iansoutham

I'd change the light stalk if it were me. The internal connections are shorting out. Remove the steering cowling, turn the headlamps on and wait 5 minutes, then feel the side of the light stalk. It will almost certainly be overly warm.

Yep, the blue one with the bonnet up, next to the two Sierra Ghia's. As for the guy selling the new Cossie bits, that would be a mate of mine, Jimmy (Charlie Luciano on PassionFord and Middlesex RSOC). He is the Middlesex RSOC Chairman and is currently in the process of having a lot of Escort and Sierra RS parts remade from scratch. I have been supplying him with a couple of "new-old-stock" parts for him to use as templates and his finished products are as good as the originals, if not better in some cases. He may seem imposing, but he is a genuine, good lad with a heart of gold, and someone definitely worth knowing.

Saw your one up there as I was wandering around. I was on the UKFORDOC stand next to the trade stands and the RSOC Central Group stand.

I was just wondering if anybody was planning a showing @ this event? If the Club is interested in attending, I'll happily put mine up for the show, and I am sure there would be other interest.

They do not really fit the MFI models due to the lack of clearance. I had an OMP one for the C-reg XR3i MFI and it would not fit with the front of the heater casing fitted. I tried it on the EFi XR3i (H-reg) and, although it fitted behind the inlet manifold, it would not sit on the strut tops correctly without being about 2mm from the manifold itself. With the engine running, it would have hit. The reason it fitted on the later car is because Ford altered the chassis on the post 1989 cars and moved the turrets slightly, which, coincidentally gives room for the heater casing. It is a shame, but I have never seen one that, I personally, would say fits like it should be there.

They are standard on pretty much every Ford. The finis number is 6111456 and I would expect it to be about £10 plus vat. All they do is earth a cable, so I would check to make sure there is no dirt or other contamination in the way, or some other foreign object stopping it from working, i.e. carpet, etc...

As standard, all MK5/MK6 Escorts have this big bit of metal between the front wishbones. It is called a front subframe. IF you are twisting/flexing that, then you have bigger problems than you think. However, Ford did do a lower strut brace for the cabriolet in an effort to remove some of the "scuttle-shake" inherent in these cars. The details are: RHD - 1667433 LHD - 1667434 Diesel, 1.8 and Zetec-E - 1026909 1.4 CVH - 1026918 These were fitted on the MK6 (1995 onwards models) and {I believe can be retrofitted to earlier ones. They also did three upper strut braces: pre 1995 RHD - 1667433 pre 1995 LHD - 1667434 post 1995 - 1042417

Depends on what you are uprating. I use Floflex (Deflex) on the rear of my MK4, but use Poweflex on the front ARB inner and outer. The Floflex ones are a little softer, which suits my driving. I only ever fit Powerflex on the front though on any of my cars, even my "daily hack" Cinquecento as the others are too soft IMO for these applications.

Piece of piss to do. I have done loads of brake caliper overhauls (I don't touch rear calipers with the external handbrake (big spring on the outside) as they tend to rust and you do more harm than good if not careful). You need to take your time and they go together with no real provlems. Use some "rubber grease" and they will go. The hardest thing is getting the dust seal into place as the slot it goes into in the caliper and the piston are almost in identical places and it can be fiddly. Ideally, get yourself a spare pair of calipers, "pop" the piston out and then you can derust or repaint them accordingly. That way you do not have to rush to redo yours, and if they go wrong, you still have a pair of calipers to use to keep the car on the road.

Look by the bonnet hinges in the engine bay. The wires you are looking for are a thick-core black/purple wire and a brown wire. The brown wire goes to the earth point by each hinge and the blakc/purple ones go to the screen itself. There should be a black plug for them to plug into.

Ollie, the red/yellow is +12V, the brown is earth (connect to earth point by speakers, not inside the door), the yellow is lock, the white is unlock. Join the red/yellow together and connect to a +12V fused source, the whites together, the yellows together, and the browns to earthing points. They are that simple. If you have any problems, let me know and I will pop down and go through them with you.

Simple mod to do infact guys. Take a 1-touch relay from a MK5/6 Escort (found under centre console next to handbrake), Granada (drivers door next to speaker) or Mondeo MK1/2 (pre 1998, same location as Granada) and a good length of loom and the plug. Firstly, find the wire which works the roof on the "up" motion. This wire will be +12V when active. Cut this wire between the switch and the motor, I would say about 6-10 inches from the switch would be ideal. To confirm this is the right wire, try working the switch again with the wire cut, nothing should happen in that direction, but should work in the other direction. Next, there are 4 wires on the relay (later ones had an extra one in the middle, these are the wrong relay). The wire details are as follows: violet/orange -- this is 12V and can be taken from the window switch power black -- this is earth and can be attached to any decent earth point in the area yellow/violet -- this wire goes to the motor side of the wire you cut ytellow/green -- this wire goes to the switch side of the wire you cut Repeat this with another relay for the "down" circuit and you will be good to go. The relay works on a resistance, when the current "spikes" (as happens when a motor reaches end of travel), the relay automatically trips out. If you press the button once, it does a 1-touch motion, hold the button and it will work until you let go, then stop as normal. This works on windows, sunroofs, electric hoods, all the same. I actually have these relays on my windows and electric sunroof on my Sierra Sapphire and they work perfectly every time.

Well, as of 20 minutes ago I am entered for me and Paula. Looking forward to it, although I may also have to bring a car to put in the carpark so I can take all the Pop stuff I should be picking up there home.

