mjeff87

Hey Derf, welcome to the club

So......Jock Lindsays then? Were cool with that. What time? We're not getting to Orlando until mid-afternoon, so I'm guessing we won't be able to get there until about 6-7:00. Is that cool with everyone?

It's been said many times before, but bears repeating. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.....

Yeah, the actual OEM part is a split roll pin with a bunch of funky profiles. If yours is worn, or replaced with anything else it could be causing the pop.

Cool Pete. I'm sort of dealing with that now on the Focus, but I'm the one asking the questions.....the PO had a new radiator and e-fans installed before selling it and whoever did the work just decided to run all of the coolant lines/throttle cables/cruise cable and whatnot wherever they felt like running them. It's all functional but it's a royal mess (and I like things to look factory if they're not modded). I end up running down to the junkyard and taking pics of things, pulling new clips/connectors (to replace the broken or missing ones I have) and then fixing them. You should buy a Focus so I can just ask you

Thanks guys.... There's no way this alternator is coming off unless I need to change it out. It is BURIED in there. Short of using any kind of cleaner (or water), I think I'm just going to try using my 26 gallon compressor and a long airgun nozzle to try and spray the oil out. I tried to get a pic of it from underneath but it's fuzzy (you can sorta see how oily the bottom of it is). Another pic from the top of the engine, you can't even see the alternator, but it's down in there....trust me.

I finally got to change the front crank seal (and timing belt) on the Focus over the weekend. There was oil slung all over the front of the engine/ firewall from the leaking seal, including the front half of the alternator. I got the frame wiped off, but the windings are still dripping oil (and it's driving me crazy). I think I already know the answer to my question but I'll ask anyway......is there any (good) way of cleaning the innards without having to pull it off and disassemble it? It sits in an incredibly inconvenient spot on the engine (like most everything else on this thing lol) and I'd rather not deal with pulling it right now. It's working fine, knock on wood, and I'm afraid if I tried to spray electrical cleaner into the windings I might end up screwing up the front bearing and end up HAVING to pull it off 'cause it died. Theoretically, the oil inside it shouldn't hurt anything and I can keep driving it until it all eventually drips out. Thoughts gents?

Here's a couple pics. I checked with a coupe Ford mechanics over on Garage Journal for what the book time was for the job and they said 3.1 hours. Altogether I spent about 3.5 hours doing the work (plus a good hour on cleaning up all the slung around oil from the old seal).

That thing's been on CL for the last couple months (maybe longer.....)

5.5 hours....most of that was cleaning all the oil slung everywhere, and tiring to get the new belt on. I'll post pics later, but suffice to say I probably only had a couple days left on the old timing belt. It was BAD. It literally slid right off without me having to even loosen the old tensioner. New belt/tensioner/idler, and adjusted the cam gears (the exhaust cam actually skipped a tooth) and this focus is a damn race car now. What a difference.

That's a nice looking GT. These are some fun cars for relatively cheap, lol. All set to do the crank seal and timing set tomorrow morning. My wife has to work, so the garage (well, her half anyway.....the KJ is sitting dead on the other side) will be empty at 0600 when she leaves, and that's about when I'm going to start. I figure I'll need a couple hours to do all the work, and at least an hour cleaning up the whole underside/firewall/inner fender of all the oil it's been slinging everywhere for the last week. I've got: new timing belt/tensioner/idler pulley new front crank seal new serpentine belt (the old one is drenched in oil....surprised it hasn't slipped off by now) new serp belt tensioner and idler pulley new valve cover gasket I might see if I can pick up a new passenger side motor mount after work today too. The old one is shot, and it has to come out anyway to do the belt. If I can't get one locally today I'll replace it later. It's very easy to get to (unlike the driver side one and the wishbone underneath). I'll post some ugly pics of the work as I go along tomorrow. edit: I'm actually going to take my wife to work at 0530 and keep her car, just in case I need to run to the parts store/junkyard.

He-jus that's horrible. Perfect candidate for a flat bed out back. Cut the rockers out and replace with sliders and you'd have a decent truck (except the floor boards might be the Flintstone edition).

You bringing the XJ up for the meet-and-greet?

Yeah, you've done the fluff work. Grab your toolkit and get to it on the "holy crap" work now, lol I'm going to start tearing the head off mine once we get back from vacation next week. Yay. Pat.....I'm still going to call you, but it won't be for a couple weeks. Need to get my Focus straight, then go see Mickey next week. Once were back from that, I'm gonna start to tear down.

