The car was in Vicksburg, only 70 miles from our location, not too big of a deal really, given the distances that one has to travel to do just about everything here in MS.  We checked the car out and it looked good all around, interior, exterior, undercarriage, engine, all looked pretty clean and not rotted all to hell like one would imagine a 20+ year old car to appear.  We put the car on a trailer and dragged it back to a storage facility temporarily so as to not create a junkyard style clutter with all these cars.  Right now we're in the process of getting the F350 up and running so we can sell it, we already moved the motorcycle we had, now its the F350's turn.  After we get it moved we will bring the escort back to the house and finish our work on it here.

 

Meanwhile, we did start doing work on it.  I got under the car and did the typical crap, changing oil, filters, put one of our fresh batteries in place, fresh fuel, checked the belts to make sure they would at least last long enough to get the car running, then attempted to start it. 

 

During the starting attempt, the engine turned over slow as hell.  At first I thought it was because of the marine battery that I put in to try and start it, so I put it on charge, and tried again, same shit.  For a while I thought maybe this thing just turns slow, who knows (in denial about a possible shot starter).  When I kept cranking to no avail, I did a little snooping to see if the engine was getting fuel, since diesels don't really need much to get running (air, fuel and heat).  It didn't appear to be getting fuel, so I went on a yahoo groups escort diesel forum to see what may be the deal, and found out that these cars don't have any kind of fuel pump, the injector pump serves also as a fuel pump, sucking fuel from the tank while pushing it through the injectors.  So I figured that I could give it a helping hand by installing an external electric pump. 

 

The pump came from auto zone and was installed midways under the car on the supply line.  We tried again with the starting to no avail.  Fuel was getting to the engine, but still nothing.  Back at camp I did some more research on the forum to discover that the starters on these cars were notorious for crapping out where the a part of the armature may short out and cause the starter to turn slower than normal.  It seemed to be one of the instances when these reman parts just didn't fare all too well.  Oh well, so I pulled the starter off, the only starter I can find so far was at O'reilly auto parts.  They run about $150 give or take, which would seem typical for these specialty foreign parts.  We haven't gotten the starter yet since our resources have been concentrated on getting the LUV up and running, as well as getting the gardens ready for this year. 

 

We also picked up a couple of timing belts to replace the old ones as well, I just want to get the engine running before I start tearing that stuff loose however. 

 

At this point we managed to get a few little things done to help get it closer to hitting the road.  For one we got the hatchback locking mechanism to latch once again, and afterward got the two flat tires taken care of by putting the spare on one axle and having the other one replaced completely.  We will probably end up replacing the other three tires with new used tires from the local tire shop before putting the car on the road due to the idea that the dry rotted tires pose too much of a risk of blowout.

 

Before that we already changed all of the vital fluids and filters on the car and attempted to start it.  We later found out the starter is shot, and we needed a more powerful battery.  In the very near future we will be getting both of these items so we can attempt to start the engine again.  One thing that needs to be done is to check all of the glowplugs to make sure they're all working since non working glowplugs also kept the LUV's engine from starting as well. 

 

If all goes well at this point, there is a suspension component that I remember being loose that will need replacing after everything else is done.  With that all done and the car confirmed to be drivable, we can then bring the car back home so we can do the finishing touches on it before officially putting it on the road. 

 

There's the final cleaning up, the thorough cleaning up of the carpet and seats to get any funky smells out of the car and any possible hidden mold that may be present.  Afterward there will be the replacement of the timing belts so we can be sure that the engine will continue to run, then there will be the reactivation of the AC system on the car.  Hopefully that will only involve a conversion to R134 and a recharge. 

 

Hopefully the escort's engine won't need to be overhauled like we suspect with the LUV's engine.  We do have a plan though that will hopefully be a light at the end of the tunnel for one of these vehicles.

 

At this point I went to start the engine, after the glowplugs warmed up, I hit the key, nothing, not even a click.  What the hell?!? I thought.  I went underneath and then found the ground cable was not connected.  After a couple of minutes I got the cable connected back to one of the bolts holding the starter in place.  I tried again and still nothing.  At this point I was pretty much dehydrated and it was getting a little late in the afternoon so I said fuck it and grabbed my channel lock pliers and shorted the contacts on the starter solenoid to crank the starter.  I turned the key off and back on to re-initiate the glowplug cycle then did the short out trick on the solenoid.  While cranking the engine I worked the throttle on the injector pump and after some sputters I stopped to let the starter rest.  I then tried again and kept at it and I was able to coerce the engine to start up and stay running. 

