majorj0nny

not really sure what Im going to do with this but I will put it out there t see what kind of interest I get. My faithful Mk6 Escort gti has finally bitten the bullet - took her for the dreaded anual MOT and failed on pretty much all chassis rust, not having escorts effected by rust before I decided there and then I wasnt going to bother getting this through the MOT , and have since bought a new car. the escort is now SORN and sitting on my drive... its always been a tiday motor i always thought, with only some slight rust bubbles starting to show at the bottom of doors and around the back arches .... under the car seems to have been a different story. Im not really sure if its worth trying to sell an untaed/uninsured car whole, of stripping it of anything 'sellable' and scrapping the left overs for the weight of the metal? skirts are genuine and undamaged, leather seats are quite clean, alloys are almost perfect (no curbing) , various extras like strut braces and lowers springs, powder coated rocker cover, new clutch bout a month ago. please note - this car is SORN, so cannot be driven/road tested/delivered or met anyone half way ,etc.. so offers .. questions etc ? please feel free to reply here of PM me... ps - go check my profile for pics, I will post more if I get any interest. thanks, ps - stoke on trent , staffordshire area by the way

thanks for the advise all - I fixed this a while back but thought Id share the eventual solution incase anyone else happens to experience the same thing. the ABS light thing turned out to be electrical contacts on the ABS switch wiring from one of the wheels ... ie - oxidised wire plug contacts ... scraping the contacts clean with a little screwdriver and repeadedly joining and disconnecting the plug on the wire seemed to rectify that. as for the engine start problems, it got to the point where the car was very difficult to start and almost had me reaching for a tow a few times! anyway - after contemplating trying starte motor swaps, battery problems, etc ... we noticed when we tried to start the engine, with headlights on , the headlights were not always dimming as you would expect ... (ie - battery drain) .. like the start motor wasnt pulling enough or consistant electric? with one of us starting the car, the other person scratching their head looking in the engine bay - we noticed when we were starting the engine sometimes where was something glowing up near the battery? one of the contacts on the large fuses infront of the battery was loose - not sparking, but glowing, the loose contact seemed to have gone all rusty/oxidised? so I sanded it all clean and tightened it up very tight - neve had the problem since.

yo all! right about a month ago I got round to replacing the clutch on my mk6 gti, (nightmare job - but eventually got there). a few weeks later I started having very intermittent problems with starting.. it didnt seem like a battery drain problem as electrics worked fine, but perhaps starter motor ? when I turn the key Im getting very fast ticking, this happened for a day or 2 on and off then seemed fine for a few weeks .. occassionally it had a little trouble starting but largely the problem went away. Id even put the problem down to after it had been raining, or when it was hot and damn, or even if Id used my electric windows right before I turn the engine off.. this weekend its been bad again - even needing to jump start it on one occassion. also (dunno if its related) my dash ABS light has been coming on randomly ... sometimes flickering, sometimes stay on for a few seconds, whenever I press my brakes it goes off again . that 'seems' be be vibration based somehow, as its turning on so randomly. what does the ABS light on the dash indicate ? an ABS fault or just that ABS is triggering ? Ive just fiddled with the electrical cable on the passenger side front to the ABS sensor to see if I upset anything perhaps when arsing about with the clutch. so will see if thats made a difference. the starting thing though it getting a pain in the arse.

om my mk6 escort i have an oil leak, ive tracked it down to some electrical sensor about an inch or 2 to the left of the oil filter , what is this if i go to get a new one ?

it never gets serviced really ... well - I obviously put oil, oil filter, etc when it needs it etc etc .. vacume leak of some kind is the only thing I could find similar on here ?

not sure if 'over idle' is the correct term, for occassionally my car, usually if Im travelling at a set speed along a stright road (ie holding the same speed for some time), will suddenly jerk like its suddenly loosing engine speed - this happens for like a second ... almost like Im changing down a gear (like engine breaking) but for a second. anyway - also - sometimes (not always),. coming up to a slow down or stop the revs are too high and aint reducing as you would expect... sometimes it takes several seconds for em to finally drop to 'idle' degrees. the car starts fine, idles cold and hot calm and relaxed. its just sometimes after driving and coming to a stop. Ive heard mention of a vaccum leak - could this me more likely?

just spotted these - http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i73/rs2kupnorth/Mk5adjarm-1.jpg http://www.area-six.co.uk/Adjustable%20Cam...sion%20Arms.htm ok - scratch that Idea untill i rob a bank.. i'll put the old springs back on when I have the chance.

