TESTING TIMES
Dan’s been showing the Fondeo some love after lockdown… and, of course, he’s bought a couple more Fords too
QUICK SPEC Focus ST-3 ■ Direnza MVT intercooler and hard pipes ■ Gravity sports cat ■ Gravity full exhaust system ■ Peron/AET Motorsport stage one remap ■ Steeda cold air inlet system (CAIS) ■ Turbosmart dump valve ■ Steeda short-shifter ■ H&R 25mm lowering springs ■ H&R 20mm wheel spacers
■ Powerflex Handling Pack ■ Focus RS Brembo callipers ■ EBC USR discs ■ EBC Bluestuff front/Yellowstuff rear pads ■ EBC braided brake lines
■ ST Mk4 19in alloys
A mere 1707 miles. Between two MOTs, that’s the total of what my faithful Fondeo covered. For a daily driver, that’s crazy.
COVID-19, of course, is to blame, and the ST250 found itself trapped during lockdown being used as a guinea pig for exhaust system and alloy radiator development. Surely, then, there was no opportunity for anything to go wrong. Surely it would sail through an MOT.
Well no, as it turned out. The first element of its MOT failure was the emissions test, which is admittedly typical for a car of mine,
but the ST250 is equipped with a Gravity sports cat to avoid any of that nonsense. The MOT examiner suggested the result could be due to leaks from exhaust flanges, which to me sounds counter-intuitive.
Still, the lads at Direnza sent me through a pack of their latest wider and tougher exhaust clamps. So I removed the whole system, glued it all back together with Tiger Seal and secured it with new clamps. It passed the emissions test straight away.
Incidentally, I also chopped up the ST250’s standard backbox and slid the tailpipes into place instead of the Gravity system’s twin 5in circular exits. It’s not most people’s idea of
a worthwhile alteration, but gives the car a lower profile for everyday motoring.
The other reason why the Fondeo failed was due to a back door refusing to unlock. This was news to me, but left me with the quandary of how to inspect the lock without being able to open the door.
With the help of a kind American fat guy on YouTube, I was able to remove the door card with even the rear seat in situ, and with no swearing whatsoever – which rapidly came to an end when I discovered the only obvious way to get the door open from within was to smash up the central locking mechanism.
Hammer poised, and after ordering a
replacement from eBay, I instead removed the door card from the opposite side of the car, unclipped the multi-plug from its locking motor, and temporarily extended the wiring to the problematic part. When the door opened on the button, I could then trace the fault to moisture in the loom in the B-pillar.
The car had recently been jet-washed, so I assume such an unusual bath caused the chaos, yet the inner cavities of both back doors were decidedly damp. Having experienced rusty door bottoms in my Mondeo ST220, I decided to give the ST250’s doors a thorough coating of Waxoyl. Hopefully it will hold the tinworm at bay.
While the doors were apart, I took the opportunity to re-glue the seals underneath with contact adhesive (flappy seals are a standard Focus feature) and lubricate a sticky door edge protector. They’re mechanically operated, and lathering in silicone spray seemed to help, but the real solution came from adjusting the cable in its clips within the door cavity, and wrapping it in electrical tape to stop it from coming free.
The car seemed to be fully cured until summer suddenly arrived, and the climate control swapped from the sensation of sitting in an Arctic breeze to having a warm dog panting in your face. My mate, Chris, tested the air conditioning’s pressure to be acceptable, but it wasn’t until I booked the car in at Halfords for a diagnostic check that I discovered that whoever had re-gassed it after swapping the radiator had installed a mere 110g – instead of the 530g that’s in there now, with no leaks and a return to full refrigeration. That was £50 well spent.
Talking of spending money, I realised this month that it had been absolutely ages since I bought a car, so I collected a couple more sporty Fords to add to the fleet. The first is a black ’90-spec XR3i, which needs a fair bit of restoration and will eventually have something sexier than a CVH under the bonnet; the second is a very tidy little SportKa SE in Magnum Grey, with 50k on the clock. Yes, it’s failed the MOT on rust near a suspension mount (chassis rot is a standard Ka feature), but it’s literally a hole the size of a 5p coin, and even an in-depth dig at the rest of the floorpan has failed to reveal any more rot.
So it’s back to the MOT bay we go…