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any Ford Focus owners here?


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4 hours ago, whowey said:

Did you have interior vibration issues afterwards?   When I was trying to decide what kind to get, I read a lot of internet stuff about using the complete poly kit and people noticing all the engine vibration transferring into the pedals and shifter inside.  I couldn't decide, but I happened to find this stuff for sale.

Yes, but what do you want, a cushy sedated car? Or a fun driving feel everything from through the steering wheel,  chirp third gear, kick in pants street legal go cart. :jammin:

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5 hours ago, whowey said:

Did you have interior vibration issues afterwards?   When I was trying to decide what kind to get, I read a lot of internet stuff about using the complete poly kit and people noticing all the engine vibration transferring into the pedals and shifter inside.  I couldn't decide, but I happened to find this stuff for sale.

Yes I do have vibrations coming through the steering wheel. But it isn't that harsh. I love my polyurethane mounts. I can even chirp third gear. 

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But also, I  have installed a black iceman cold air intake, 2 inch cat back exhaust, h and r lowering springs with kyb gas adjustable struts and shocks, Factory Ford European front bumper and snorkel air intake. 

But the best thing I installed, a Thorpe limited slip differential. Holy guacamole Batman. 

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^^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 :banana:

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Its not the whole clip. Its the bumper,  grill assembly with the really cool hidden hood (bonnet) key/lock hole under the Ford center emblem. And the plastic piece that goes around the lock, sits above the grill that hooks into the air snorkel. 

That last plastic piece I mentioned, the US version, has blockage in front of the snorkel. The US, knows that you free up the air flow, the car goes faster. The European Ford focus has this like a ram air system. 

I have only wished if I had the money to get my UK friend who was willing to send me the factory front and rear bumper,  bonnet lock and other cool euro gear. 

 

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On 10/23/2019 at 3:42 PM, COM86 said:

Yes, but what do you want, a cushy sedated car? Or a fun driving feel everything from through the steering wheel,  chirp third gear, kick in pants street legal go cart. :jammin:

Its currently on duty as my daughter's college cruiser.  I was asking as she whines about how it vibrates in the pedals, and shifter. I wondered if it was there, or was she being a pain in the @$$.

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I doused the whole back side of the engine and firewall with the garden hose yesterday.....I'm still getting one little drop of oil when parked overnight, and it's driving me crazy.  I wanted to clean off the back side of the engine so I could try to find out where the leak is coming from.  Turns out that Focus starters apparently don't like getting wet.  Went to start it up after hosing and it cranked for about 2 seconds then quit.  Odometer and trip odometer read all dashes, so I knew it was some kind of power issue.  Ended up being the big honkin' 20A maxi fuse under the hood for the engine that popped (and I didn't have a spare, and my wife was out of town in her car which meant I was stranded in my driveway).  I used my leafblower to dry off the engine as best I could, then I bent up a jumper wire for the fuse slot and she fired right up.  That got me down to the Advance Auto to buy a new fuse.  I bought 2 of them, just in case:laugh:  I'll keep the extra one in the center console.

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10 hours ago, mjeff87 said:

I doused the whole back side of the engine and firewall with the garden hose yesterday.....I'm still getting one little drop of oil when parked overnight, and it's driving me crazy.  I wanted to clean off the back side of the engine so I could try to find out where the leak is coming from.  Turns out that Focus starters apparently don't like getting wet.  Went to start it up after hosing and it cranked for about 2 seconds then quit.  Odometer and trip odometer read all dashes, so I knew it was some kind of power issue.  Ended up being the big honkin' 20A maxi fuse under the hood for the engine that popped (and I didn't have a spare, and my wife was out of town in her car which meant I was stranded in my driveway).  I used my leafblower to dry off the engine as best I could, then I bent up a jumper wire for the fuse slot and she fired right up.  That got me down to the Advance Auto to buy a new fuse.  I bought 2 of them, just in case:laugh:  I'll keep the extra one in the center console.

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Yes.  Found on road dead. F*** over rebuilt dodge. First on race day.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Strangely, that same fuse popped again on Sunday morning.  I started it up, pulled it up the driveway to in front of the house on the street and shut it off.  Came back in the house, the wife and I got back into it about 10 minutes later to go grocery shopping and the same thing happened.  Keyed the starter, it engaged for about a second and then quit.  I put another fuse in it and it's been fine all week now (I have a few more of those 20A fuses as spares just in case, lol).  It's got to be something in the starter circuit, 'cause that's the only time it's happened is when cranking.