Ok new lower arms fitter - also new pinch bolts (as they things were rusted to death) I did get a set of new track rod ends but didnt need em in the end as the ones on it seemed fine still (so I might as well save em). so there is no easy method of altering the camber on a lowered escort other than to start buying special lower arms then? should I still get the tracking done? how do I know if it needs it ? tbh the car has been sitting on these lower springs for a few years now and ive not had any considerably different tyre wear till the past few months. I do still have the original springs though and if I start getting these issues regularly then I will have to go back.

lowered 40mm on Spaxx springs - which I wondered if it was a factor - I never had its tracking done after this , but tbh - I lowered it ages ago and it took ages till the front tyres first showed inner wear a few months back ... then the time it took to ruin the next set of tyres was only a few months.. but I am thinking its probably the best bet to go back to standard springs do i need to return to standard spings or just get tracking/camber sorted properly this time (at all unlike last time?) do I also need replace the pinch bolts for the lower arms ? yeah -- lower arms ... everyone seems to call em wishbones and know what ya on bout. well I have noticed some symptoms, for a while now, but with it being lowered and hence a rougher ride, and coupled with the fact that driving round on stoke-on-trent roads is like going cross country, its been difficult to think its something wrong. what has got my attention in the last few weeks is general front end instability (the occasional mini-slide) when going round corners, occasional one off clunk from the front end (again its difficult not to assume this is a bad roads) , and some times... rarely , the front end rocks out slightly when accelerating ... all got me driving very carefully, round round corners like a pentioner, and, with the frequency of the problems increasing over the past few days, got me thinking somethings proper wrong.

Are these called lower suspension arms rather than wishbones ? how much do these cost and do the include the relevant bushes ?

a few months back i noticed my front tyres inner edge was bald ... very bald -like down to the metal bald - i promptly got 2 new front tyres and thought nothing more of it. for a while now ive noticed 'odd' behaviour, the front end feels unstable, like its slipping about easily when going round corners - as a result i been driving very carefully round corners for fear of skidding... today i checked my tyres - and again the inner edge of the tyre was shredded very baddly on both sides. i even cut my fingers sliding em over the worn edge as the metal mesh in the tyre was all worn off and sticking through... 2 more tyres , and this time asked for the tracking to be done. the guy said it wasnt the tracking - my wishbones are f ucked (was his words) said he could see from the front that the wheels that they aint straight - they stick out t the bottom.. he also showed me the movement if he rocked the wheel - passenger side was worse - but slightly on the drivers side too. anyway - does this sound feasable ? also - what will i need get to fix this ? and how much (parts only) should I be expecting to pay ?

what a pain in the arse! been driving about all morning, pulled into a token accessed multistorey car park - drove to the top floor and JUST as i pulled into a space I hear a clattering noise that got more and more clunky till a sudden clang resulted in the drive wheels no longer driving. now - i knew full well what this was, as for about a week Ive kinda expected this to happen, About a week or 2 ago I took the car for the dreaded MOT, checking around one of my outer cv boots were cracked and leaking greese. So off I trotted to get a replacement, then me and my father-in-law set about replacing this, Looking in the Haynes its mentioning to remove the shaft from Hub, I had to release a circlip and then slide the shaft out ... my father-in-law said there wasnt one on and they had to be 'knocked' out usually.. so we set about 'knocking' the hub off, which took some considerable effort - finally 'twating' this off with a sledge hammer and seeing shards of metal all over the place - to me it was obvious that we broke the housing of the cv joint (bearing) where the circlip clips in... obviously then this wouldnt go back together as it should, well - it slotted in but nothing was stopping it sliding in and out, .... anyway - put it all back together, went for an MOT and passed with no advisories - so I kinda forgot about the cv joint and assumed it was ok since it had been alright for a few weeks since the work... so anyway - now its obvious I need to replace that CV bearing, cause just pushing it back in place will mean at some point its gonna just pop out again. do they sell just the bearing, or do I have to buy the whole CV joint ? or even the whole joint and attached shaft too? if so - how much and where from ? all this arsing about to replace a stupid bit of rubber ! ffs - why dont they create a boot rubber that can wrap around and fasten instead of you having to dismantle most ya suspesion and drive shaft to change this?? I suppose it dont help when people take hammers to things before reading the instructions ... DOH! lol

I dont quite know how to describe this, but ive noticed a slight lack of speed if Im cruising along in like 4th or 5th ... its more noticable when Im going fast, and has a jerking effect... someones one 1 second jerk.... at other times It can be a couple of jerks together. its like power is dropping for a second , but I dunno if its the engine, the revs dont alter it seems... and the car ticks over fine... Im wondering if it could be by clutch? like its loosing grip of something .. ?

for info , here is the pics I did of these as I was making them.. http://www.escortevolution.co.uk/forums/in...st&p=836169 the silver plastic part inside I sprayed a matt black all over, while the actual headlight reflector is mirror silver as normal, the indicator reflector (being part of the plastic trim in the light , is all black. the lightening someone mentioned on the original pic is the indicator clear plastic lens. I sprayed the outse plastic black and laquered it to better match my engine bay than the usual grey/cream plastic. the lights are still in good condition, I glued the glass in with black silicone. there is some water staining to the outside painted plastic, but with some back to black or similar polish this will probably vanish.

sorry - not been back since I originally posted this ... I will get some closeups done now they off the car. watch this space.