Mk6.5 fiesta zetec s upgrades

[zain611]

Pictures of the removed bolt 

[zain611]

So today cleaned up the splash shields, calipers and carriers and sprayed them gloss black. Looks a lot better. Hopefully the glossiness lasts. 

Used a wire attachment on an angle grinder to clean up the hubs, shields and calipers and carriers. 

 

After cleaning the hub 

 

Cleaning the shields 

 

First and second coat of gloss black heat resistant paint on the carriers

 

Before and after doing the calipers. 

 

And doing the splash shields 

 

Calipers and carriers 

[zain611]

Next day after it still looks shiny 

[zain611]

Splash shields 24 hours after spraying them. 

[b4zz]

looking good fella

[zain611]

4 hours ago, b4zz said:

looking good fella

Thanks b4zz, what happened with your headlight eyebrows? 

[zain611]

Today's cleaning pictures. Recently got bilt hamber auto wheels and that looked to help clean the wheels however you would still need to remove some remaining dirt by hand 

[b4zz]

On ‎5‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 12:39 PM, zain611 said:

Thanks b4zz, what happened with your headlight eyebrows? 

not to sure as when I used the lights at night some of the beam pattern was lost so not sure if it was the light brows or the head lights are missalinged. might have to have another look at them at some point

[zain611]

3 hours ago, b4zz said:

not to sure as when I used the lights at night some of the beam pattern was lost so not sure if it was the light brows or the head lights are missalinged. might have to have another look at them at some point

Check you headlight alignment. If there are alright then it must of been the eyebrows. I'd say not to install the eyebrows if it is blocking some of the light. Also you can't lower the beam pattern as the light would just shine on the ground and not at a distance 👍

[zain611]

Did some more cleaning. Cleaned up and sealed the door sills and cleaned the seats. 

[b4zz]

20 hours ago, zain611 said:

Check you headlight alignment. If there are alright then it must of been the eyebrows. I'd say not to install the eyebrows if it is blocking some of the light. Also you can't lower the beam pattern as the light would just shine on the ground and not at a distance 👍

will do that at some point mate and have put my spare lights back on at the moment until I have some spare time to check the alignment

[zain611]

Added a layer of lacquer on the calipers and carriers. Looks a little more shiny 

 

Sadly a little bit of the layer bubbled / crazed 😢. Hopefully won't be noticeable on the car. 

 

Update - so sanded down the crazing of that bit on the above picture. Sprayed it again with the lacquer but it began to craze again. Looked at the paint can that was used to add the black paint and just noticed it said to not combine it with other paints / lacquers so possibly the base coat might have reacted with the lacquer. Tomorrow may just sand it again and just apply the black paint and leave it from there. 

Edited May 26, 2018 by zain611
Update to the crazing paint

[zain611]

Sanded down the face of the caliper again and sprayed it with the black paint (not lacquer) looks better but not perfect. When the front calipers get sprayed I might just use the gloss black paint not the lacquer. 

[Jonro2009]

You need to get onto those plastic rubbing strips down the side of the car, it scrubs up so well but they let it down a little. The difference a good wash has made is awesome, sort the strips out and it wouldn’t look out of place on a stand mate.


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[zain611]

16 hours ago, Jonro2009 said:

You need to get onto those plastic rubbing strips down the side of the car, it scrubs up so well but they let it down a little. The difference a good wash has made is awesome, sort the strips out and it wouldn’t look out of place on a stand mate.


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Definitely am thinking of getting them sprayed 👍. Doing the rear drums to ST discs conversion at the moment so hopefully in the evening will show the results ☺️

[Jonro2009]

I’ll keep my eyes peeled then


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[zain611]

Alright so finally got around to doing the rear drums to ST discs conversion on the car. 

 

Drums which were on the car

 

Stuff which were needed for the conversion all placed and ready 

 

Replaced the handbrake cable to a new one which goes to the calipers. 

 

 

Removed the drums from the car

 

Before and after cleaning these bits with an angle grinder to smooth them up

 

 

Finally added the hub and splash shields

 

 

Carriers then pads added 

 

 

Then finally finished off with the gloss black calipers. Really do like the colour and looked really cool once on. 

 

 

Finishing pictures. Attached the new brake hoses and handbrake cable to the calipers before bleeding the brakes. Looks as good as new. 

