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Fatttty's Ford Racing Puma #401 | Ford content... Front running gear refurb


fatttty
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Did a bit more work last night on the Puma. Got everything tightened up, put the front wheels back on and had a little drive down the street all seems ok but will only really know after a good drive to check for any knocks or bangs.

For now the car is back in one piece and back on all four wheels :)

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I left the front arch liners off the car as they were really dirty and grubby, sprayed them with Megs APC and jet washed them. The dirt that came out was unreal! Left them to dry on the washing line for the next few days before I refit them.

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Thats it for today but more to come.

Alex

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Little update, fitted the front suspension, all seems nice and tight so no problems.

Plated suspension tops look nice, shame they get hidden by the plastic top mount covers-

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Also another little job I had been meaning to do, new plated bonnet hinge bolts and washers-

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More to come, Alex

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Lol man ur attention to detail is immense! Looking brilliant as always

Cheers Chris! Got lots to do in the next few weeks so will have plenty of new updates

Alex

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  • 2 weeks later...

Firstly, a big thanks for 12yan for al lhis help this week / weekend. I couldn't have got my car finished let alone looking as good as it did!

Been a busy couple of weeks with the build up to Wax Stock. I made the clever / stupid decision to get my front brakes changed and have my Alcon callipers refurbished.

I dropped the car off at a fellow Racing Puma owners house (he's well known within the club for refurbing the brakes). As luck would have it they gave him plenty of greif and delayed things quite a bit.

Ended up picking the car up on Wednesday evening (the week of Wax Stock) so I didn't have a huge amount of time to get her ready.

Had two very late nights and managed to get in about 8 hours of machine work on the paint and had to leave most of the plastics, wheels and interior until the Saturday morning when we arrived in Peterborough.

My new brakes, I opted for Hi-Spec bell and rotor front discs over the Alcon originals, Alcon discs are £200 each whereas the rotors for the Hi-Spec's are about £65+VAT so a bargain in comparison and IMO they look better too.

The Alcon callipers were stripped, bead blasted and painted. I also had new stainless steel bolts fitted, Textar front pads and new bridge pipe and bleed nipples.

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I'm really pleased with them :)

Fitted a couple of new bits whilst prepping for Wax Stock.

New vs. Old bonnet catch-

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New vs. old washer jets-

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New line brackets (I had to buy full new standard puma lines just to get the brackets as they aren't sold seperately lol)-

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And finally changed all the sump bolts to plated ones-

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More to come once I've sorted through my Wax Stock photos.

Alex

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The attention to detail is once again, incredible!

:wub:

Cheers dude :)

Some photos of my car from Wax Stock 2013, I made it into the elite Top 16 showdown which was awesome :) Didn't get very many / any good photos though.

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Amazing Alex!

Gutted I couldn't make it, as I said to Ryan I took the miss's away.

Also did you guys use the AF Kit?

Joe

Hey Joe, was ashame you couldn't make it, you would have really enjoyed it. We tried the AF kit but found that my paint seemed to get better results with Megs 101 and the yellow pad. Its wierd cos the Megs 101 is a course cut with gloss but it just gives such goods results even without refining. We did refine the bonnet (I say we, I let Ryan do the bonnet) not sure what he used, I think I was Menzernafinal finish 3000. Car was finished with AF Illusion though ;)

:surprise:

What a stunning job/car you have. a true enthusiast!!

The lupo was amazing but dare i say it, this is gone one better!

Wow thank you! The Lupo was good, this definatley has been taken further in terms of cleaning. I do miss the mods though which I find difficult to do to this car. Keep thinking of carbon for the mirror bases and the little mud flap spats on the year bumper but I can't bring myself to do it. Need replacements so I can switch back and forth.

nice :)

do you do your own electro plating or send it all off?

I don't do my own, I want to buy a kit though soon. For now I use a company across the road from my work. They charge about £5-10 per batch so its very cheap really.

Very nice.

Not heard of Textar brake pads?

I hadn't either, many of the owners use them they are not as harsh the Mintex pads. On my invoice they are shown as Porsche GT3 pads that have been shimmed to fit. I think they shave 0.4mm off them or something so they fit the caliper.

Alex

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WOW!! I perticularly like this shot, looks like its just come out of the showroom and never been driven!

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I think you deserved better than Top 16 tho....

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WOW!! I perticularly like this shot, looks like its just come out of the showroom and never been driven!

