It was time for a little maintenence!

[SVT2RS]

So Saturday I took the entire front of the car apart, including wheels, brake calipers, grill, headlights, front splash gaurds, bumper, foglights, vents and turn signals. It has been 3 years+ since I had done the major body work, and since this is a daily driver, she was overdue for some TLC.

New Hawk pads, extensive cleaning, minor rewiring of fog lights, FULL inspection of parts and body panels, fresh bulbs for all lights. I also replaced all metal attachments with daisy fresh stainless steel varieties. Finished with some paint freshening of flat black panels, FINALLY painted black over the yellow hood support and yellow washer top.

Managed some late night working hours thanks to a few standing shop lights in the drive, and got her all put back together by late Sunday evening.

I'll include a few teasers in a bit for some small new additions this month... but this winter is going to include some LARGER changes. More on that later.








Now she just needs a thorough wash to clean her up after all that time covered in engine grease and finger prints... and definitely an extensive, full body wax!

[20focus03]

the widebody looks sick...nice ride

[SVT3658]

Beautiful man, I've always oogled over your car

But you definitely need to hurry up on finding RS headlights, or at least MACHs or ST170s for the time being

[01focuszx3]

gotta clean up the drool from my desk now!! beautiful ride!

[SVT2RS]

See if you can ID these teasers then... Parts go on next month when I have a free weekend. Again, bigger changes in the works this winter.

T1


T2


T3

[01focuszx3]

T1= new front grille
T2= headlights
T3= cf lip

[CrUziN4L]

T1- Genuine FocusRS lower grill
T2- FocusRS headlights
T3- RS Front CF splitter


looks awesome man!


-chris

[kipp]

so it's gonna be together and ready for the meet this weekend?

[Focusized1976]

Love your car bud.

[Fender]

That looks awesome! Where did you get the badgeless upper grill?

[Zetecpwr]

looking great man! mind telling me where you got that cf splitter from? I've been wanting one as well...

- Mike

[SVT2RS]

Originally Posted by kipp

so it's gonna be together and ready for the meet this weekend?

I think I should have it in decent shape by then. Certainly good enough to drive over to Cosmo Park on Sunday

I've been keeping her off the road until my hidden front license plate mount arrives... can't risk a third ticket. I got one summer '08, and now summer '09, and apparently they don't ever leave your record or something in Missouri.

[SVT2RS]

Originally Posted by 01focuszx3

T1= new front grille
T2= headlights
T3= cf lip

Correct!

Originally Posted by CrUziN4L

T1- Genuine FocusRS lower grill
T2- FocusRS headlights
T3- RS Front CF splitter

-chris

ALMOST completely correct

Originally Posted by Fender

That looks awesome! Where did you get the badgeless upper grill?

The one in there now is a shotty one I made a few years ago. It's a cutout standard Euro grill, with a 2" recessed mesh to match the lower grill. It still needs some work, and it's just a daily driver protective piece really. The show one isn't badgeless.

[01focuszx3]

Feels good to be correct! lol

[focalized31]

HOttt!

[2006TZX4]

the car looks great

[SVT2RS]

Got her a little wax today. Haha, parked her at my folks drive tonight, and reminded me of the shots I snapped right when I brought her home in 2004!
Damn, 5yrs goes by SO fast...

(I know, I was such a **** eater right out of college... )






And as she sits tonight...

[01focuszx3]

^^^ Awesome

[SVT2RS]

*****Following Ataru's lead, I'll not make another post, but rather just add to an older one.*****

This weekend I decided it was time to make some space for the start of this winter's projects. I tried to keep a few pics for a bit of a how to, but many things are already pretty well covered, so I'll only add my pics where I thought they were needed to add to the base of knowledge.

Time to gut out the interior!

First, I started with the center console to afford more room to work on the front seats. I removed the SVT drink holder first. It has one slide in side, and the other is a typical Ford bracket.



This should leave you looking at three small brass nuts, so I removed those next followed by the two screws under the drink holders in front of the shifter.




Next I raised the entire console over the E-brake, and with it vertical in the car, I clipped the ziptie holding the leather boot onto the shifter. Once the ziptie was cut, I slid the leather boot down and unscrewed the SVT shift nob and then lastly unclipped the extra cig-lighter before taking the center console out of the car.