 

I did have the battery box and airbox out a couple weekends ago when I put new motor mounts in it.....I'm thinking I might have pinched a wire somewhere in that rat's nest of wiring when I put it all back together.  Once I get the KJ running again (hopefully tomorrow), I'll monkey around with it some to see if I can find the problem.  It's either a pinched wire or my starter (or solenoid) is slowly trying to tell me it's dying.  I really don't want to fiddle with pulling the starter on it, if I can help it......

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  • 2 weeks later...

Its alive. But what a major pain.

I had someone finish off the clutch replacement. It shifted great until the shift cable ends failed. So they replaced those.  One side work great. But the other side would fall off by looking at it. 

Come to find out that the ball where the clip hooks to is heavily worn. Oh it gets better.

So I thought that I could get another one from a junkyard from a 4 door manual transmission. Same transmission, same parts, right?  NO!!!

The 3 door is different from the 4 door. In the picture 3 door on left, 4 door on rightIxlC0ll.jpg.652e7b791f1f0641840809524cb051db.jpgSo what I had to do it take a file to the ball clip and make a new edge on the ball end for the clip to lock in.20191117_141459.jpg.820c7ed42f2257245d9d20bf7a0809a1.jpg

But she lives. 

20191117_161116.jpg

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That didn't sound like it was fun to do, LOL^^^  Nice Focus though, glad you got it back on the road.

 

I *think* I finally found and fixed the last oil leak I have (had?).  I thought that the pressure sending unit might be leaking so I picked up a new one over the weekend.  I had to do an oil change, and the sender is right above the filter, so it was good timing.  Got the filter off and was reaching up to put a socket on the sending unit, and my hand bumped the threaded nipple screwed into the filter boss, and it started spinning (WTF?).  It wasn't even finger tight.....so I unscrewed it, cleaned everything up, hit the external threads with some blue loctite and screwed it back in.  The weird thing is that there's no way to tighten it other than with your fingers.....no hex head, nothing.  I guess I could have found 2 large, flat nuts and double-nutted it to tighten it like you would a stud, but I didn't have any and wasn't about to go looking for a store that had them on a Sunday afternoon.  Got the new filter on, cleaned up the whole back side of the block (it was saturated all around the filter area, so I'm guessing that's where the leak was coming from), wiped off the suspension and called it good.  The actual sensor wasn't leaking, and I didn't replace it, but I'm still going to hang onto the new one just in case.  It was only like $18.  Drove it to work this morning and put a piece of cardboard underneath it in the parking lot, and so far.....no drips:banana:

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Day 2, still no drips.  Yay.  I had to go to VA Beach for work last week Sunday thru Wednesday, 256 mile round trip.  It averaged 34.16 mpg.  Not too shabby for a2001 era vehicle with 170K miles on it, lol.  We're up in PA now for the holiday, won't be back home until Saturday late afternoon.  We drove the wife's car (2019 Forrester), and it got 36 mpg on the way up (260 miles).  I just had to chuckle a bit.:laugh:

 

Happy Thanksgiving y'all :beerchug:

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Well, I spoke too soon.  I was getting a small drip from the front of the engine and it looked like it was coming from the PCV valve (of unknown vintage), so I swapped it out.  No easy task on this engine (like most things I'm finding out....it's 10 lbs of crap shoved into a 5 lb bag under the hood).  STILL got a drip, dangit.  I was putting new headlight bulbs in it yesterday (Sylvania Silver Stars, same ones I run in the KJ....suckers are bright) and decided to pop the whole headlights out to work on them instead of trying to skinny my arm on the backside to reach the bulb.  Well, when I popped the passenger side light assembly out, I found I had a perfectly clear view of the front passenger side of the engine.  I immediately saw the A/C compressor covered in PAG oil, as well as everything around it.  While I was looking at it, one little drip of oil dropped onto my garage floor.  I think I FINALLY found the source of my final oil leak.  It's leaking oil out of the front seal, behind the clutch plate, and getting slung everywhere.  The A/C system didn't/doesn't work since I got the vehicle and I never much bothered to figure out why since I rarely use A/C.  I'm guessing there's either no charge left in the system due to the leak, so I just need to run down to the junkyard Saturday and pull a non-leaking compressor to swap into it for now.  Maybe come springtime I'll worry about actually fixing the system and getting it working.  Or not.  But at least it won't be leaking oil anymore.

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