Keeping 1996 Mk5 alive

[maciejd]

Almost there... almost there.

[maciejd]

She passed the MOT yesterday and it was a real pleasure

After 5 weeks parked at home. Hurray !



Transit is able to be driven, however, there is still a lot to do:

- clean the cocpit
- clean and mount doors panels
- mount the roof lining
- find suitable rubber and make new rear floor finishing
- find suitable foil/something and renew rear walls panels (I was thinking about some king of glue foil)
- find 3-seat row and mount it
- connect the towing bar electricity
- clean and mount the engine bottom cover (removed when working on the front cross member)
- paint these small plastic wheel caps (these are still in the original silver, wheels are painted a little bit darker)
- replace LED lights in the instrument cluster - they need to be red now
- buy some wires, fuse, relay and mount front fog lights

That's it.

[maciejd]

Some work done already:

- mount the roof lining - in progress - finished the noise insulation, now the roof vibrations are lot smaller and quiter
- connect the towing bar electricity - done
- paint these small plastic wheel caps (these are still in the original silver, wheels are painted a little bit darker) - done
- buy some wires, fuse, relay and mount front fog lights - in progress - I boiught what I need, now need 2 hours to put all the stuff together

And as usual some progrerss photos:

[screechowl]

[maciejd]

During the last couple of days I was a little bit busy but today I spent a while around the van.
Front door panels are fitted, passenger seatbelt is fitted as well as all these pastic covers. I also replaced rear door handle because it was broken.

I also did a small trip around. Not sure if this is suggestion but the noise insulation on the roof is doing its job very well. There is no side wall panels in the rear and the van is more silent than it was before.

I'm juts thinking of the second row of seats. I'm not sure if fitting MK6/MK7 seats with integrated seatbelts is a good idea. But on the other hand I will be able to easy remove the row when needed. Maybe finding suitable MK6/7 front seats with armrests will be nice as well.
The other thing is if it is possible to fit the modern seats onto the MK5 seat base. Of course I want to keep the original rails etc. Replace only the seat itself.

Maciej

[maciejd]

Yesterday I put some STP (silver) noise insulator on rear side walls, cleaned the floor a little bit to see what still needs to be done. The list "todo" is getting shorter so my Transit decided it can't be like that.

I took her for a ride to charge the battery a little bit. 30 km on a motorway, then another 25 on a regular roads back to home. I know the torque sleeve needs some attention, but generally the van was driving like new.
18km from home the engine started to work on 3 or 2 cylinders and shut down. I was able to start it again and stop in a safe place several meters further.
When I was trying to start it, the starter was spinning like a hell, but the engine won't even try to cooperate. I checked the cable on the pump, oil level, fuel (still about 40 litres) etc. Next were injectors, I loose the nut on a second cylinder a little bit to see if there is a fuel when starting. Yeap, there was. The first thought was a timing belt which might jump 2 or 3 tooths and that caused the problem. But on the other hand the belt is 2 years old and has maybe 10 or 15 000 km done.
I checked the fuel filter and... there was maybe 100-150 ml of fuel.
So... took a walk to the nearest tank station, bought 5 litres of diesel, filled up the filter with fuel, loose the nut on second injector again (why second - easiest access ) and started the engine. After 20 seconds of spinning it started working like new one.
I had to do same operation once again, 2,5 km from home. The low pressure fuel pump above the exhaust is 6 months old now. Some kind of Chinese crap. I have to replace it with Motorcraft when working on the fuel pump.

Arghhhh... I did maybe 600 or 700 thousands kilometers in my life, many of them in this Transit. Never ever any car made me stopping on a roadside saying "no go".

Left broken on a roadside when went for a fuel:

[maciejd]

New side pump is in place, fortunately I've found original one for a good money.

There still are problems when hot, starts to work on 3 cylinders, losts the power etc. This week I'm going to take care of this. Most probably I'll replace all injectors and find a 145/146 pump. My one is older and I do not want to invest into rebuilding it if it will not fit turbo engine (maybe, in the future).

Waiting for new injectors I decided to renew the instrument cluster lighting. Few years ago I replaced original bulbs with white SMD LEDs. After replacing rev counter for a new one I got several colours on my dash - slightly blue light of SMD LEDs caused rev counter visible as bluish, other gauges were a little bit green (blue light + amber plastic of gauges).
It was the time to fix this and I've chosen red

First thing is to prepare bulbs I got. W5W/T10 are wider than original Ford bulbs, so they need to be adjusted.







The bulb holder needs to be modified as well for much bigger W5W/T10 bulb.



Easiest way is to get wires from the bulb and put them under original holder connectors. It will cause the connecton will be solid and always working No need to use the soldering gun!





Ok, last time I was using SMD LED bulbs with 4 small SMD diodes. As red light is much darker that white one, I decided to use 5 50x50 SMD LEDs for each bulb. They are 10mm taller and I had to adjust plastic base of each gauge.



Remove all crumbs - compressed air is best here



And ready to fit first gauge:



Remember that for LED lights the polarity does matter. Before assembling everything check if all work as it should.
During a day it was easiest to connect the cluster with no front glass to clearly see if new bulbs are OK.



And ready to go

[limitedblack]

Amazing thread, very quick work. Good to see progress in photographs

[maciejd]

Some photos from yesterday. I love soldering by night



After a few minutes wires and connectors are ready. Generally soldering 2,5mm wires is not something I like best, especially old wires. The original one coming from the loom was dark covered with verdigris. Before doing anything it was necessary to clean it.



And voila, it is ready. Generally working at night is 10% work and 90% looking for nuts, screws and tools.