A good set of 13cm (5.25") speakers will fit in the front on the MK3/4 models, but the locating lugs will need to be cut back. I then use a foam-backed draught excluder tape to seal between the metalwork and the speaker. This keeps the sounds "nice" and stops it from being misdirected. Make sure that the speakers are not too deep otherwise they will not clear the back of the enclosure. On the rears, only 10cm (4") will fit and they would need to be shallow to miss the roof frame. Sony customs are shallow enough, but I use the 2010 edition InPhase on the rear as they have a redesigned setup meaning that they are shallower and lighter while still producing more output than older versions.

IanSoutham - 1986 Paris Blue 1.6CVH with twin-choke Webber, `5" GTi wheels, MK5 LX spoiler, XR3i bumpers, AVO suspension, adjustable TCAs, heated velour seats, 260mm front brakes and lots more

They fit just the same as the 15" ones. You sometimes need to be careful on tyre choice if the car is lowered a lot as different tyres can sit differently on the rims. Couple of pics from our XR3i with 16" Mondeo alloys and 195/45R16 tyres. It was lowered 30mm on Spax springs and had adjustable front TCA arms to bring the front upright and had 285mm front discs. Obviously, normal-size discs will be made to look a lot smaller with the bigger wheels compared to the 15" ones.

The spare plug is probably for either light dimmer (left) or intermitant speed wiper (right). The base model dashes do not have one of the holes required. They also do not have the third switch location on the right hand side as only the Orion Ghia models (which used the high-spec dash) had the boot release option which goes in it. The switch locations are, from the left: front fog lights (optional) rear fog lights dash light dimmer rotary control front wiper intermittant delay rotary control heated rear window bootlid release (Orion Ghia and some GL models only) Do your dash lights and intermitant wipers work? Also, look @ the wiper relay in the fusebox (tall red relay), does it have a letter "F" printed on the top?

I know where you are coming from as most shows for me are 2-3 hours drive away. I leave for most shows before 6am (4.30am for Ford Fair) and I can get all manner of rubbish on the car, from early morning dirt to flies and small roadkill. All I do is give the car a good wax a few times through the year and clean it the day before. If the wax is good enough, then most of the dirt will simply come off with tap water. Once at the show, I have a small collapsible bucket which I fill with tap water and, using a washmitt, just lightly flow the water over the bodywork and wheels then use a drying towel to dry off. Once dried, a quick once-over with Megs original QuikDetailer to remove any watermarks and I am ready to go. Once back home, the next day it gets the same treatment and put away again. On your wheels, use a brake dust barrier (I use TurtleWax Brake Dust Barrier from Halfords) when cleaning as it helps prevent the dust building up in the first place. Some people use a wax, depends on how the car is kept and the wheels cleaned. I always take mine off to clean them, so a spray-on application is better for me.

Double-check the immobiliser but I don't think that will be your problem. As you have 12V to the coil on the black lead the problem lies the other side (assuming you connected the black lead to the coil positive). To check, with the ignition on, earth the negative side of the coil with a spark plug attached to the coil and it should spark. If it does, either the distributor/amplifier module is dead or you have a bad/broken connection.

A small amount of the VW sump sealant round both sides of the gasket and back into place it goes (excuse the white sealant marks, it needed to set before wiping off) Also managed to swap the numberplate bulb for an LED version Before (original 10W bulb) After (13-LED) The camera makes the light look more blue than it is, it is actually the reflection of the blue bodywork, although there is a slight blue-white tint to it.

And as a follow-on from the last post, welcome to this weeks minor update. A word of warning for anyone wishing to change a CVH engine sump whilst fitted to the car, it is a PITA to do...... Firstly, the reason for changing the sump... Once all the oil was drained and the sump removed, you can see all the old oil that is never removed from the engine At least the bottom end appears to be okay The replacement sump which has been polymer-coated is up next using a new Payen sump gasket

Latest update @ last...... Had time to get the old girl into work for the day this weekend so thought I'd make the most of it. Dug the trade plates out from work (as the car won't be officially taxed until April) and off it went. Apart from being called an anorak by the lads in the service department as I don't think they had seen a car looking like that before it all went rather well. Didn't really get many before pictures as I just needed to get on with it. Old Spax springs and new AVO ones. It is hard to believe that the springs that were fitted have done less than 10k miles in their life and have never been used in winter weather :shock: Springs fitted Also had to change the drivers side rear stub over as the original one was bent (left hand wheel had negative camber and the right hand one was almost vertical and I had to cut down some shims to get the toe setting equal originally) but now both sides are set almost exactly equal on both the camber and the toe. The front TCA arms were also changed. The pattern standard ones you buy now will give you weird camber angles as the jig that is used to make them is not accurate enough. The inner joint gaiters were starting to perish as you would expect as they are probably 24 years old so I grabbed some CompBrake adjustables. I have used them before on other Escorts and they work well. After all that, it was onto the nice computer-based laser-alignment system to track the front and the rear up. To say the car drives much nicer now would be an understatement. It always drove okay anyway, but the scuttle-shake that is inherent in them is much reduced now, the steering is lighter due to the better camber settings and is more like a newer car. All I've got to do now is get the new sump fitted which I got back from the powdercoaters the other day which has been polymer-coated (like powdercoat but dearer and does not flake off or chip as easily).

Have you got +12V to the black wire on the coil when the ignition is turned on?

Not sure on the rear calipers, although you definitely would want the brackets you can buy from places like Pumabuild, AutoSpecialists, etc.. for the RS2000 rear end version. The XR4i normally has 240mm brakes if MK1 so they would be the same as what you have as standard.

Yep, they are the same as long as the MK3 is 1983 onwards as pre 1983 had different geometry settings. With shafts, the MK4 should have lobro joints (3-bearing inner joint) and some MK3 models have either lobro or 6-ball bearing inner joints, but they fit the same. The lobro joint is a stronger one though, so always worth going for them if possible.