1989 Ford Sierra Sedan - The Grandad Car

Ill remember that, all though nothing will be happening before i get a new filter ordered



The modern stereo i have is not the worst in the world, it fits in the car quite decent when talking about the design. It has some nice features like MP3, SD Card, USB, AUX out, it even got a built in dvd/movie player. It was quite the bargain when i got it, still is xD

But the only bad thing about it, and i think alot of modern players suffer from this problem. It completely blinds me when I'm driving at night. I just don't know why they would put such bright lights in it.
but ofc we all know that bright blue light makes a car go way faster !! so maybe thats why it got them ^^

I am how ever starting to get a little bit old now, i don't lie down anymore when i drive, even had to turn down the base of the stereo because it became too much. And now i want to be able to see at night whilst i drive around and listen to music too xD

So i had the stereo my grandad had in it when he had the car, a nice old pioneer KE-4900.



The only problem was that it couldnt be hooked up to my amp and also i must have misplaced the weird 7 pin connector so it was going to be a little difficult getting it plugged back in xD

To my luck google came to my rescue with a manual ind pdf form, which meant i could now see which of the 7 pins did what and therefor hook the stereo back up, only with a little mod this time



So i ordered a cheapish High to Low pass filter off a commonly known auction site along with some 3/1.5 mm schrink flex and got ready to play with the electricks

Cheapish High to Low pass filter:



This was a real pain to solder...



All soldered, flexed and labeled up



Hooked up to my "testbench" to see if it actually worked. Had some fun using a PSU to power it.



And now i can drive around happily at night looking at this and not get blinded anymore




Sound quality is good considering its a little frankenstein and the car don't have any external antenna ^^ but I'm quite happy re-uniting the car with its old friend xD

For the last 2-3 weeks its been raining almost daily, weather reports have predicted the first sub zero temperature nights within the next week.

This means that winter time is here, soon there will be ice and snow on the roads and to make it more safe to travel in "the great big outside" they are going to spread SALT everywhere. and thats definetly something thats killed quite alot of cars over the time... why they don't use sand is something i will never understand.

At this point I'm convinced its a big goverment scheme, because if cars die faster people have to buy more of them which means more money in car tax...

I cant prove anything, but atleast i can get my own car away from all the winter horrors, tucked somewhat safely away back in my brothers garage where it will slumber until its time to wake up once again !

Tucked away, late november with 120.000 km`s on the clock. I miss it already...




Also got new disc`s and pads up front trying to get rid of the incredebly anoying brake shakes ^^

Didnt Work, maybe some diffrent bushes could cure it, also read somewhere it could be the hubs...

Lovely car, well done on bringing it to its current condition.

As for the 'brake shake' look at the track control arm bushings first. I was a Ford mechanic when the sierra first came out (dating myself now) and this was a common cause. Easy job for a man of your talents.

P.

So the hunt for the shakes is on

I'm starting with the light stuff since I'm waiting for some new parts... easy stuff that has to be done anyways like cleaning stuff up just to check

before:



after:


not a big deal bus it has to be done so i can be sure thats not the cause.. had a good lock arround and some of the bushings are looking a bit worn.. even the ones i changed for its mot 18 months ago a looking a bit ruff... also this doesnt look all that good. but i got new one one the way 8)



and lastly i had to rule out the wheels, so out came the original steels !


which i had to fit hubcaps on just because


it still got the shakes though, but its far better without those agresive wheels and tyre sizes. also its quite comfy now i got some sidewall again xD

the hunt must go on !

spot on !

although i suspect more than that has to be changed...

Thankfully this is a long weekend with the holidays and all that stuff.

This meant i finally had some time to spend on the car ! so i bid the bullit and spend a whole day shining it up, it seems to me that the list of stuff to do just keeps growing

On the first day i finally got arround to doing some of the more boring stuff.

- Leather seats got greased up (with leather grease xD) somthing i now have to do every once in a while to keep the soft and stuff.
- Car got waxed up good, removing little weird hard to wash of dirt and leving a nice protective coating.
- Got all arround to clealing up all the little places like the sunroof, between doors and such.
- Washed and vacum cleaned all of the car in and out
- oiled up the door hinges...
- Got the number plates back on straigt since i was doing the car up anyways.

Basicly alot of stuff ^^

Today however i could get on with the fun stuff, The brake shakes xD

these have been driving me crazy... and have been taking all the joy out of a good drive...

To get rid of this i got some new discs and pads as i suspected the old stuff was already broken even though it was hardly worn. last time i swapped to new disc i also cured the shakes but they got back after a couple of thousand kilometers

I took a more carefull approach under this project and as such (and as mentioned in an earlier post) i cleaned up the hubs and mounted the original wheels. this was only steep one just to see what diffrence it would be making.

This time arround i sanded with sandpaper ^^ (as oposed to using just a drill and a brush) and whiped off the hub surfaces with some high % alcohol solution (no snaps here ) to be sure they were proper clean, a good idead as i took out a few more rust spots which would have raised the disc uneven on the hub when it was all bolted up again.

Result:


Next the tca was up, i knew one of the ball joints? was knackered as it looked all sad and flat.. and i had a few doubts about a few of the other bushes. So i had a pair of newly ordered TCA`s to swap with complete with bushes and all that stuff.

old and new side by side:


and all finished:


lastly i had a few small brake bits i swapped for some new stuff, some sort of spring dunno the name, and also all bolts were grease up good using copper grease.

Hopefully this will be the last chapter in my hunt for the brake shakes !


There is a few things i would have liked done a little diffrent, stuff like actually having the discs measured for warpedness and maybe turned down. in order to get them straigh again. also just swapping all the bushes on the old TCA`s and reusing them instead of just swapping stuff with new and throwing away some almost new parts..

I do however, just not have the tools for it myself... and i have no friends with the right gear for the job either.. this means i would have to have it done at a garage.. and around here they're expensive... very expensive

actually the price of all these parts i just fitted would be costing the same as having a mechanic working for 2 hours... I'm too greedy for that lols its really a shame that its simply cheaper to buy new stuff rather than repairing old parts.. but i guess thats a trend we see more and more these days.

for now though the car stopped shaking. i guess i will really know in a few thousand kilometers...

Thanks, the time it took was just stupid crazy... and the bether half was mighty tired of having all those parts inside for the duration


Anyways... looks like i have a little too much time in my hands... a while back i bought a spare rocker cover.. was quite nasty, but in the end i got i cleaned up good.. had it laying arround for a bit until i got bored and had to do something !



something stupid lols



Cleaned up, gave the surface a go with some sand paper and bought meself some rattle cans..

ready to go:


First coat using some weird effekt paint:



Second coat:


and then the stupid coat:


I'm still not sure what i think about my own handywork

Prettyfied the fan schroud and fans ^^

Back in winther hibernation @ 124.448 KM

Crappy cellphone shot:



Previus owner is now dead...