The good thing is that the horn is working well



And last but not least - night view of clocks. Speedo has quite big printed circuit in the back, so it is much darker than rev counter. Additionaly in my case it is made of amber plastic what makes it even darker at night.
Yellow or Orange LED might be more suitable. Or replacing the speedo with white plastic one



Today I want to prepare the installation for front fog lights. Tomorrow the van is getting back to a workshop.
I did about 200 km with two stroke oil but there are still issues with fuel pump/injectors when hot. IF there will be possibility to get brand new Bosch pump I swear I'd go for it. For now I can find used one for about 200EUR + 4 brand new Stanadyne 33706 injectors for 300EUR.
Injectors are fine, I think I'll be able to find them a little bit cheaper (250EUR for all). USed pump with no warranty is something that scares me.

[maciejd]

Ok, so there is a little update.

During the last 3 days I did some soldering of the front foglights wires.

The open air workshop:



Fuse and relay almost ready to be mounted under the dash:



I had to finish the work on Tuesday, so put all the wires on the firewall:



The next day I used 3M insulation tape to make the loom for foglights:



And wires are put in place behind the front bumper:



I also replaced the stereo





After adjusting injection angle I had to test the van a little bit to check if the problem with getting air into the first injector will appear again.

I did something like 550 km trip and it was fine. Sample photo at the 420 km of the roundtrip; taken on S7 northbound near Białobrzegi, Poland:

[BigMonty]

Very very tidy work.

[maciejd]

Thank you BigMonty.

Yesterday I finished the front fog lights.

The first thing was to put the wires on their place behind the front bumper. I wanted to do this quite tight to aboid any loom movements, what might cause unplanned worn-outs:





Next - get with wires into the lamp. Not sure if the rubber o-ring will help in case of salt and water during winter time, but let's hope so





When everything is ok, it time to prepare the wire finishing:





And some extra protection made of thermal shirnk insulation. I know I know - soldering gun shouldn't be used for that, but I'm non-smoker and haven't gas lighter with me



And finally ready to go:



Now it is the time for the switch in the dash. Few days ago I got old Escort fog lights switch with plug, but the Haynes manual is always welcome



Finally it occured, that the old connector has replaced pin 1 and 2 in comparison with what I gound in Haynes for 92-95 Transits. The effect was that the red LED in the Escort switch (91AG15K237AA) was on all the time; I had to flip over wires in the plug (pin 1 with pin 2) and viola



I spent some time on the power for the switch and effectively for the control of the relay. On the beggining I wanted to get it from the Fuse 20, but the access was really poor and, additionaly, there was no good place to connect the ground. I decided to use power from the extra plug I had behind the dash. Not sure what for are the blue and black ones - something like heated rear window and mirrors... or whatever. The good thing is that there was 12V when side lights powered on, so it fulfiled regulations







And this is the time for a dry run



Night view - I had to correct the lights a little bit:



What's next?

First, I have to clean the van inside as the mess is getting terrible and even worse each day

Let's check out the todo list:

- clean the cocpit
- [done] clean and mount doors panels
- [done] mount the roof lining- find suitable rubber and make new rear floor finishing
- find suitable foil/something and renew rear walls panels (I was thinking about some king of glue foil)
- find 3-seat row and mount it
- [done] connect the towing bar electricity
- [done] clean and mount the engine bottom cover (removed when working on the front cross member)
- [done] paint these small plastic wheel caps (these are still in the original silver, wheels are painted a little bit darker)
- [done] replace LED lights in the instrument cluster - they need to be red now
- [done] buy some wires, fuse, relay and mount front fog lights

So... New floor finishing in the rear of the Van, new side wall ply (I decided to make it finished with gray leatherette / artificial leather), mount seats in the back and clean it inside and outside.

The end is getting closer

What I'm constantly thinking of are swivel fron seats from Euroline. I've found them... 250 EUR per each and they need new cover. Definitely too expensive as for something that needs another 250EUR to replace the material.

[maciejd]

Next step done to make her finished...

I decided to use leatherette for the side panels. Some of them were heavily used or destoyed by water, so had to get a new ply and cut new parts.
Next step was to cut some sponge and letherette for each panel. Not so difficult job but the heat (35 C deg or something) was terrbible this weekend.
Finally I've got all panels cut and glued on the visible side. When the glue will dry, I'm going to glue the margin on the reverse side and corners. Then some small holes for pins and ready to go

These Curver tool boxes are amazing - I'm really trying to kill them for the last couple of years even using them as a ladder (I'm not a lightweight person ) and these are still in service.





Measure and cut...



... and glue...



... and fix...



... and ready. Next one, please!



Mark the leatherette...



... before adding glue and fixing the panel.



Finally all done.



Cold tuna salad prepared by my wife and a lunch time in the shadow of Transit



Finished for today. Covered rear windows to protect panels from sun untile the glue will dry and fix them.



I have to find new pins as these original ones will be too short for new panels. Most probably I'll use some 8mm pins, very similar to these used for the ceiling padding.

Next - new seats. If not euroline... maybe Mk7 are easy to be modified. Not sure, can't check (viewtopic.php?f=4&t=133069)

[maciejd]

Still working on... Yesterday and today finished most of panels. Still 2 of them need gluing and edge finishing.
Next step - find proper pins, make holes in the letherette and put everything in place.

The color plays really well with pepper red. Today I was able to check how does it looks like:







More photos to come. I wish I'll have averything cut and glued ready for mounting tommorow evening. Next time I can do some work will be in the second half of August. I'm just thinking... it's only 1700 km (one way) to the Transitmania. Maybe if I finish the walls and floor and clean the van inside... who knows

[canveysteve]

re led dash bulbd are your clocks standard ? as mine have a green background ?