 

After getting the engine started I revved it a little to get it loosened up after not running for who knows how long, probably a good year or so.  I let off the throttle and the engine idled pretty good all things considered.  I then noticed a fuel leak coming from around the fuel filter assembly.  Research provided some info regarding some O-rings on the filter assembly where the water sensor installs that had a habit of drying out and leaking, causing the injector pump to not draw fuel from the fuel tank (which is why I had the elec. pump in place).  The next chance I get I will look a little closer at this area to confirm that this is the problem and take some steps to correct the problem.  Also I will have to troubleshoot why the thing wouldn't crank from the keyswitch.  I just love automotive electrical troubleshooting.  Hopefully it's something simple like a fuse or bad solenoid, we'll see. 

 

Afterward I will run the engine some more under normal conditions to see how this thing takes the hot weather, hopefully it doesn't overheat like the LUV does.  I will also get a confirmation on the suspension components that need replacing so we can get them later on.  There's also the idea that I will have to replace three of the tires on the car with some "updated" tires, to get the old ones off, in case any of them are dry rotted.  We already have one new used tire in place but don't have any idea of the condition of the other three.  Before all this other stuff is done I could probably at least give the car a little short test drive around the area to see how it acts before going at it and getting the car ready for some road testing.  At least so far from what I noticed the engine did not smoke at all after the initial starting (unlike the LUV which blows bluish smoke for the first 10-15 min of running), plus there were no obnoxious noises that would indicate an engine that needs help.  The engine noise was even super quiet, for a diesel of all things, it sounded almost like the gas version of this car!  We definately have high hopes for this thing now!

 

Now it was on to the key switch starting issue.  After looking at the schematics and checking fuses, something had hit me.....this was one of those retard stupid motherfucker moments I had.  I had then realized while leaning up against the clutch pedal trying to check the fuses....the key switch didn't work because I didn't depress the damned clutch while using the key!!!  STUPID!!!!  

 

Ok then, with that solved, I went on and got ready to crank the thing over.  I turned the key on and the relay came on and started the fuel pump as intended, and after the glowplugs did their thing I hit the key and the motor cranked for only a couple of seconds before cranking to life, nice!!

I did rev the engine lightly just to get it wound up before letting it idle, which it did just fine.  The engine did have a very minor miss, but that could be attested to the motor just beine revived, being well used, and cold (even in 100 degree weather).  Anyway, the engine did run just fine, no smoke, hardly even any diesel smell from the exhaust until it started getting warmed up, otherwise it was good. 

 

Now as for that fuel leak, or what I thought was a fuel leak.  While there was moisture around the top of the filter assembly, it wasn't leaking really, even with the pressure of the fuel pump on it, shit the fuel pump pressure could've very well caused some of the moisture for that matter.  What I seen leaking under the car wasn't fuel, it was oil, coming from the oil filter housing.  The issue with that thing is that it uses two oil filters, which at first I thought were the same, but come to learn they're not.  One filter serves as a standard oil filter, while the other, mounting on top of the assembly, serves as a bypass, presumably for when the main filter gets too clogged up from negligent drivers waiting too long to change the oil, who knows.  Anyway the bypass oil filter has a wider o-ring, near the edge of the filter body while the main filter has an o-ring about 3/4" inside from the rim of the filter body.  The top of the filter housing has a base where the smaller o-ring will actually be inside of the cavity where oil comes up into the filter, basically allowing oil to flow outside of the system, as in this case. 

 

So with this in mind the engine drooled motor oil all the while it was running.  It wasn't life threatening to the engine as it wouldn't be run long enough to drain itself but it still definately needed attention.  After going through the same thing with the LUV's engine and striking out at one of the chain auto parts stores, and having that "duh" moment for not remembering that from earlier, I then went on to just look over the engine while it ran. 

 

During this time I noticed that the radiator fan didn't come on.  It did come on initially when I turned the key but went off about 5 minutes into running, which was not normal, it should've been the exact opposite.  Ok, this means I'll be pulling out another toggle switch and wire to wire the fan up to operate manually later on.  Afterward, I also made note of this weird scraping noise that I heard while the engine was running.  It seemed to go away when I revved the engine a little.  I didn't see anything around the engine that could be blamed for this weird noise.  Ok then...