Yeah, DOHC (Zetec) only. I had the pleasure of owning my mother's old Escort with the SOHC, and dropping the #3 exhaust valve seat on it. Pulled the head in my driveway, it was trashed, so I grabbed a junkyard one and had a machine shop do it over and then installed it. Piston top had a bunch of pock marks in it, I ground them down as best I could, LOL. I ran the nutz off that car, then sold it to a bunch of Mexicans outside a pizza shop one day. I'm sure that thing is still running around somewhere....it had 200K on it when I sold it. Solid little car (like the Foci are), except for those cheap valve seats.

Yeah, I replaced the TPS also. As soon as I took the old one off, it mostly self-destructed in my hands. I also found out (this doesn't apply to me but it's good info to know) that in early 2000-ish Ford redesigned the TB and it takes a different TPS than the initial one they used. This only applies to automatics, not 5/6 speeds (which mine is), and you can't use a manual TPS on an automatic TB. The auto TPS's are universally unavailable anymore, so you're stuck buying a whole new TB assembly if you need a TPS/auto. I did see a guy on a focus forum "adapt" a manual TPS to an auto TB using a large fender washer and screws to be able to clock it correctly, but I'm not sure I'd ever want to try to replicate that. Lol. And thanks for the SVT info on the rear discs.....I'm going to have to put that on my junkyard shopping list And, yeah....I did use a OEM Motorcraft IAC on mine. No way I'm doing that job again. The new IAC did seem to fix it, it idles at a perfect 750 rpm now.

This picture really doesn't do it justice, but here is where the IAC is located. It's on the underside/inside of the intake manifold (which is horseshoe shaped) underneath the TB. Absolutely everything is in the way. The best way I found to get to it, now having done it 2X, is to strip the top of the engine as much as you can so you can get to the top bolt and break it loose with an 8mm ratcheting box end wrench. Then jack up the car, go underneath to get the bottom bolt out (which is pretty easy) and then wiggle your hand up between the starter and back side of the engine and remove the top bolt with your fingertips. Leave the electrical connector connected, so you can then go back up top and use the wire to pull the sensor out. Installation is the reverse of removal, except you are blindly trying to hold the new IAC with the top bolt inserted and try to find the top hole by feel. Once you get a couple threads engaged go ahead and insert the bottom bolt snugly but not full tight. Go back up top and spend 30 minutes trying to get the top bolt screwed back in the whole way tight, then go back underneath and snug up the bottom bolt. Then put the whole top end of the engine back together

And the tailpipe too. Just noticed that.

New IAC (Motorcraft, I'm not willing to cheap out on an aftermarket part and have to do this job EVER again) installed. 2 hours to swap, but it seems to be idling normal again. Yay.

Holy nice MJ I can't believe for a minute that thing is original to SWPA.....it's in too nice of a shape, lol. (I'm originally from Johnstown/Greensburg, and there doesn't seem to be a speck of rust on that thing) Jeff

Yay....Amazon succeeded in delivering me a package with something in it yesterday, lol. I also threw a new TPS on it, when I took the old one off it literally fell to pieces in my hand. And I have a new Motorcraft IAC coming from Rockauto today that I'm going to try to get on after work tonight. I'll save the timing set/crank seal for Saturday when I have plenty of time to do it, and nowhere to be in case something goes horribly wrong.

We ate at the Boathouse last year. Excellent food, but bring your wallet, and your spare wallet...lol. I'd vote for something a bit more casual.

Yeah, it doesn't throw any codes, it just won't idle high enough. I know it's the IAC becuase I can turn on the defrost and cycle the AC compressor and it does tach up to about 1000 when it does. I cleaned it as best I could and let the AC compressor cycle for about 10 minutes and it did free the pintle up a tiny bit. Now it doesn't stall at idle, but only idles around 600-650. Bottom line is I need to just buy a new one and swap it in. I dread the thought of having to do that job again. And yes, I was definitely talking to someone on the sub-continent Saturday night. I almost asked to speak to someone who could speak the English, but we got it done.

So, I ordered a special timing gear lock set off amazon late Thursday night, and paid an extra $11 for expedited shipping to get it here yesterday (Saturday) so I could replace the front seal and timing set today. Amazon driver showed up around 7:00 last night and handed me a padded shipping envelope......that was empty. The damn thing wasn't even sealed shut, and somewhere along the line my timing tools slipped out. Long story short, I called Amazon and pitched a royal fit. They refunded my shipping fees and have a replacement coming to me tomorrow. They also gave me a $20 voucher to use on a future Amazon purchase. The timing set tools only cost $18, so that's nice, but now I have to wait until next weekend to get the job done.. Today was the only day (off) I had to work on it until next Saturday.

I defer to the locals and more experienced travelers to the area. We've only been there once, and took buses and/or cabs everywhere we went. Y'all figure out the where, and me and missus mjeff (Missi) will be there, lol. I just got my head shaved again, seeing as how summer just won't let go around here, and we're gonna be in FL in 14 days.