any Ford Focus owners here?

[mjeff87]

And it lives again.  Turns out it wasn't so much the MAF at all (but I did replace it, along with the MAP sensor and cam sensor).  Did some research on this thing, it has a return-less fuel system.  Fuel pressure is modulated by the pump, which is fed varying voltage from the ECU by way of a pressure transducer on the end of the fuel rail.  That sensor has manifold vacuum applied to it and pulls down a diapraghm inside it based on engine status.  On mine, that little diapraghm failed, and it was sucking raw gas back thru the vac line directly into the intake manifold, also while the injectors were firing.  Hence the super rich condition.  So I replaced a bunch of stuff courtesy of the junkyard for $35, and she's a purring kitten once again.

[Pete M]

   yet another victory! 

[mjeff87]

So far so good.  I've been tooling it around the hood all afternoon without any issues.  I'll drive it around tomorrow and then take it to work on Monday (60 mile round trip).

[mjeff87]

Focus has gone "up the road" for a bit.....one of my friends started a new job yesterday.  He called me at 9:00 PM Sunday night, his DD crapped the bed (bad fuel leak, too dangerous to drive).  So the wife and I schlepped the Focus up to him to run to the job this week while he tries to get his car fixed.  I haven't driven the KJ much lately, so it's kinda good.  I get to run it for awhile (although I'm paying alot more in gas to drive it ).

[Pete M]

gas is cheap.  life is short.  drive a Jeep.  

[mjeff87]

Focus came back home last night, yay.  Just in time for me and the wife to drop off her Forrester at the glass installation place.....she got a rock chip a couple weeks ago that decided to up and crack the entire way across the windshield last Thursday.  Kicker is that her car has that "eyesight" system, which has cameras mounted on either side of the rear view mirror, that have to be re-calibrated when the glass is replaced.  That's getting done this morning, I'm leaving work when they call to say it's ready to go back home, get her, and drive out to pick it back up.

 

 

[Pete M]

what do the cameras do that they need 2 of them?

[mjeff87]

They're integral to the new safety systems that are now standard on all new cars.....adaptive cruise, lane-keep assist, collision avoidance, etc...  I can't stand to drive the darn thing.  You can disable most of the features (but not all), but you have to do that EVERY time you cycle the key off/on.

 

And there's a campaign going to get a class-action lawsuit against Subaru about the faulty windscreen glass.  It cracks if you look funny at it, lol.  The problem started happening in 2018 when all the safety crap got installed....it seems it has to (or Subaru just cheaped out on) the glass so it would work with the system.  Prior to 2017 they never had problems like this with their glass.

 

https://www.classaction.org/subaru-cracked-windshield-defect-lawsuits#:~:text=No.,deny that any defect exists.

 

[Pete M]

as much as I like new tech in general, I definitely start disliking it once it costs me mega money further down the road.  thank goodness for my parent's lifetime warranty on that durango.  my head hurts just thinking about trying to fix something in the wiring or computers.   

[mjeff87]

Got her car back, it was done surprisingly quickly.  We'll see how long this piece of glass makes it, lol.

 

Now I have a rock chip/star in the center of the Focus glass....bought it that way.  I just noticed it's starting to crack just the tiniest bit.  I only have liability insurance on it, so no glass coverage.  I'm gonna get the chip drilled and filled out of my own pocket.  I'd rather pay $50-100 for that than have to pony up for a whole new windshield.

[Pete M]

how bad is the starfield? (meaning how sand-blasted is the glass)  I cannot wait to get a brand new chuck of the clear stuff in my Libby. when the sun hits it, I'm blinded if i don't have sunglasses on.     too many years as a commuter on a Michigan concrete freeway. 

[mjeff87]

Surprisingly, the rest of the glass is in really good shape.  That's why I want to get the chip sealed now, before it decides to spread any.  The car obviously went through a hail storm sometime before I bought it....there's a bunch of tiny pock marks/dents on the hood/roof/trunk.  They're really not noticeable unless you are up close to it, though.  I don't care, it's a beater car

[mjeff87]

Now that the weather is turning colder in the mornings, I noticed that the Focus was taking forever to heat up (and not blowing very hot air inside the cabin....), so I put a new thermostat/housing in it Saturday.  About a 3/10 job on the PITA scale, and only 2 beers worth of time  The old 'stat was not closing fully, now I've got great heat and she gets to temp within a couple minutes of driving.

 

Also did the annual heater core burping on the KJ, so it has heat for the winter.  Whoever designed the coolant system on those things needs to be drawn and quartered.....why would you make the heater core the HIGHEST point in the entire system???  I get an air pocket inside of mine every. single. year.

[89 MJ]

4 minutes ago, mjeff87 said:

Now that the weather is turning colder in the mornings, I noticed that the Focus was taking forever to heat up (and not blowing very hot air inside the cabin....)

You need to swap your coolant with water. Coolant keeps your engine too cold in the winter. LOL

[Pete M]

36 minutes ago, mjeff87 said:

 

Whoever designed the coolant system on those things needs to be drawn and quartered.....why would you make the heater core the HIGHEST point in the entire system??? 

 

truth. 

[mjeff87]

To be honest, that whole stuck-spark-plug fiasco on mine was caused by it.  It's really convenient to have the heater core inlet/outlet DIRECTLY above the #6 spark plug (that screws into the head vertically).  Makes a perfect little swimming pool for all the spilled coolant to live in and corrode the plug.  I always took care to blow it all out really good with the compressor and air gun, but I guess I never every got all of it out of the plug well, and you know what happened next.

