mjeff87

Cool man, thanks. Let me know

On a side note....it turns out that Ford Focus starters really don't like to get wet. I sprayed down the whole engine compartment with the garden hose today and soaked the starter. Went to move it and it cranked for about a second and then quit. It blew the 20A maxi fuse for the engine circuit. I didn't have a spare, and my wife is out of town so I was stranded in my driveway. Used my leaf blower to dry the engine off then made a jumper wire up to replace the blown fuse so I could get down to the part store to get a new fuse. Mission accomplished. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Thats the plan, lol. Although I've grown quite fond of the second Focus....I'm not going to get rid of it once I get the KJ fixed (that was the original plan). It's a fun little car, and gets about 2X the mileage (and it's a 5-speed). I'll just keep it as a spare vehicle to drive when the weather is not bad. Which in VA is about 9 months out of the year.

Sure man, if you can. I'm guessing they are pretty standard across chryco engines of that era. If you can source them, let me know and I'll send you some $$$ for your time and trouble

I've got more hours into this engine already than any other jeep I've owned so far, lol. Its ridiculous the amount of stuff you have to take off just to get the head(s) off. I *heart* pushrod engines....they are so much simpler

Head is at the machine shop getting the plug threads out (and the upper timing chain guide torx bolt that I stripped trying to remove lol). Should have it back sometime this week, all cleaned up and pretty. I need to deep clean most of what I removed (intake manifold and timing cover mostly), then buy a bunch of new stuff for reinstall. Head gasket, head bolts, intake/exhaust manifold gaskets, fuel injector o rings, both radiator hoses, a couple PCV hoses that were split, and some of those little red plastic fuel injector electrical connector "locks".....every one of them crumbled when I pried them up to disconnect the injectors. Probably a dealer-only item, lol. Once I get all that, I'll start putting it all back together. My goal is Thanksgiving....I'm not in a rush (since I have the focus) and want to take my time getting it all reassembled.

Well, I got the head off finally. Took me 4 hours Saturday and a couple more hours yesterday morning. What an incredible PITA job. Not "hard", but there were a couple challenges to figure out, courtesy of the design engineers at Chrysler (why, oh why, would you zip-tie a wiring harness to the back of the head, right against the firewall, with absolutely NO way of getting to it to undo it so you can actually move the head once you unbolt it?????) Here's a couple pics of the pertinent bits. All the stuff on the table I set up is what you have to remove to get the head out. LOL. It probably would have been easier to just swap the whole engine out...... Special shout out to Pat, who gave me some really good tips on this job too. Much appreciated brother I owe ya a big one.

I have one downspout on the back side of the house that clogs with leaf debris every year like clockwork. I just rig up the nozzle of my (gas) blower to the elbow at the bottom and let her rip. It blows the junk out about 10 feet into the air

What's wrong with the focus?

Nice score man Just an FYI, my wife is going out of town this weekend, and I'm going to pull the head off of mine. I need to get the spiral extractor back out of it and take it back up to the shop that got it stuck in there, then drop the head off at the machine shop to see if they can fix it. Should be great fun, I'll take many pictures.

^^Does your European front clip include the hood lock/latch? I think those are slick, and wouldn't mind adding one to mine. Especially since my hood release cable is broken, LOL. It still works, but the little plastic tab at the handle-end is snapped off and it won't stay attached to the lower dash piece. Right now I just have it jammed up under the steering column so it stays out of the way of my legs. Driving to work yesterday morning, and my HVAC fan decided it didn't like life anymore......started making a horrible squealing sound on all speeds. So when I got home I monkeyed my way under the passenger side and pulled the blower motor/squirrel cage, disassembled it as much as I could and got some 3-in-1 oil on the front and rear bushings and put it all back together. It's quiet as a church mouse now

Whoa....whole lotta science getting dropped here, lol Bill, I replaced the passenger side mount with a poly one, the other ones are rubber. So far, this thing idles so smoothly I have to look at the tach to make sure the engine is still running. I even actually stalled it (like a teenager just learning how to drive a stick shift...) this morning in the work parking lot.

