It's an Independence Day Miracle

"notsomethingstructural" (notsomethingstructural)
07/05/2017 at 01:40 • Filed to: None

I woke up this morning, on America’s birthday, and said to myself “if this damn country loves me 1/10th of how much I love it, then it will fix this wretched Ford today.”

Just a brief recap of what’s happened with this Focus. The car was in rough shape and I decided fixing everything would get me pretty close to something better. So I bought an RX-8. And as I avoid wrenching on my primary car, I kept the Focus around as a rehab project. Since then:

The struts blew, causing the rear O2 sensor to slam into the subframe and short the entire system. MIL comes on.

The front passenger strut took about 8-10 hours to put in, because the strut body and the knuckle was an interference fit. It eventually seated after I jacked it up by the control arm and hit it with a mallet a good 300 times after hammering a screwdriver in the pinch bolt slot.

The front driver strut had the pinch bolt badly stripped by the previous owner. After heating it with MAP gas and using a reverse-fluted socket, it still wouldn’t budge, and went to the shop.

The front O2 was replaced. The rear O2 was so badly bent from hitting the subframe it also went to the shop, since a low-profile crowfoot couldn’t grab it.

The MIL remains on.

The fuse for the O2 heaters had blown due to the short. Replace fuse. MIL remains on.

O2 sensor heaters are not getting voltage. After backprobing 4-5 connectors, give up on fixing the harness correctly, and splice in a new wire.

MIL remains on. More on that in a minute.

Oh, the car was leaking oil. Valve cover gasket. Take apart valve cover. Find previous owner broke two bolts in the head. Perfect.

Fracture is so jagged a reverse-fluted EZ-Out can’t grab it. Gonna have to get drilled. Bring it to the shop for that, since I’m not drilling steel bolts out of a very-hard-to-find aluminum head in my driveway.

Still leaking oil. Take it in for an undercarriage hand wash so we can source the leak.

Did you guess? IT’S STILL THE VALVE COVER!

Actually, the shop gets it taken apart, and finds it’s actually the VCT solenoid bolted into the valve cover has broken in half. Naturally, this was an SVT specific part, with no aftermarket replacement made. OEM is over $600. By some miracle, there is a used one available on the forums, only the second in the last couple years.

Oh, shit, that fixed the oil leak. Pull MIL codes. Rear O2 sensor, rear O2 sensor heater, knock sensor. Great, a new thing to fix.

Find that there is not a conclusive opinion on what the rear O2 sensor for the SVT is. Buy the other one. Plan on fixing the O2 sensor.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Wake up this morning, on America’s birthday, a literal year after buying the RX-8, and say to myself “if this damn country loves me 1/10th of how much I love it, then it will fix this wretched Ford today.” Drive it to the mechanic, with the second O2 sensor in hand, pull it into the garage and park it. While waiting for the tech, do a walk-around in the engine bay. Check fuses and wiring.

Find a shattered clip on a weatherpack. Zip tie it together. Flash ECU. Start car. Shut off car. Start car.

MIL is off.

DISCUSSION (7)

deprecated account > notsomethingstructural
07/05/2017 at 02:00

:( Hope you get everything worked out

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > notsomethingstructural
07/05/2017 at 08:14

Had one of those for ten years. I miss everything about it, except for how high-maintenance they are and especially how impossible it was to get parts.

But damn if a properly sorted SVT Focus is wonderful to drive on a winding road.

notsomethingstructural > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
07/05/2017 at 09:38

Yeah, I want to sell it but if I can’t get a good price it’s a pretty awesome beater to keep around.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > notsomethingstructural
07/05/2017 at 11:02

At this point, you’re better off keeping it.

I only got $2,800 for mine, which was in a little better shape than yours from the sound of it, and I also had the roof rack, full poly bushings kit, and SVT Contour wheels with winter tires on them included in that price.

notsomethingstructural > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
07/05/2017 at 12:44

I’ve wanted to see how bad of a decision all of this has been so this is finally a good time for me to do the math on this. This is more for me than it is for you. Sorry.

I figured with the struts (which I already purchased) in the back of the SVT, I could get about $1800 for it. It also needed (keep in mind, I would do none of this myself if it’s my only car): strut installation ($250), the valve cover gasket ($225), the O2 sensors ($250 installed), a new A/C compressor ($450 installed and charged). So, total commitment of $3000-3200 net if I kept it. The RX-8 was $4200, I asked myself: is this worth $1000 to upgrade? (Uh, yes), and so I bought the RX-8.

Had I endeavored on this road, I would have found the wiring problem ($300) and the VCT solenoid ($225) plus the undercarriage wash ($70) which would have brought the commitment to more like $3600-3800 or as little as $400 for the upgrade to the RX-8. Add in the paint work that would have been needed at this point (below) and it’s a virtual wash - again, assuming I could have gotten $1800 for it on day one.

Anyways, after fixing the struts (only $150 since I did one), I would have let it go for $2k with the oil leak and the MIL on. Good SVT examples in NYC were listed $3000-3500, so only so much I could leave on the table. It had some interest but didn’t sell. At that point, took on the gasket/solenoid/undercarriage wash ($475), the front O2 ($35 in parts only), and the rear O2 ($100 P&L). So we’re at $600, meaning if I can get $2600 then fixing it was definitely a good idea.

There’s also some paint work that’s needed since someone backed into it and cracked the impossible-to-find SVT bumper, and the hood has some rust that’s been rapidly spreading. I’m guessing it’ll be $500 for that. I wouldn’t typically pay for body work on a car I’m selling, but I’m very strongly considering a full respray on the RX-8 and want to try this guy out. So it would move the needle to $3100 to net out to even with a $2k starting point.

So, overall, if I can get $3k for the fully repaired Focus including body work (not impossible) then all this is about even with where I assumed I started when getting the Mazda, and I didn’t totally take a bath on fixing everything. The only major loss is the $600-700 in insurance, which is on me for dragging my feet. So working backwards, between insurance, fixing mechanical, and fixing body, I need to have added about $1800 in value to it from when it was a real shit heap. Meaning, if I could get $3k now, I’d be up if I took $1300 on a car with no struts no O2's no AC and no oil last year.

Well there’s my answer I shoulda done that.

And to answer your question, if I can’t get close to $2800-3k, I will probably end up keeping it.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > notsomethingstructural
07/05/2017 at 12:53

How long since the timing assembly was done? 5 years or 80k is the real-world schedule for those components. The Ford service manual uses the non-SVT engine interval and it is wrong; far too many of these have fallen as a result of waiting to do the timing.

notsomethingstructural > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
07/05/2017 at 12:56

yeah maybe i should sell it