 

 

Before and after 

 

 

 

 

Really happy on the way it's come out and looks. Hopefully tomorrow will install the ST pedals and plan when to spray the front calipers. The rear brake set up looks as if they were new

[Jonro2009]

Nice job @zain611 I’ll bet that took the best part of a day! How did your insurance company view that mod, did they look at it favourably because it increased safety? Don’t forget to keep all your receipts (and this thread) to show to the next owner! Looking good, all your hard work is paying off

[zain611]

17 hours ago, Jonro2009 said:

Nice job @zain611 I’ll bet that took the best part of a day! How did your insurance company view that mod, did they look at it favourably because it increased safety? Don’t forget to keep all your receipts (and this thread) to show to the next owner! Looking good, all your hard work is paying off

Thanks Jonro, lol it took about 6 hours to get it done. Start at around 4 and finished at around 10pm. I'm with admiral at the moment and can't really say they they consider mods as safety lol but they did say something about it being good that the parts are from Ford and not custom made. My insurance renewal is next month so want to call modified insurance specialists like sky insurance and adrian flux to see how much they'll quote me. I was just doing quotes saying I've held my licence for 3 years and have 3 years Ncb (have 2 years at the moment until my renewal) and the quotes went down a lot so possibly I'm out of that 'inexperienced' period. 

Also forgot to mention there's no receipts for the beam but do have some for the new handbrake cables, hoses and discs. Sadly I might have to keep the car for another 3 years due to the ultra low emission zones coming to London in 2022. I'd have to pay £12 a day for driving my car. Diesels made after around 2016 are free to drive and petrols made after around 2005 are good. 

[zain611]

Installed the ST pedals. Before and after pictures. Does look smarter. Need to get pictures when the car is outside the garage. 

 

Outside picture

[zain611]

Did some local driving and can see the pads bedding in and going shining. To give my view the braking does feel better. Feels like I have to put less pressure on the brake pedal for it to brake. The drums I had before had to be adjusted and it was adjusted at one point but it felt like it needed adjusting again after about 4 months and that's after about 1500 miles. Can't remember if braking felt good like this after I had the drums adjusted but definitely feels better. Also forgot the handbrake is much better. Put it up on one click and I had to rev the car a bit say around 2k revs for it to slowly move forward. Before with the drums it was like this but began to had to put the handbrake up higher after a few months. 

 

Pros:

Better braking

Don't need adjustment like I said before. My drums needed adjustment after a few months and that's with little mileage. 

Possibly better in terms of maintenance? Don't need to constantly check them like drums. 

 

Cons:

Only thing I'd not like personally is brake dust and that will make the wheels dirty. With the drums I'd notice the rear wheels would stay cleaner than the fronts. 

Maintenance cost? Costs for pads and discs compared to drum shoes. 

 

[zain611]

Did a proper detail on the car. Took a good 3 whole days to do it. 

 

Firstly cleaned the car and decontaminated it from the fallout. 

 

clay bar'd it

 

Then inspected the paint. It was covered in light scratches and swirl marks. 

 

 

Tried out the menzerna medium cut polish on the roof. 

 

Before and after. Took off 99% of the scratches. 

 

 

Then used the Koch chemie H8.02 compound on the bonnet made a difference and brought back the colour. 

Before 

 

50 / 50

 

After 

 

 

Before and after compounding the bumper 

 

Polished the tail lights and looks a lot better now. Before and after. 

 

Extra pictures 

 

Applied britemax blackmax which added just a touch more darkness to the paint. Then added fusso coat and petes 53 wax. Dont add too much wax like me overwise it will be a pain to remove. 

 

Finishing pictures after 3 hard days work 

[zain611]

The sun eventually came out and got a picture of the bonnet. No scratches and looks like new. 

[b4zz]

loving the rear disc brakes looks so much better. great job on the detail you done

[zain611]

Bought insta finish trim magic, made a big difference on the faded plastics. 

 

Found this to be a pain to use. You'd have to mask around the trims as this can harden up. There's an inner cap in the bottle which I'm not sure is there as an inner seal or used as a cap to drip out the product. It came off and was hard to put it in so had to hold the applicator pad on top of the bottle and tip it quickly. This made it risky as I accidentally dropped some on the floor. 

Besides from that here's a picture of one side of the door handle. This had some of the product on it which the guys at slim's put on to show me. You can see it looks faded

 

This is the other handle which I properly applied the product on

 

Before 

 

After 

 

The door handles and trim which hides behind the windscreen wipers came out darker. Will last about a year or two. The stuff which fell on the worktop went rock hard and I needed a finger nail or flat head screwdriver to take it off so that shows how hard and durable this stuff is. 

Front trim looks more shiny

 

Overall its hard for me to recommend it. It claims to last a long time but the experience I had on messing about with the bottle and applicator pad makes me think to get a water based dressing and not worry about masking anything. I have just over half a bottle left and that's after dropping the bottle on the floor and wasting some from tipping it on the applicator pad. If the inner seal didn't come off it would make it a lot easier to apply as it would drip out besides from pour out.