 

At this point I went ahead an dropped the hood and hopped in the car to take it for a little spin.  I drove it around probably not even a quarter mile around.  I noticed while toggling through the gears that the weird noise was something in the tranny, more accurately the clutch.  Now, I don't know if the Escort has a hydraulic or cable clutch but that will be looked into.  The way the thing feels it kind of felt like a cable clutch, like whats in the LUV, which is what it reminded me of in the way it had play and didn't have that solid brake pedal feel. 

 

Nonetheless the car actually drove around just fine, shifted good, accelerated smoothly, real good.  The steering was also not bad, despite the floppy right wheel I noticed a while back.  I jacked up the car and checked that out again after parking it, only to find that it wasnt a tie rod end or other cheap component but the shaft from the right side of the rack & pinion steering assembly.  It had some play in it, causing that floppy wheel.  At least at this point it wasn't noticable while doing the driving, even though I didn't go above 15 mph.  We'll definately see when I try to take the car above that. 

 

After all this running without the radiator fan coming on, of course the engine started redlining on the temp gauge.  At this point I shut the car down so I can continue on with my day.  I did pull the battery back out and removed the cap from the vacuum pump so I can try to repair it later on. 

 

I did order a couple of those bypass oil filters so I can take care of both the LUV and the Escort later.  I also scoped out a battery at Walmart that put out 1000 cranking amps and only cost $75, which I'll be getting later on when the car will be going through more tests.  The next thing I will probably do after dealing with those oil filters will be to get one or more of those tires taken care of in preparation for some more serious driving.  The Escort looks like it'll be hitting the road very soon!!

 

First of all, after I got the bypass oil filter, I installed that, plus I went ahead and wired up the radiator fan to come on when the accessory key is turned on so that it'll run all the time.  I started the engine and let it run a while to see how it would fair with the fan, and unfortunately it got close to getting hot again.  At this point I had the wife who was currently at Walmart getting a couple of things while I cooked in the midday sun at the storage lot to bring me back a jug of water.  After she came back I put the water in and tried again.  Surprisingly that engine took a fair amount of water, but the gauge ran halfway up at idle, so it was good. 

 

Next I had found a wire was disconnected, it was for the oil sender.  I plugged it back up and the engine light came on.  Since there is no oil pressure gauge on the dash, I figured that light was indicative of low oil pressure.  After checking it, sure enough, there was no oil on the dipstick.  So we went back to Walmart to get a gallon of oil.  After returning, I ended up putting the entire jug in the engine, and got the stick to register about 1/3 of the way up.  At this point the engine would've been close to seize up at such a low oil level.

 

Ok, now that all seems to be well, I turned over the access card back to the storage guy and we started to hit the road.  About 1/2 mile down the road the car started dragging as I got up to 25 mph.  What the hell?  I pulled over and checked some stuff out.  The fuel pump wasn't on.  Thinking that the engine was starving for fuel, I checked the fuse holder I installed on the line that controls the cooling fan and fuel pump and found that the damned thing had no fuse in it.  Stupid moment passes, I put a jumper wire in and get the fuel pump running. 

 

We hit the road again, and after 1/2 mile, same shit.  This time I tried to see if I could fight the problem, to no avail, it just seemed like the thing totally lost power.  I checked everything I could think of and found nothing.  At this point I said fuck it, we're just going to have to push our luck and see what the car can, or cannot do. 

 

The rest of the way back to the house was an ordeal of driving at speeds of no more than 45 mph for short periods when the car seemed to take accelerator and pick up speed but not too high, because it would then drag right back down again.  This shit did not make any sense!!!  Meanwhile, the engine's temperature was redlining.  Fuck.

 

About halfway back the car's still doing the same thing, dragging down, picking up sporadically, all the while the temp would completely top off or go down a notch, with heat and steam vapors periodically emanating from the engine compartment.  Here's where the praying comes into play that we make it back without the car starting on fire.

 

Eventually we make it back to the house.  I get out and turn the motor off and pop the hood to survey the engine.  After looking around near the passenger side I see what appears to be some glowing, weird.  Then it hit me, that wasn't no damned glowing, something on the right side WAS on fire!!! 

