Mondeo ST24: water pump replacement

My car has now hit 157,000 miles. It's also 19 years old and the bodywork has seen better days. The car still goes well but from time to time certain age/wear related problems arise. Last week I returned to my car to discover a puddle of water on the floor under the front bumper. Last time I had something like that, the bottom connector on the radiator had cracked. That was last summer and the remedy was to fit a new radiator, which I did, last October. Seeing this puddle reminded me of that, and filled me with dread; could my new radiator have sprung a leak?

I happened to have a two litre bottle of water in the car. I used that to brim the expansion tank and then drove home. Once I'd pulled up, I jumped out and look underneath at the front. I could see a trickle of water dropping down from behind the engine under-guard. This was a relief because it meant the leak could not possibly be coming from the radiator. On the other hand, what was leaking? I popped the bonnet and had a look around. I could see drips on the bottom edge of the water pump. This was interesting because I had fitted that water pump as a precautionary measure when I first bought the car about 5 years ago. As the car has done about 55,000 miles since then, I was planning on replacing the pump and already had a shiny new one in my spares pile. That night I swapped the pump for the new one and started the car up, hopeful that the leak would be sorted. Here are some pics I took:

Alas, it was not to be - the leak was still there but I could now see, with the aid of a torch in the dark, that the leak was coming from the water pump housing. And that revelation led me to this discussion on the TalkFord website:

V6 Water Pumps

I therefore reviewed the pictures I had taken. The first one, which appears above and which I took by holding my phone down into the space next to the pump, shows clear damage in the housing. I could have saved myself some time by actually having a look at the pictures I had taken...

So, the next day I removed the (new) water pump together with the housing, and split them apart. Now, removing the pump/housing from the car is technically straightforward. I removed the air filter box and the battery to make some room, and the belt, and that just left three 8mm bolts and three spring clips (on the hoses attached to the housing) to remove. The bolts were easy enough (they have to come out when replacing the water pump, anyway). The hoses and clips on my car are, I think, original. They were a total bastard to remove and it took me about an hour to do all three. My hands are still sore from the experience. Anyway, with the housing off the car and the pump removed, I was presented with this:

I'd noticed that shiny disc was in the wrong place when I changed the pump the night before but I didn't think it was significant. But having since seen the posts on TalkFord, I now knew that the disc was in the wrong place and was likely to be the cause of the leak in the housing. I removed the disc and turned the housing over, looking for some sort of hole. This is what I found:

So, the shiny disc had worn a tiny hole in the housing. The next question was what to do about it? A bit of research showed that some manufacturers sell new pumps that are supplied with new housings. The most frequent "hit" in my searches was the Dolz F149CT for £60 - £100 depending on the seller. I also found the the complete unit could still be bought from Ford. To be honest though, I wanted to sort this for zero expense. I don't know how much longer the car is going to last and I don't want to be spending money on it. So, I cracked open a tube of JB Weld High Heat Epoxy Putty that I happened to just have. The packet says that it is good for cracked engine blocks so I figured it could handle a bit of hot water, like that which would be found in a water pump housing. This is my repair:

I used the putty to re-fix the shiny disc to the housing, and also fill the groove made by the disc when it was loose. For good measure, I put a big dollop on the outside of the housing. I waited a few hours before reassembling everything (the putty hardens in less than an hour but needs 8 hours to fully cure). I refilled the system on my car and then ran the engine up to temperature. No leak ;). I've done about 150 miles since then and all seems well.

More soon, no doubt...


D

Mondeo ST24: front wishbones. Again...

In a previous post I said a bit about the new wishbones I was fitting to my car. The wishbones came from an autofactor selling on ebay and were a steal at £41 the pair (delivered).

That was last October.

Here we are today, just over nine months and 9000 miles later, and I've been at it again. The ebay wishbones turned out to be utter shit. For the last month or so I've been grappling with a tram-lining car that's been swaying left or right and bumping and clunking along. Initially I discounted the wishbones even though the symptoms were classic knackered wishbones. However, on closer inspection when I was fitting new brake pipes last week, I could see that the bushes on both sides were extremely perished. The rear bush on the left-hand side was starting to fall apart and I could wobble the mounting with my fingers. On removal, both ball joints were clearly also shagged. In fact, I'd say that they were in a worse state than the ones I took off last October (which were four years old and had done 40,000 miles...). Not much of a bargain after all. There are some pics for your enjoyment, below.

This time I've fitted a proper make that came from Germany. Cheaper than Ford's own, but hopefully will last a bit longer than the junk off ebay. One 'plus' about doing the job again so soon is that it was an absolute piece of piss to do. And my car feels great to drive. Again.

More soon, no doubt...

D

Ford Mondeo ST24: fuel pump replacement

In an earlier post I lamented the absence of my car's towing-eye bolt or, more precisely, that I only discovered the bolt was missing when I actually needed a tow. The tow was necessary because my car's fuel pump had completely packed up, leaving me stranded. So, today I fitted a new pump. This post isn't intended to be a step-by-step guide but instead concentrates on the seemingly tricky task of disconnecting the fuel lines from the pump/sender unit module. It was apparent from a bit of research into this task that disconnecting the fuel lines was a most problematic matter. However I also found this video on YouTube which turned out to be the most helpful thing I've seen this year. Thank you, DJ Daniel! Now that I understood the principle, I had to adapt it seeing as there was only me available and three hands are required for the task. The photos below show how I used an 8mm spanner to precisely the same effect. Fuel lines came out a piece of piss. For me, the trickiest part was removing the old pump from the sender unit. Still, the whole job only took me about an hour and my big old turd of a car lives to see another day.

For the record, I got the replacement pump off ebay. It's a Magneti Marelli MAM00037 and cost me £28. The pump in the pictures below is the old pump.

More soon, no doubt....

D

Ford Mondeo ST24: towing conundrum

My car broke down the other day. The fuel pump has packed up. Weather permitting, I'll be fitting a new one over the weekend and no doubt there'll be some pics of that on this blog at some point. Anyway, the breakdown meant I needed a tow home. And since there was, to my horror, no towing eye bolt to be found in my car, I had to borrow one. Since ST24's are a bit thin on the ground, I was looking for a bolt from any MK2 Mondeo. I couldn't find one, but my brother did manage to cadge the two bolts in the picture below. The black one is from a 58 plate Fiesta. The other is from some sort of Vauxhall. Turns out that both fit the ST24. Just sayin' :)

More soon, no doubt....

D

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