Mondeo ST24 - broken driver's seat

Just a quick one before I go and take my dishwasher apart again.

The frame for the back rest in my driver's seat had snapped on me. Clearly a previous owner had had the same problem, because the frame had already been (poorly) welded once. My MOT guy was concerned about the state of my seat and so I borrowed my brother and his welder and re-welded the frame. The repair lasted about five minutes. So, since there appear to be no ST24 driver's seats left, I obtained one from a MK1 Mondeo LX to use as a replacement. I have two things to say about that. First, the MK1 seat has an identical footprint to the MK2 seat, and so fits straight in. However, the MK1 seat I'd bought had no pre-tensioners. Using the whole seat would have given me an airbag warning fault on the dashboard. I therefore kept the ST24 seat base, and simply fitted the MK1 seat back. The seat back is removed from the base by undoing the four T50 size torx bolts. I now have this weird looking (but safe) hybrid seat.

ST24 hybrid seat

It is also apparent that the ST24 seat back frame is identical to the frame used in the MK1 LX (and so probably any MK1). At some point in the future I'll be stripping all the gubbins off the broken ST24 seat back and installing them on the MK1 frame.

More soon, no doubt...

D

Mondeo ST24 - MOT work: Part Three

Well, I'm all done with this. On Tuesday I replaced the rear brake caliper whilst my brother very kindly spent his one day of the week off, lying in the dirt, welding my poor old car.

The brake caliper change was straight forward. Before starting I checked that the handbrake was operational - it was - and that the problem really was with the old caliper - it was (the little cam inside ratchet arm thing had worn away. There was also a lot of rust inside the back of the caliper which probably wasn't helping). Since we were pressed for time I didn't bother unhooking the brake cable from the equalizer bar behind the handbrake and instead simply cut the ratchet arm thing off the caliper using an angle grinder. Good job my new caliper wasn't bought on an exchange basis.... I put new pads on at the same time, then bled the system with an eezee bleed kit. All done, save that I still have to re-attach the handbrake cable.

As far as the welding goes, this went from needing a couple of small patches to needing some large plates. The rear quarter / third of the sill on each side was rotten. You can see from the photos what we had to cut out. On reflection, it might have been better to put new sills on (along with new rear arches), but limited time and funds precluded that course of action. It might be requirement next year though (if the old beast is still running). Once again, I can't be arsed doing a running commentary and instead simply attach some photos of our progress. I should add that the sills are completely covered by the car's body kit so there was no need for a beautiful finish on the welding. Bearing in mind what he was having to work with, my brother has done a damn fine job.

So, for the time being that's pretty much it for my car. I can now drive to a hardware store for some skinny jubilee clips so I can sort my fecking dishwasher...

More soon, without a doubt.

D.

Mondeo ST24 - MOT work: Part Two

Well, today I fitted the new wishbones. I'm not going to do a step by step guide because

• one already exists on TalkFord; and
• I am absolutely shattered

I will make a couple of observations though. I did the right-hand side first. Now, since my car has an annoying habit of slackening-off the oil filter with the result that the whole right-hand underside of the car has a constant and liberal coating of oil, it took about 10 minutes to get the old wishbone off. Putting the new one on took a bit longer, and having bolted everything up I noticed that a bearing from the CV joint had come dislodged at some point (meaning I had to pop the ball joint out, pull the CV shaft and boot back and re-site the bearing). Nonetheless, I was quite pleased with my progress.

As far as the left-hand side goes, everything was very dry and difficult to remove. The bolt through the bush under the gearbox (which was, helpfully, in upside down) took the best part of 20 minutes to remove - I had to use my breaker-bar for the whole process, a quarter turn at a time. I cannot believe how tight it was, or that the bolt itself did not snap. Fitting the new wishbone was also difficult. I think the whoever did the job previously must have over-tightened everything because the "slots" were just too small to take the new part. After a lot of dicking about I managed to open them up a bit. Once I'd done that the new wishbone was on and bolted up in about 5 minutes.

The hard work was worth it though - the car feels absolutely fantastic now. It's strange how things go off so slowly that it is hardly noticeable. And then when the new parts go on, it is so apparent how bad the old ones were. I did take a few pics, mainly for comparison purposes. The old wishbones really were shot - the bushes were perished and soft. The ball joints were totally slack. They have been on a while though - they were new when I bought the car four years and 40,000 miles ago....

On Tuesday I'll be fitting new rear discs and pads, and the new caliper.

More soon!

D

Mondeo ST24 - MOT work: Part One

My ST24 Mondeo failed its MOT last week. Nothing major - it needs front wishbones, a rear brake caliper and the driver's seat needs sorting. I'm not sure what's wrong with seat but I plan on sorting all the jobs out over the weekend, ready for the re-test next week. I'll take a few photos whilst I'm doing the work in case anyone is interested. In the meantime, I thought I'd post a few pictures of the new (reconditioned) caliper. I got this from an auto-factor on ebay and it cost me £60 including delivery, which seems to be a good price. I've also got new rear discs and pads to go on. I'd bought these to fit last year but couldn't get the caliper retaining bracket off. This time I've got some better tools and am hopeful I can complete the job :)

More soon, no doubt :)

D