 

I ran and grabbed the garden hose and sprayed the shit out of the whole wheel well which at this point was licking flames around the tire.  After several minutes of spraying to cool down everything and make sure any fire is out, I get the jack under the car and jack it up and pull the wheel off to see what was going on. 

 

At this point I found that a plastic shield had caught fire and completely melted away.  From what I can gather, that right wheel's brake was periodically applying pressure, somehow, and dragging the car down, which caused that side to overheat and ignite the plastic shield.  That would of course overheat the engine which was fighting against the dragging wheel. 

 

At this point I had to think for a while, but in the meantime I got to working on replacing the timing belts on the engine which started right back up just fine.  I was able to get the cam to injector pump timing belt on just fine without incident, but the cam to crank belt, that was a whole other story.

 

 

 

This fact actually worked to my advantage to figure if I got the timing marks set right, as I would just slowly turn the crank with the belt installed and if a piston contacted a valve, I knew the thing wasn't timed right.  After about three attempts I finally got the timing marks where they needed to be since I was able to turn the engine over multiple times without no pistons touching any valves. 

 

After putting everything back together, except for the timing cover and one of the motor mounts, I cranked the engine and poof!  The engine came to life immediately!!  Thank you Lord!!  The engine ran just fine, took the throttle smoothly, and even without the motor mounts hooked up on the right side, the engine still ran smooth. 

 

I shut the engine down and finished putting everything back together and started it again.  I let the engine run a while and it heated up to halfway again, where I think it should be.  With that done, now I need to tackle that pesky brake issue....

 

The next thing was the repair of the steering assembly, well more accurately the replacement of the right inner tie rod end.  At first I got a replacement rack & pinion steering assembly from the junkyard to put in, and after installing it, found that it had a couple of minor yet important differences in the size of the mounting surfaces.  I then seen that the inner tie rod end can be turned from the rack assembly, so I just removed the good inner tie rod from the junkyard rack and swapped it with the bad tie rod from the old rack and installed the old rack & pinion back in the car, then returned the junkyard rack for a refund. 

 

After a couple of test drives to see how the brakes and steering felt, I ended up removing the thermostat from the housing when the temperature on the engine crept up higher than I was comfortable with.  Future tests would show that this move helped some, further tests will yield more info. 

 

I also ended up putting another new used tire on the car to replace one of the dry rotted tires that was on the car. I also put a new CD stereo in the car to get some tunes inside, after trying two junkyard radios unsuccessfully. 

 

The last road test took me upwards of 60-65 mph for short periods as I went around the local country roads.  I didn't have the extra electrical fuel pump operating and it seemed like the little engine struggled at some points when I was going uphill or when I really tried to keep pushing the car faster.  My next step is going to be to replace the stock fuel filter housing with the Volvo fuel filter housing that was in the LUV, since the Volvo filters are cheaper and more readily available, then I'm going to plug the fuse back in for the electric pump to see if the extra pressure will give the engine the power it needs to go faster and make it over hills. 

 

If after that all goes well, I will continue to do more road tests which will take me further and further out until I'm using it to go into Jackson and back.  This will give us a completed project vehicle finally, plus a second vehicle to take up the slack on the old T-bird since I don't know just how long that car will last either.  The LUV will be the next vehicle to get up and running. 

 

The only other thing I did was replace one of the crappy old tires on the car, plus installed a cheap CD stereo so we can have some tunes in the car.  I also installed fresh hatch back shocks so I don't have to keep using a pipe to prop the hatch up.  I did manage to do another drive with the car and things seemed to go well, but I really need to put the car on the road for longer to see how it performs.  I did notice that the temperature was getting a little high, so I removed the theromstat to see if that will help keep the engine cooler.  I'm going to have to really drive it some so I can see how the temperature does, plus see how long it will take the car to get up to highway speeds (if it gets up to highway speeds). 

 

With that, the car's pretty much done, the only things I will do is probably replace a couple more tires if needed and do some body work on the car to help preserve it some more. 

 

To my surprise the calipers were cheap, only $14 each.  Those things didn't take any time to put on, including the bleeding to a point where I had sufficient enough pedal to test drive the car.  After doing some driving around the area, the brakes cooperated with me getting the car up to speeds in excess of 60 mph without a single problem. 