Next up was the leather wrapped SVT E-brake handle. It seems to be a light pressure fit, so I gently tapped it up and off using a standard hammer.

[SVT2RS]

Lunch break...

Now back to the driveway!!



With the center console out, I decided to strip off the door panels next. They're easy, and I've done them before (plenty of pics out there, but I have some more if anyone ever wants 'em). They are attached by a few screws along the bottom and side, a screw in the door handle and two bolts behind in hand grip. I also removed the door handle trim form the panel as that will be getting chnged out as well.



I bought a used truck for part runs, and as a new daily driver since the Focus is going to be pretty stripped down this winter. Can't hurt to have a truck imo, it's my first ever, and so far I love having something so opposite the lowest car (and completely worry free).



Next up was the front seat. Once I removed a fair amount of the trim, I found the 4 bolts. Sadly I didn't have anything resembling that size torx socket, so I had to head to autoparts store... yay truck! In any case, the 4 for the front seat were size 47 torx (turned out the rear required size 40, so headed back to the shop again an hour later, lol).

The one near the seat belt was rough to get to, but the door side one was hardest to find (covered by a small plastic trim).



Front passenger seat out, time to start on the rear. Yea, the rear sucked balls, and took WAY longer. I think I had the front out in 20 minutes or less after I was sure I had the power supply unbolted (btw, there's a small 7mm bolt to remove under the front seats to disconnect the power source and airbag!). There are 2 size torx bolts to contend with, and few are easy to access... I folded the benches forward and removed what I could see first.

[SVT2RS]

Now for the tricky part of the rear seat removal. First of all, all the seat bolts were taken out with a torque wrench, good God that thing was useful. I didn't have to strain too much as it gave me crazy leverage, however, some of the bolts are nearly impossible to get at on the rear seats. In any case, I removed the 4 40 torx bolts on the front of the lower bench, and removed the seat bottoms. It was amazing how close the SVT blue inserts matched the RS imperial blue... I'll miss these seats, they were pristine for being 68,000miles driven.





And a closer view of the bolt holes for the rear seats.





I had to cheat a bit, I couldn't get to 3 bolts from the rear of the car, just no room and I wasn't going to buy an angled torx set just for 3 silly bolts, so I simply unbolted the cushions from the brackets. This left only hardware to worry about removing, and GREATLY sped things up. Plus it let me be much more gentle with the SVT seats, as I really didn't want to damage or scuff them up in any way. Bear in mind you need to remove only attached hardware, there are several seat belts and other guide brackets that do not need to come out, though both shoulder belts had to have their bolt taken out to allow the belts to clear the strap on the rear seats.

Lastly, I tackled the rear door cards. No sweat really. I first removed the upper front seat belt trim (unplug one tab, and then pull it free, but be careful with all panels, Ford clips are notious for breaking, so TAKE YOUR TIME). I unclipped the 3 Ford fasteners along the window at the upper portion of the rear door card, pulled the single christmas tree, then with a little shove towards the front of the car I unhinged the panel from the door frame. Finally I pulled the lower clip from the lowest point, and the panel was out. Rinse and repeat on the other side (note, I also removed the lower door trim on the first side, but found it wasn't necessary).

Car interior stripped (minus the driver's seat, which I'll leave in until later so I can move the car as needed this winter).

[SVT2RS]

Haha, I just noticed in my pictures how anal I am about this car. I kept all the bolts, nuts, screws etc in bags labeled for which part of the interior they came off of. Friggin' hell, I'm such a nerdo.

More updates to come as parts appear. Should be a full winter.

[biscuitninja]

Nice, car looks sqeeky clean! Did the same thing with the extra car. Except the Focus was my Extra car and the Mush-stang became the race car.

-bix

[Zetecpwr]

Lookin good man.. Is there an rs interior in the works for this winter?

- mike

[2focusd]

I found it to be MUCH simpler to simply slide the front seats back and forth in order to access the bolts when I installed my SVT seats As for the things you've just done, I know those things all too well because my poor Focus had the interior gutted multiple times

-Brian