Bangernomics

[Mickeyspinn]

Best banger for me was a 1977 Chrysler avenger estate...£175 full mot'd one owner 60k miles.
5 years of hell that car had,I lived on a beach at the time and would regularly have to dig it out of a sand dune. Oneday whilst doing that I popped the bonnet to finish removing the sand dune...and the rocker cover pivoted wide open on one bolt!
Sand went straight in all around the valve train!
Founds some bolts nipped em up and got another 2 years out if it
Not one part purchased other than fuel and oil.
Last surf trip it did gearbox was so noisy I wore ear defenders....took two people to change gear aswell
It failed mot spectacular style...drove it to scrap yard and got less than the bus ride home....b@stard thing got payback

 

[grey-beard]

Best banger for me was a 1977 Chrysler avenger estate...£175 full mot'd one owner 60k miles.
5 years of hell that car had,I lived on a beach at the time and would regularly have to dig it out of a sand dune. Oneday whilst doing that I popped the bonnet to finish removing the sand dune...and the rocker cover pivoted wide open on one bolt!
Sand went straight in all around the valve train!
Founds some bolts nipped em up and got another 2 years out if it
Not one part purchased other than fuel and oil.
Last surf trip it did gearbox was so noisy I wore ear defenders....took two people to change gear aswell
It failed mot spectacular style...drove it to scrap yard and got less than the bus ride home....b@stard thing got payback

You just get cooler by the minute.

 

[Mickeyspinn]

You just get cooler by the minute.

Haha!

Made me smile ...

 

[W7Ford]

That's right in the era of the dry joint clocks, keep a couple of hundred quid aside to fix it. Clocks out, sent away, clock's fixed, back in = lots of weird faults cured

There is a part of the workshop we call 'focus corner' for this very reason

There's no need for that, we have a Mk2 Focus that suffered the dreaded array of warning lights, none starting and loss of speedo. 2 screws to remove the cluster, 5mins to carefully dismantle the cluster and then I just put a little flux paste on the pins for the wiring connector and heated each pin with a soldering iron until it was visibly shiny, then cleaned off the paste. All done, less than an hour including reassembly and being a complete amateur. No waiting for clusters to be returned to you.

EDIT, I did have to clear a few fault codes which never came back afterwards. £10 ebay lead and free fordscan software download took care of that.

 

[legrandefromage]

we'll send them to you then!

then

then

unfortunately theres warranties involved and if they're not repaired properly, they send out a replacement

and fernicerty customers

 

[W7Ford]

we'll send them to you then!

then

Give one a go, honestly, they are pretty easy. I couldnt find a magnifying glass but even without, the pins were easy enough to do.

EDIT - fair point on the warranty, but if you spot an affected focus or transit cheap and want to turn a profit on it, then it's worth doing. we perservered with smacking the dashboard for months until i got around to doing it. I wished I'd done it earlier when I got into it.

 

[albash82]

Worth bearing in mind. Nice one.
Mines going very strong. 3 or 4k miles done with no issues other than having to replace a knackered cracked old tyre.
I suppose you could call the glow plugs and issue. Should probably replace them but I don't try start it until I've warmed them up 3 times and it's fine.
"If it ain't (completely) broke...."

 

[albash82]

That's right in the era of the dry joint clocks, keep a couple of hundred quid aside to fix it. Clocks out, sent away, clock's fixed, back in = lots of weird faults cured

There is a part of the workshop we call 'focus corner' for this very reason

So....
Clocks. Tell me more.
I changed the oil the other day. Definitely the correct oil and definitely correct filter.

Since then, couple of ENGINE MALFUNCTION warnings popped up. But turned it of and on again and it was ok.
Then I got full Xmas tree dash yesterday morning and it wouldn't start.
My mate came round with a cheap obd eBay code reader and it flagged up 16 codes. Mainly DRIVETRAIN and NETWORK.
He cleared the codes and the car was fine. Drove it to work, then drove it back again.

Got in it this morning. Full Xmas tree dash again. It did start, but the throttle did absolutely nothing.
Obd reader on it again. NO CODES.
So @legrandefromage - how do I find out if it's the issue you've mentioned?

Cheers!

 

[W7Ford]

If it's the clocks, then gently tapping the cluster face, or more firmly whacking the top of the plastic dash top above them usually gets them started. It's the main connector that has the brittle joints so a bit of a knock normally allows them to make contact again. Ours never had a none responsive throttle once started though, but that could be dependant on which pins had dry joints. The sea of random error codes and dash like a christmas tree rings true.

 

[albash82]

If it's the clocks, then gently tapping the cluster face, or more firmly whacking the top of the plastic dash top above them usually gets them started. It's the main connector that has the brittle joints so a bit of a knock normally allows them to make contact again. Ours never had a none responsive throttle once started though, but that could be dependant on which pins had dry joints. The sea of random error codes and dash like a christmas tree rings true.

Cheers mate! I'll give it some pasty and see what's occurin.