 

Another problem that also existed which I found out during that drive to Canton was that the ass end of the car bottomed out a few times on some uneven road, telling me that one or both of the rear shocks were shot.  The car did it again during the post caliper installation test as well.  At this point I compared the left to the right sides and while the left rear tire had a good couple of inches or so from the top of the tire to the bottom of the fenderwell, the right rear tire top was starting to go inside the fenderwell, so with that, I pulled the right shock off, and after compressing it, it never returned back up, so that proved it right there, dead shock. 

 

At this point I ordered a shock ($45) and will be installing it tomorrow then taking the car out for another test run to Canton to take care of an errand, so we'll see how everything goes.

 

On the next drive, I managed to get about 15 minutes out and the alternator drive belt broke off, so I was able to turn around and get back home before the battery ran out.  At that point I figured I would change both the alternator belt and the main drive belt going to the PS pump and AC compressor as well so that will be one less thing to worry about. 

 

As for the "bottoming out" that seemed to occur at times, I found out what that was about.  The right rear tire turned out to be too wide for the rim, and the fenderwell on the car, so whenever the ass end of the car dipped, the side wall of the tire would scrape, creating the sound that even I'm surprised could come from a tire.  I took the spare tire, which I had to have sealed around the rim to hold air again, and put it in place of the wide tire and the problem went away.  So for now the wide ass tire is the spare, until we manage to acquire another tire of an appropriate size for the car. 

 

Wrapping everything up though, the car was mechanically sound, in fact, the thing ran super cool, with the temp gauge not even barely creeping up above the low end mark.  I'm not going to waste time putting the thermostat back in since everything is going good, I just take it easy on the engine until it runs long enough to warm up.  However if I do plan on doing a WVO setup on the engine in the future, I will have to get all the cooling system shit fixed where the thermostat and cooling fan will cycle properly to allow the engine to reach and maintain a proper operating temperature. 

 

I have noticed that the heater core may need replacing as well, since steam tends to make its way out through the heater vents, fogging up the windows and giving off that faint glycol smell.  While this is minor in terms of vehicle operation, it is something that would best be taken care of more sooner than later so it will be one less stress to deal with during this vehicle's use. 

 

As long as all goes well, we will probably hang on to this vehicle for a long time.  But like with other vehicles, if things do start getting too intense as far as parts breaking and availability of said parts, then we will probably have to part with the vehicle.  Until then, we will try our best to keep this thing on the road. 

 

Well its been a long while since the last entry on this project, and for the most part, a new entry would imply bad news.  In this case, it is bad.  The escort had died on us a while back.

 

On my way home from the job, I was truckin' along when the engine made a weird noise then lost power.  It didn't take long before the engine finally just quit and would not start back up.  In fact it was hard to turn over.  Well after help came and returned me home and I used our big truck to pull the car back home the next morning, I had to tear into the engine.

 

Again, I found that the thing wouldn't turn over easily.  From the way it seemed, it almost seemed like the thing threw the timing belt, which almost always results in a trashed cylinder head.  I did check the timing belt and it did appear to have some slack in it, not good. 

 

Fast forward a ways, after some decisions as to whether to just sell the car off for what we can get for it, or actually try to fix the damned thing.  Well since we had a spare long block engine that was in good condition, we decided to just try to fix the thing using that spare engine. 

 

This would involve pulling all of the parts off of the old engine, removing the block, then installing all of those parts onto the new long block.  This would occur after I pulled the cylinder head off of the old engine to see what its condition was. 

 

After pulling everything off, I got to the cylinder head, and pulled it off.  The carnage I seen was horrifying.  #4 cylinder was totally destroyed; one valve was still visible at a 45 degree angle in the combustion chamber (or what's left of it), the other valve was gone, and a large hole remained where the valve stem passages used to be.  As a result, the top of the piston got fragged by bits of aluminum from the head, causing what amounts to a partial seizing up of the block as well, since the crank cannot even make a complete 360 degree cycle anymore.  For all intents, the head and the block are trashed.

 

Unfortunately, due to the ingenious nature of the transverse engine layout, the engine and tranny will have to come out together.  Since we're not on concrete where the engine crane can be rolled in and out from the car to accomplish this easily, we're going to have to actually remove the CV driveshafts from the tranny, replace the wheels, then as the engine/trans is jacked up out of the car, we will be able to roll the car back away from the crane to complete the removal of the engine.  Damn I hate FWD cars.