 

I've just about perfected my method now though.  All I do is park it facing uphill in my driveway, then pull off the core inlet hose.  I stab a short piece of cut heater hose on it that I jam a funnel into the other side of.  Tie up the whole contraption as vertical as I can get it, then fill the core up with coolant through the funnel until it starts spilling out everywhere (plug off the disconnected heater hose end so it doesn't come out of it).  Let that all sit a good 15 minutes and watch the little air bubbles pop out of the top of the funnel.  Once it's all full and purged, quickly swap the heater hose back on the core inlet, start it up and let it run with the cap off until the thermostat opens.  Shut it off, leave the cap off and let it all cool down.  Top off the resivoir and clean everything up.

[89 MJ]

12 minutes ago, mjeff87 said:

To be honest, that whole stuck-spark-plug fiasco on mine was caused by it.  It's really convenient to have the heater core inlet/outlet DIRECTLY above the #6 spark plug (that screws into the head vertically).  Makes a perfect little swimming pool for all the spilled coolant to live in and corrode the plug.  I always took care to blow it all out really good with the compressor and air gun, but I guess I never every got all of it out of the plug well, and you know what happened next.

 

I've just about perfected my method now though.  All I do is park it facing uphill in my driveway, then pull off the core inlet hose.  I stab a short piece of cut heater hose on it that I jam a funnel into the other side of.  Tie up the whole contraption as vertical as I can get it, then fill the core up with coolant through the funnel until it starts spilling out everywhere (plug off the disconnected heater hose end so it doesn't come out of it).  Let that all sit a good 15 minutes and watch the little air bubbles pop out of the top of the funnel.  Once it's all full and purged, quickly swap the heater hose back on the core inlet, start it up and let it run with the cap off until the thermostat opens.  Shut it off, leave the cap off and let it all cool down.  Top off the resivoir and clean everything up.

That sounds about 10 times harder than it needs to be.

[mjeff87]

It is a semi-PITA, but these cores get yuuuuge air pockets trapped in them.  The inlet/outlet sits on the firewall about an inch higher than the coolant level in the pressure tank/overflow (whatever you want to call it), so it can never really fill the core completely (and get all the air out of it).  Then you don't have good heat inside the cabin area.

[mjeff87]

I think I FINALLY found the source of my little oil leak.  Was underneath it over the weekend changing the oil and tightened up the bolts on the "windage tray" above the oil pan where it looked like it was seeping a bit.  So far, I've only had one little tiny drip spot since.  The lower block is weird on these engines....there's the block surface, then an upper oil pan with a block gasket on the upper side (which is what is seeping), then the actual oil pan is RTV'd to the bottom of that.  I've been googling it, and it looks like I can buy the upper gasket, then pull the pan and unbolt the upper "pan"/windage tray and replace the gasket all with the engine in place.  I have to unbolt the A/C compressor on the front of the upper pan, the pillow block/bearing for the passenger axleshaft on the back, pull the oil pump pickup tube and dipstick, and drop the catalytic converter to get it all off, but it's all nuts and bolts.  Then 12 bolts (plus a couple of bellhousing bolts) to unbolt the upper pan.

 

I might tackle that all this weekend.  I hate engine oil leaks, and I'm determined to get this thing to NOT leak anything eventually.

[mjeff87]

Not much going on with the Focus lately, still have the little oil leak.  Developed a strange rattle underneath it though, and noticed a bit of slop in the driveline, kind of like a feeling of too much backlash in a differential.  Ended up being the lower trans mount (aka "dogbone" mount), that helps to prevent torque twist in the driveline.  Mine was completely hashed.  I think when I put the new clutch in it I might have stressed it out a bit too much, wiggling around the driveline to get the trans out and back in.  The center section was completely ripped out.

 

Surprising what a little $25 mount does, lol.

 

 

[Pete M]

I'd had to replace all those little rubber bits in the PT.  less than 100k miles and none of the rubbers lasted.  hurray for cheap american cars! 

 

although technically I didn't replace them all... there's a mid-engine one that is a super pain to get out and thus it remains.   

[mjeff87]

The kicker is that there's 3 engine/trans mounts on these things, and I replaced all 3 of them less than a year ago.  The most common one that goes bad is the passenger side upper mount, because it's hydraulic and usually pukes all the fluid out.  I didn't buy Motorcraft mounts, but I didn't buy cheap white box specials either, so.....my only guess is that I munched this lower mount when I did the clutch swap.  I didn't unbolt it (it was the only thing holding the entire driveline in place, LOL) and that trans was next to impossible to get out and back in, and I had that whole driveline in some pretty serious "not supposed to look like that" positions.  That's where I think the center section decided to rip/tear a bit, and it just took this long for it to tear the whole way apart.  We'll see.  It's cheap enough and realtively easy to swap (about 20 minutes and not even one beer), so if it craps out again I'll spring for a genuine Ford replacement.  Hah.

[Pete M]

if I have to replace these again, I'm buying that tube of windshield adhesive and squeezing it up in there to create a solid bushing.    I nearly had to create my own for that diff support in the KJ but fortunately one of my used spares was juuuuuust good enough.

[89 MJ]

It's crazy how many motor mounts these little FWD 4 cylinder cars have. I think its kinda funny that lots of them have 3 to keep that little 4 banger in there when an old big block only had the two, plus the transmission crossmember. I suppose lots of the motor mounts on the newer cars are for the transmission too.

[BeatCJ]

I suspect it has something to do with the axle shafts and the crankshaft being parallel.