Mindel The Mondeo Build Thread

[Pete80]

Looks good mate :-)

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[jeebowhite]

Cheers Pete! Hopefully if I can polish out the scratches and tidy the body work even better still.

The one thing that really niggles me, is that the bonnet is creased, seems someone has been a bit follish and pressed down on it rather than dropping it to secure the bonnet. I would love to replace it, but its not worth the agro or the cost, so a niggle I shall live with (along with the chipped windscreen thats repaired but looks fugly!)

I will just have to see what I can do with the rest of it!

[jeebowhite]

After much 'umm'ing and 'errr'ing, I have decided to take the plunge.

I just bought myself a stainless steel EGR blanking plate. I was nervous that the EML would come on (with most Euro IV cars) but after much browsing of the TalkFord group, I found that the 1.8TDCi's have barely ever thrown an error - result. As such, that will be my next job in the future days!

[Pete80]

Which blanking plate have you bought mate, I've been looking at doing the same but people recommend using one that's around 3mm thick but the ones on the bay tend to be 1.2mm, are they still ok to use do you reckon?

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[jeebowhite]

I went for this one:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161296619254?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

to be honest, I havent seen anything about the 3mm thick, but I just went for a stainless steel one. If it was aluminium, I probably would say go thicker to stop a blowthrough, but as its stainless steel then it wont be a problem. This comes with a lifetime guarantee and is cheap as chips, so I thought why not give it a go!

It looks almost perfectly identical to the one I put on the CMAX, as I am sure they are the same shape and I believe it may have been the same seller, and that one was fine!

The only thing I did read is that the engine coolant takes longer to show as warmed up, so you will find that, but I suspect as with most things, as long as you dont rag the thing after you just turn the key it should be fine. The oil will be warm, just not the coolant.

Is yours the 1.8 Pete? as I hear the 2.0 almost definately flags the EML but the 2.2 is a hit and miss scenario. I hope that the 1.8 doesnt put it on at all, no one else seems to have had that happen, but then again this is me, so its more likely to happen :p

As for installation, looks so easy! compared to the other Ford's anyway. I just found the EGR valve in 10 seconds of popping the bonnet, and I dont need to do anything at all to strip the car down to get at it!

[Pete80]

Yeah mines the 1.8, regarding the 3mm it was on a thread I was reading somewhere, can't remember where though lol

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[FOCA]

There is no right or wrong thickness of plate, a thinner plate is more liable to burn through, or even buckle as its hot on one side and cold on the other

Some plates are fitted close to the inlet, on the other side of the valve, a long way from the exhaust, so stay cooler than one close to the exhaust

Aluminium has a lower melting point than steel, in some cases it has been known to melt through - especially if it is close to the exhaust

With a total EGR delete, where the egr cooler is removed and a plate fitted straight on the exhaust manifold a heavy duty plate is required, i gad 10mm and 8mm stainless-steel plates made for this purpose

Aluminium is soft and easy to make, steel is cheaper than stainless steel, thinner plates are cheaper/ easier to make

personally i would fit 2 thin plates if i could not obtain a thicker one - you can also fit a plate at each end - there are technical/ performace benifits from this and it can help reliability

[jeebowhite]

Well, I just fitted the EGR valve and it was as easy as sitting down!

Popped the bonnet and this is what you see, look directly above the oil filler cap and you see a big steel coloured lump.

Look at it from the side:

You can see the metal banjo style pipe coming out of it. On this picture you can just make out the two bolts. Undo these about 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch for best measure. The side closest to the centre of the windscreen is easier to pull back and will allow you a good few mm;s of movement. The side closest to the offside of the car (camera side) doesnt move quite so much. So I loosened it. levered the plate in from the right and applied a firm amount of pressure on the side closest to the camera and it slid in. Wiggled it a little, pushed down with a little force from a pair of needle nose pliers and bolted it up. Engine on, no warning lights, hand around the plate and I couldnt at idle feel any blowout. Sat in the car, gave it a few revs and it feels more responsive already.

Have yet to drive the car, but it was easy and so far problem free. I know the car will take a little longer to warm up, but so far, its looking good!

Total time to complete the modification - 3 minutes 27 seconds. thats after spending about 20 seconds realising its a 10mm not 8mm ratchet bit needed, and a further 20 seconds working out whether I could offer more play on the camera side of the pipe.

The true test will be driving home tonight, I will be going the country road route and hopefully will have a nice smooth driving experience, if I dont, I know I probably havent fitted it correctly and will need to redo that later, but I suspect given the ease of which it went in and the fact that it protrudes a fraction of a millimeter at the top camera side of the joint its probably very firmly in place and tightened up thoroughly enough.

FYI, I kept the metal gasket on the inside (engine side) of the blanking plate.

