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Module 3 - Engine Preparation

Module 3 Build:
<24th September 2005>
Engine Preparation:
The first job was to transport to the Engine from my parents garage to the build garage at my girlfriends parents house. So after agreeing to help Lucy's dad Keith with a trip to the tip i enlisted him to help me transport the engine. It helped that he had susuki jeep with a good flat boot, so actually picking the engine up and sliding it in was fairly easy. Obviously though the engine is very heavy so we had to be a bit careful to avoid his bumper. Once it was in we slid it to one side where there is some form of roll bar that we could strap it in place. As you can see from the pictures it fit in perfectly. Once we arrived at the garage we had a fairly lightweight trolly to load it on, this wasn't up for the weight and so looked a bit worse for when we took the engine off but it helped us get it ok. Then it was just a case of putting varying blocks of wood under the sump to make it a bit more sturdy



Now the engine was in place and solid i could start to strip it down. I had to remove the injection fuel system along with the alternator and any other mountings that won't be needed. I found the easiest way to do this was to remove the fuel injection first as this covers some of the mountings for the alternator mounting. One piece of advice is to make sure you use a socket wrench to undo the bolts, they are in quite well in place and spanners tended to just damage the bolts. The socket wrench made short work of the fuel injection mounting bolts and this was completely removed in no time.



With that out of the way it was on to the alternator. There are a couple of bolts connecting the alternator to its mounting bracket, once these are off you will be able to remove the alternator. I didn't realise this to start with as it's quite stiff to remove but with a bit of a wiggle it came of quite easily. This makes the removal of the mounting bracket a lot easier as well.



This leaves you with a pretty much stripped down engine ready for cleaning up. Once all this is off you are left with open holes where the injectors would sit as in the photo below. To stop dust and other muck getting in there and potentially causing damage to the cylinders i covered these with masking tape.



<25th September 2005>
Started to clean up the engine and components today. First thing i did was to go over the Alternator with some wire brushes to remove the grime that had built up over the years. Here is the before and After pics:



I used the same technique on the engine and it started to come up very well. I couldn't even see the engine number when i started but after a go over with the wire brush it was bright and shiny.
I removed all the mountings on the left hand side of the engine, some of which were surprisingly rusty for a 2001 engine! Once everything was off it was amazing how thin the engine looked. I started going over it with an anti grease detergent similar to Gunk but a screwfix own brand. Once i'd gone over most of the engine with the detergent i blocked up the exhaust holes with some paper towels, this is again so i don't get any rubbish in the cylinders.
I was now able to give that side of the engine a going over with the wire brushes and things started to look like new again!



<2nd October 2005>
Spoke with a family friend, Ken, who happens to be a mechanic, about what needs replacing on the engine and also spoke about changing the cams. His recommendation was to change the cam belt, pulleys, and water pump, i also need a coil pack so he is going to get that for me at the same time. There is another problem with the water pump in that the kit provided by Westfield is for the older zetec engines and they don't do one for the new phase 3 engines. This means that the belt prvoded to run the water pump and alternator off the cam pulley will not fit. Also the water pump needs to be run off of the back of the belt and so we need to come up with a way of either turning the pump the other way or routing the belt round an idler pulley to fix this. Running the pump the wrong way is not an option but the 1.8 zetec pump actually runs the other way so we may be able to use that, Ken is looking into it!
I also found out my engine mounts were for the old zetec so Westfield are sending me a new ones for my engine. I'm currently unsure about how to fit the alternator though as i think the mounting kit may have been for the older engines.

<4th October 2005>
I called Westfield regarding the water pump / Alternator drive belt and alternator mounting and Mark in technical explained that there was a different alternator mounting for the Black Top zetec. He also asked me to take some pictures of the water pump side of the engine and send them to him so he could look at how to drive the alternator and water pump. I of course obilged so i await a reply. I also recieved the new right hand engine mount for the Black Top today and this is a perfect fit just in front of the oil filter! I'm still not sure about the fit on the left hand mount though.

<5th October 2005>
Had a call from Mark at 8:30 this morning. He said that it would be near impossible to create a kit based on the pictures of the engine and that he would really need an engine at the factory to come up with a design. So he then asked if i would be able to take my engine to the factory at some point. Its about an 8 hour return drive but i agreed to take it to him this saturday. He said he would be able to make a pulley and belt system to suit the Black Top and in return for loaning him my engine he would give me the kit for free. This seemed like a fair deal as i didn't fancy the job of fabricating a solution to this problem. I will try and take Lucy for a ride in one of the Demonstrators while i'm there. See if i can't inject some enthusiasm into her about my Westfield!
Details on the kit as soon as i get them.

<15th October 2005>
Picked up the engine from Westfield. As you can see in the pictures below they have made the idler pully and fitted the alternator. Unfortunately due to them using the alternator mounting to tension the belt, the Focus alternator doesn't fit with the Alternator mounting! So i had to buy a new alternator for the older Zetec engines. So as Westfield had fitted one i just paid them for that to save sourcing one. I'm beginning to realise why there are so few Black Top Zetec engine kit cars around! Had i known the problems it would cause me i would have definitely gone for an older engine.


And this is the full view of the modded system all set up.




<5th February 2006>




<5th April 2006>