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I think you deserved better than Top 16 tho....

Cheers it did look really good at Wax Stock, the competition was fierce though the 3 cars that got 1st, 2nd, 3rd were simply awesome. I hope that I placed 4th but I don't know as I never saw my score sheet.

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Since the rebuild I have had an issue with my ABS light being on. I had a strong feeling it was the rear as I had changed the bearings and had to split the hub / bearing.

I had the car read to find the fault. It came back as the rear PS ABS sensor.

The car had new ABS rear loom so wasn't hte loom itself. I had a feeling it was the tone sensor ring that the senor reads from.

So, with the MoT looming at the end of the month I decided to get on with it. Saturday I removed the calliper, disc, and hub.

Found the tone ring was bent / buckled slightly as I had hoped.

Old vs. new-

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I heat thge new ring with a blow lamp so it expanded slightly and knocked it in place with a piece of hardwood and a copper mallet.

New ring fitted to the hub-

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Fitted it all back together and all sorted. No more light ABS light or annoying groaning when the car does a self test at 15mph.

Happy man :)

Alex

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, so only small updates really but progress all the same. I re-painted the yellow dots on the suspension turrets (for those that don't know the FRP had to have the steering tested lock to lock due to the wider track, once checked they were marked with a paint pen)

So out with the hammerite-

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Also finally replaced by drivers side headlight unit. This had always bugged me from the day I got the car. Th passenger side was a much newer unit and looked lovely and lgossy black, the drivers side was dull and hazy and had cracked where they screw to the slam panel.

I sourced a brand new old stock original Ford Bosch unit on eBay, it wasn't cheap but well worth it! Also this new unit perfectly matches the other one so I now have matching original units with the same stickers and part codes :)

New vs. old-

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Fitted-

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And lastly I was very kindly donated this original Ford CD6000 CD player by another FRP owner. Its in mint condition with no marks or scratches which is quite rare. Apparently its not the original type fitted to the FRP (the volume control should be a knob) but its much netter than the current Pioneer I have fitted.

Cleaned up ready to fit-

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Much much more to come in the next few weeks. I have entered for Concourse at Ford Fair so need to get my finger out and get ready!

Alex

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  • 2 weeks later...

Quick update, been preparing the car ready for concourse at Ford Fair next weekend.

I've always been unhappy with the radiator and air condenser (the fins have bent and started flaking off and it looks a right mess) so I decided to remove the original ones and replace with new items.

So the strip down began. Radiator, air condenser, starter motor, headlights and all coolant pipes were removed so I could give the bay a proper good clean.

Repainted the gearbox casing and the lower section of the engine block. Looking a little sorry for itself but nice and clean :)

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With everything removed I started to strip the wiring looms , over the years the tape wrap had started to wear and the cable covers were discolored and some had over spray from the body work.

Old wiring covers and tape removed-

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And replaced with new fabric tape and new conduit cable covers-

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I have also stripped the starter motor ready for painting and taken another load of bolts to be plated.

Should hopefully be refitting everything on Wednesday evening with any luck :)

Alex

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Just when you think the littlest details have been dealt with, you find something smaller :D top work Alex, this must be going down a storm on the frp scene?

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Just when you think the littlest details have been dealt with, you find something smaller :D top work Alex, this must be going down a storm on the frp scene?

Cheers Joe, yeah its going down really well. A lot of the woners in the club remember my car from a few years ago when it rough as. They like that I have saved it and taken it to an all new level. Apparently its the best best example in the country for cleanliness. How true that is i dont know. I've heard theres one kicking about with 7,000 miles!

As for the details, god! It never ends! I remove one thing to clean it up and the bit behind it or connected to it is dirty, so I take that off and so on!

I've already got a new list to complete this winter!

Alex

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I guess there might be a clean one that has low mileage but the way I see it, this is already looking better than when they left the factory, there will inevitably be some areas that ford skimped with/ overlooked. That's where you come in :D

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I guess there might be a clean one that has low mileage but the way I see it, this is already looking better than when they left the factory, there will inevitably be some areas that ford skimped with/ overlooked. That's where you come in :D

Haha yeah Ford definately scrimped with the FRP. Arch liners are made from two standard Puma ones that have been stapled together, airboxes are cut and plastic welded to a piece of plastic drain pipe, bumpers didnt line up so they used a thin piece of foam on the lips of the wings... all adds the character of the car IMO lol

Alex

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