[jeebowhite]

Well, having driven the car now on the way home with the EGR blank, I can safely say how good I forgot the EGR blank to be!

So, the engine was quiter, smoother, more responsive, MPG seemed to improve more, low revs in high gears are smoother, maintaining 1000 revs in sixth gear is smoother, accelerating from there is also smoother.

The car just feels so much better, much smoother! so glad to have put it back in!

[jeebowhite]

So, I started looking at the scratch repair, and my god its a son of a.... gun!

So Heres the keying after I washed the area down...

So I started with some elbow grease, a pad and cloth and T Cut....

and you can see its started to work its way out

Sadly the damage went through to the primer, and no amount of T Cut was going to make it better, so the next step was to use a touch up kit. I bought one off eBay for £3.50 and dont expect much of it, but here goes...

You can clearly see where I brushed it, there was an element of deliberance, to make sure that I filled in the scratch thoroughly...

I then started attacking it with a few tiny sheets of 3000 grit sandpaper, aiming to level it off, and blend it in a little more.

and looking down on it, its improving:

You can still see some of it here: but bearing in mind this was only after about 20 minutes of hand sanding, then T-Cutting to buff it a bit:

By no means is it perfect, but I have ordered some more 3000 grit sandpaper, and will continue to give it a good going over. Compared to the first picture of the scratch though, its already 10x better, I just want it to blend in a bit more! and as long as I dont go to crazy with the sandpaper, I am sure I can make it look better still!

Given that its not Fords paint, and someone elses for £3.50 I expected a shade difference, and I am seeing a bit of one, but its better than a bright white primer scratch!

Anyone got any tips for finishing this job off by hand, please feel free to share! sadly I cannot afford to go buy a dual action polisher, as much as I would love to! so I am thinking to make lighter work for my puney muscles, I might just buy a 12v rotary polisher, or a kit like this. I can then connect it up to my drill and just use the drill as a polisher :D

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-75mm-Polishing-Buffing-Pad-Kit-for-Car-Polishing-with-M14-Thread-Drill-Addapte-/161301411217?pt=UK_Car_Accessories_Car_Care_Cleaning&hash=item258e503591

and use it with my value drill:

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/7112946.htm#pdpFullProductInformation

and as long as I dont sit on one spot for any longer than 5 seconds, I dont believe I would damage the paint?

Then when I am done that bit, I will tape off the square I have been scouring and give it an extremely thin layer of spray lacquer.

[b4zz]

looks better then it was fella

[jeebowhite]

Cheers Barry,

Yeah I agree, although its never going to be the same again, its just a case I suppose of trying to make the best of a bad situation.

I cant afford perfection, but at least if I can protect the metal, thats the main thing. who knows later down the line, I might be able to get chips away to come out and tidy it up moreso (they promised on my Cee'd that they could take a touch up I did and polish / buff it for £15 to the point it was much less noticeable) so I might go down that line.

[jeebowhite]

Well, contacted Chips Away - they recon £200 for respray...

so I will have to make this look the best I can and live with it! as much as I love a perfect bodywork, I am not paying out £200 for one scratch! I will wait till I end up with a few more key marks on it before I get it sprayed!

[Pete80]

You done a good job there mate, Shame it needs a respray though. I need my rear bumper looking at, might get a few quotes to see what the damage will be

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[jeebowhite]

if you go to chips away they tend to charge about 50 - 60 if its in the centreo f the bumper, if its on a corner or bend then it needs a full respray.

It still needs some work and I need some help finding how I can protect it (got a thread in the detailing section) and once I have tidied it up and polished / waxed, I hope it will be less noticeable!

[Pete80]

I will need the whole bumper painted unfortunately, there is some slight paint cracking along the bumper, my guess is its been painted before by someone that does not have a clue how to spray properly

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[jeebowhite]

Is it something your wanting to do yourself or are you wanting to get the respray done professionally?

[Pete80]

Will be done professionally mate

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[jeebowhite]

Give chips away a call, but also call some local indie bodyshops, they can be quite competitive if they are quiet.

[SeanW]

I had quotes of around £100 (inc VAT) for a full bumper respray - that was on a new, primed bumper.

My Dad has just had his front bumper done on his Matrix - needed a fair bit of prep work and a respray for £120 inc VAT. (That may have been due to the fact the chap couldn't remember how much he'd quoted & it'd been with them at least a fortnight, so I may have suggested that the estimate was £100 + VAT. He seemed happy enough with that lol)

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[jeebowhite]

Well, the car is now washed, done the washing today and will be polishing each panel as its tidied up. I should be able to at least polish two of the doors (driver and offside rear), but the rest of the bodywork needs some attention. There are a lot of scratches, scuffs and just general lack of TLC its had in its former life.

