XR4Ti EPIC Build Progress

[Ray]

Well, some of you know that i was getting this... soon to be hopefully rebuilt and running car. But for now, here are some pics. here is this past spring.

where she was








no that's not rust, just stuff that is built up on the paint.









this used to be my mom's car (well my father's but she drove it). in 10/95, the motor lost compression and had some electrical problems. almost 9 years to the day. they parked it, put it on blocks, and basically forgot about it.

so, i've been watching this car sit since i was 15, and i've wanted it since well before that.



so...

















so we flatbed her to her new home, which will be under my deck until we get her running and such. but i couldn't let a car like this sit, that dirty.

surprisingly, most of the algal accumulation came off easy.










last night i checked the trunk and floors, and no water
vacuumed the car, cleaned out a bunch of garbage (for instance, coupons that expired in 93. seriously. 93.)

put coolant in the coolant reservoir, and checked to see if the motor was frozen.

nope. she moves pretty easy, and the coolant, when you are turning the motor by hand (with a wrench, silly) seems to circulate. nice. even the hoses seem in good shape.

WTF? how could this be? lol.

edit : title

[AtBlue5spZX3]

Cool project with lots of potential.....looks fun.

[Ray]

yeah, hopefully my wife doesn't mind my obsession with vehicles.

[bri]

I had an old Buick that hadn’t run in like 15years, we changed out the plugs some of the hoses, drained the gas changed the oil. Then added Marvin’s Mystery oil and sure enough it ran.

[EVIL_WICKED_ONE]

Glad to see that most of that algea was just washed away.

Please keep us posted of the work in progress.

[Gigaherz]

Car looks much better now. Good luck with it.

[Ray]

just went and bought a can of PB blaster, and new battery terminals. I'm going to rebuild the car's grounding system as well.

(like there was any doubt)

checked for the headgasket (everyone recommends the FELPRO 1035, but they couldn't find that part number, the SVO Mustang part number is FELPRO 8993, Euro Ford Fan, is that the same one? Also listed for a cross for the 1035 is FELPRO 9063)

For the valve cover gasket, i've read: 2.3L Ranger, found one from a 1990, part number FELPRO 50043, will that work?

Thanks

[ZX3guy182]

looks abillion times better now, i cant wait to see the progress

[tesseract]

checked for the headgasket (everyone recommends the FELPRO 1035, but they couldn't find that part number, the SVO Mustang part number is FELPRO 8993, Euro Ford Fan, is that the same one? Also listed for a cross for the 1035 is FELPRO 9063)

For the valve cover gasket, i've read: 2.3L Ranger, found one from a 1990, part number FELPRO 50043, will that work?

for any info you could ever want, go check with the guys at BAT Inc. They Luvzorz teh hot euroness.

[Majikal]

ohhhh yes Ray... we are gonna have some fun with this...

[UDonkey]

http://www.merkurowners.org/

The International Merkur Owners Network (IMON) mailing list...no better resource than that.

Also...

http://www.merkurclub.com/

Merkur Club of America (they run IMON)

[spinwax]

Hey, just a few bucks and you will have a motor like this...




This xr is pretty sweet..

[Ray]

yeah i know about merkurclub.com, haven't been to merkurowners.org yet.

Today i spent almost all day working on the car. First i just started cleaning (dont want to work on a dirty car).

Vacuumed the inside again, replaced some wiring for the dome lights (a mouse freaking chewed them. that scares me.)sprayed down under the hood with engine cleaner, then went to work on that stuff that looks like rust in the pics, which is actually some sort of waxy substance that is a bitch to get off.

Cleaned the door jams, started going thru vacuum lines, hoses, fuel lines, etc, looking for problems. found one. the fuel line coming in needs to be replaced. no biggie. the return fuel line seems okay but i'm going to replace it anyway. pulled the upper intake manifold off, polished it (heh, heh, why not, right?), and cleaned the inside of that.

Also made a new battery ground, and put new battery terminals on. Put a battery in, and just ran thru wiring that doesn't work. Such as the headlights for some reason, but they might just be blown. We'll see.

Tomorrow i'm going to go out and get plugs, wires, a cap and rotor, and the head gasket if the information leads me to believe that it's the right one (i'll check later)

then... gonna pull the head. but first, i'm going to wait for the shop CD.


Spinwax: Yes, i wish i could afford something like that. lol.
edit: here's the full sized pic of that middle one you posted

[blueovalbaboon]

sweet, kinda lucky there was so little damage on it.

My last project car had a tree fall on it. I then sold it to pay for grad school...BEFORE repairing the tree damage, and got double what I payed

that car's gonna be sooo much fun when you're done with it. bulletproof engine.

[trakkstar]

Big nod for undertaking this project. The car was an odd jewel that slipped into america. Really sweet project car. Best of luck with her.

_michael