Race car

Check/wiggle the two wires going into the top of the injector. They may be loose/corroded and not making enough contact for the injector to fire.

The "dogbone" or torque mount underneath is a bit of a PITA. You have to take off the bracket that holds it to the trans first, to get the mount out, and then have to insert the new mount in the bracket and put it all back in as one piece (and try to get all the bolt holes to line up). This thing runs like a new car now, I'm quite happy with it.

The driver side mount is pretty easy to get to, just have to remove the battery/box and air cleaner housing.

Got back from vacation on Saturday, spent Sunday putting our lives back together, and then changed out the motor/tranny mounts on the Focus yesterday. To say the old ones were shot would be an understatement, especially the passenger side motor mount (the one that always craps out). It's a hydraulic mount, and all the fluid leaked out of mine a long time ago. It was compressed about 2" compared to the new one.

Meh, it's done and clean. Drove it all day yesterday and to work on the interstate this morning and it hasn't erupted into a big ball of flame, so I'm counting it as a win LOL. It was pretty easy to access the front of it from above with the passenger side motor mount out of the way (which I swapped out, along with the driverside engine/tranny mount and the dogbone tranny/torque mount underneath). Didn't get a before pic but here's the after/cleaned version:

^^^yeah, that. I cleaned it today, while I was replacing all the motor/tranny mounts. I used QD Electronic cleaner and about 3 tanks of compressed air. I've got pics to show but they're on my phone....I'll download them tomorrow and post them. Fun day.

The motor mounts themselves can be changed via bolt-on, but the frame horns are welded to the frame (unlike XJ/MJ's that are bolted on). Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I briefly considered a 4.0 swap into my old TJ, until I learned that.

Made it back home safe and sound, albeit not without some issues. We had the "magical experience" package (that worked perfectly last year....) where TSA has agents at the resort properties that print your boarding passes right there and take your luggage and you don't see them again until you reach your destination. Apparently Spirit Airlines does not participate in that, so we had to get to the airport early and schlep our bags thru the ticket counter. Then, when we finally boarded and were a minute from pushback, the pilot came on and said the ground crew accidentally loaded everyone's luggage onto the wrong plane. Mmmmmm......yeah. So we were delayed about 30 minutes until they fixed that CF.. Ended up landing in RIC @5:45 instead of 5:10, didn't get home until almost 7:00 due to local traffic. TL/DR.....Don't fly Spirit, they suck. This was our first and last time with them. Well stick with the legacy airlines, and/or Jet Blue.

That's it, we're officially disneyed out. We did (not Disney) Universal studios all day today, back to the property and then back out to Disney springs for dinner, just got back to the room and are flat out cooked. We don't fly out tomorrow until around 2:30, so we're going to sleep in a bit (checkout isn't till 11). Had ad a great time here this week, got to meet some great imaginary internet friends, and spent wayyyy too much money. But, we're gonna plan on coming back down again next year this same week or the week after. Maybe we can arrange another pow wow, like an annual event kind of thing.

And you had that weapons-grade camera with you all night too Just got back from dinner at Paddlefish. Quite good grub but we're both exhausted, and old. Probably be asleep by 10:30 lol.

Had a great time last night...great to finally meet you guys. Pete, you mentioned a Spanish guitarist. After we left the parking garage and were wandering around aimlessly looking for the cab stand, I think we found him. He was playing on one of the stages. Incredible! We ended up staying there for about a half hour watching/listening to him. Off to Epcot in about an hour here, Food and Wine awaits

We're wrapping things up here at the homestead. We fly out @ 12:00 tomorrow, so that gets us to Orlando around 2-ish. Figure a couple hours getting to the property, getting our luggage and getting set up in the room, were shooting for 6:00 to get there too. See y'all tomorrow