The only other things its had recently, is the timing belt changed, but not the fuel pump drive belt (should be a chain driven so should be able to last a bit longer!)

So here is the car washed and dried:

So, I have a list of scratches, scuffs and general ugly spots on the bodywork...

Not sure what I can do with this though, the rear bumper is misaligned, much like every car I have had so far :(

Scuffs on the rear bumper, including some lovely blue paint from a trade that the former owner would have done at some point.

Then theres the touch up I am doing on the rear offside quarter:

This needs filling up and then sanding down then polishing out.

Then theres the drivers door scratch, there doesnt seem much more I can do with this, it looks a lot better than it did, and at a distance its not as noticeable, so hopefully with a healthy dose of polish and wax, it might well just fade away....

Continuing around the car, there are some light scratches on the bonnet, stonechips, chips down to the white primer at the top of the bonnet, worse still, there is one large stone chip that has gone through the primer and down to the metal :( so now I have to find a way to get that prepped without damaging the paint around it... I am thinking KRUST along with a thorough layer of primer and many layers of paint! along with other chips that have just dropped a chip in the body, but without damaging the paint layer. I also need to deal with scratches on the wingmirrors!

love trolley scratch or car vs something solid on the offside front above the top left bottom grill of the bumper:

along with many other stonechips around the foglights, Anybody would think this car was stood in front of a stone throwing machine gun doing 1000 rounds per minute!

Then it looks like there is the remainder of a beam adjuster stuck on the nearside light cluster

Hopefully some toothpaste, polish and a bit of elbow grease should help that! also the fog lights are both looking a little foggy, so toothpaste, polish and a lot more elbow grease after the bodywork should help that look a lot better!

Not that this is overly clear, but this is what the stonechips are looking around the fogs:

Then theres scratches around the front and rear nearside arches, a small chip on the passenger door along the edge with the rear door as well, and oddly there is a spot of paint missing from the rear nearside passenger door handle, along with scratches around the rear offside quarter!

So I have my work cut out for me to get the car back into a much better condition! a dose or two of T Cut, polish and some patience and I recon in a months worth of lunch hours, I could probably have it in good shape!

The only other things I need to do are clean the windows decently, see if I can remove a slight scratch in the passenger window... I really have a LOT to do to make it in tip top shape!

[Pete80]

Looks like a tidy car mate.but please do not use T cut, I will send you the ag srp honestly you will thank me for it, your paint is in enough good condition not to warrant t cut

[jeebowhite]

Appreciate that Pete, dropped you a PM, either way, there is still much to do to tidy the rest of the bodywork, hopefully the polish will do it the world of good!

Now I just get to spend a lot of time with a paint pot, 3000 grit sandpaper and a lot of polish.

[jeebowhite]

Work has began on operation bodybuilder (a two part phase were 1 - my car gets its body built back up to a better quality, and 2 - I work a couple of muscles into my arm from all the effort of polishing :D)

So, Pete kindly sent me the polish Resin, and on its own it did take care of a couple of scratches, but it seems to be the really small ones, however, on its own, it wasnt man enough for the job... So, I made an executive decision. Where on its own the AutoGlym wasnt enough I took further action, and used a light coat of T-Cut, and the results are certainly noticeable!

So, at lunch today, I got to working on the rear bumper (and where it spreads up to the quarters) and also started having a go at the nearside rear top quarter and I am impressed, for an entire "handjob" (clean your minds people!) I dont think its looking too bad!

Some of the scratches are now polished out so well I couldnt find them to take a photo of!

so before the treatment, the bumper had a few scrapes on it:

Note on this picture the scratches, but also note at the top left corner (where the catch is for the boot, just to the right of it the long scuff / scrub thats been done to it

And this is the result:

and the top of the bumper:

Before, the nearside top rear quart was peppered with scratches and scrapes:

and now I couldnt even find where they were:

The car is going in to the garage tomorrow to have the driver airbag looked at, so the rest of the bodywork is going to have to wait, but its already looking like its going to turn out better than I imagined!

I would like to say a big thanks to Pete80 for his kind gift of the super resin, as its certainly making the world of difference to the bodywork!

Now all I have to do is get at the rest of the car before it gets mucky, but thats unlikely to happen now until next week... But then again, once I deal with all the scratches, I can get the car washed once more, and then just apply the polish rather than working on damage repair! I recon as I have touched up most of the chips with the pen now, I just have to keep working on it, and I could probably get all but the offside top rear quart and the drivers door TCUT and polished up over the course of the next week, but these two area's need more sandpaper, paint and TLC so they will take about another week.

This is how they look at the moment:

So I will keep the thread updated!

[Pete80]

Glad it's helped a bit, shame it didn't sort the bigger stuff out though mate but at least it's a start

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