Quote: jimmyesh on Mon Dec 29, 2008 4:21 pm

Hi everyone, hope you had a good Crimbo? 😉

We're another stage closer now - engine bay is all resprayed and looking a damn site more presentable than it was a few days ago! :oooh:

I applied seam-sealer to all the exposed welds, followed by 2 coats of primer, waited 24hrs then 2 coats of Moondust Silver, another 24hrs then 2 coats of lacquer. I know it's not exactly pro-standard but I've at least achieved my aim of making the engine bay look presentable! 🙂

Little comparison...

Next on the list is fitting the gear linkage and hydraulic clutch pipes, then I can dump the engine & 'box in properly and stop them cluttering the workshop up before everyone gets back from leave! :rolleyes:

Quote: jimmyesh on Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:13 pm

Another busy day, managed to fit the gearshift setup and keep it all looking factory-fit (almost! :oooh: )

Firstly I gave the car a clean as, despite my best efforts to keep it covered, there was metal-dust all over the place due to my efforts with grinders/mig etc over the last few weeks, that all needed removing before it could start rusting and end up trashing my nice bodywork! :aaah:

Check out the cheesy sticker on the rear 'screen 😛 I would keep it a proper sleeper but I need some recognition for all this graft, so there it is! :aviator:

Fitted all hydraulic clutch and PAS pipes that would be a Bic™ to fit once that beast of an engine is in the hole.

There was a bit of a setback today when I tried to mount the gearlever mechanism inside the car and bolt it through the floor (as I did with my previous ST170 transmission). Unfortunately, the Mondeo MK3 gearlever mech is HUUUGE and if fitted there would mean a very tall gearlever (as found in a Bus! :rolleyes: ). Worse still, the centre console would never clear the cable shift & selector mech so a bit of creativity had to step in!

Here's how high up everything was originally! :oooh:

Basically I made a steel cradle up that allows the mechanism to bolt in from beneath the car, saving me a vital couple of inches - this was duly fitted and now everything fits and looks ok.

 

Trim re-fitted, full range of gearlever movement too!

 

Still got to do a bit of tidying underneath but the hard work's done - not touching the car again until after some serious New Year's drinking! :devil: :Q