if the misfire/judder goes away on my daughters car.  I very much hope that it does.

Thanks again.

Update:-  I replaced the spark plug coils from my car to my daughters car.  I am pleased to say that the engine light went out (much to my surprise, I thought that I would still have to reset it?).  The misfire also disappeared.  So it looks like it was a coil that was causing the problem.  Probably a problem since we had the car(the cat however did have a hole in, so it did need changing).

I just hope that the engine light stays off now!!!!

I noticed that the coils on my daughters car had no make on them.  Mine was stamped Ford.

Should I buy Ford ones for my car, or could I buy a cheaper make?  Because its such an important part of the engine, maybe I should buy a Ford one?

One last comment is that the engine does have a sticker on it, stating the 2019 date and details of where the engine was made.

Thanks for reading this.

Coils don't have to be Ford branded.  But they do need to be high quality.  So only buy a brand you trust if not buying from Ford directly. 

(Ford don't actually make parts like this, so they will be rebranded from another manufacturer anyway).

Again thanks to the above help and suggestions. I thought that I should give a quick update. I have learned a few things since my last post. I think that the engine had been replaced (its stamped. and I think it is genuine). The cam belt had been done by the previous owner....I did not realize that this was probably when the cat was damaged. I have changed the cam belt on quite a few of my family cars in the past. The 1.0 is a nightmare one to do, and i can see that this if done wrongly could easily cause the kat pipe to be damaged. The problem bolt described above would also be because of the cam belt change.

As far as my daughters car is concerned...the light still comes on periodically and goes out again periodically. It looks like it is an electrical fault now.... I an getting codes P2231 and P2626, and will try and investigate these as soon as I can get time. I just need to get some help/info on how best to resolve this issue. If I had known what I know now I would not have bought the car.

I still dont know what the torque settings are, but I think I did them up well enough.

As for me, my car has the same engine as my daughters car and i am thinking about doing the cam belt this summer...not sure if thats a good idea, but its an expensive job to get done by a professional.

Again thank you for all the above comments.