Today I did something to my car (volume 2)

GvidoR

I got those bulbs



and installed them. Looks very good, imo.

YbFocus

Some might remember that I got a DA from D+D detailing in cork before christmas along with some of their pads and products.

I spent an 2 hours tonight doing a quick wash, de-tar and clay of the bonnet and polished half of it for the craic. It was full of swirl marks and etching!

For my first time I found it easy enough to get decent results but it's probably harder to get it bang on.

This is one pass with a medium cut and one pass with a finishing polish.
The difference is incredible!

wonski

I washed it

shietpilot

My modified ELM327 arrived today so I finally completed my cruise control retrofit.

The first step was modifying the radio control stalk to add cruise control buttons.

The Focus mk2 has the cruise control buttons wired like this:


I decided to skip the OFF button and I only added ON, RES, SET+ and SET-. CC can be turned off by pressing RES or pushing in the clutch/brake pedal anyway and 4 buttons will look better than 5 buttons on the stalk.

Drilled out the holes for the buttons:


I didn't get pictures of the circuit because I built up the circuit before ripping the stalk apart but I had to do it again as the wiring was too long to fit inside the limited room I have :pac:

I put the circuit together AGAIN with all the resistors and buttons and hot glued it into the radio control stalk:


Stalk finished:



I'm quite happy with the end result of the stalk. The "aftermarket" buttons cannot be seen inside the car as they're behind the stalk and it doesn't look like it was modified at all, unless you know

Before I installed the stalk I decided to enable cruise control in the ECU with the modified ELM327. I had to read and re-flash the PCM (Powertrain Control Module), GEM (General Electric Module) and HEC (Hybrid Electronic Cluster?).



I took 2 hours to read and write to the PCM. The PCM was erased before writing which meant I saw this on the dash for a good 50 minutes :eek::


I soldered up the connections under the steering column and put the trim back on. It was quite hard to solder the connections at 8:30 pm in complete dark :pac:

Took the car for a spin:


YAAAAAAY :cool:

I also changed the odometer to the metric system from imperial. The miles were converted to kilometres. My range is now in kilometres and instead of miles which is much better.

GvidoR

Nice work, shietpilot.

CIP4

@shietpilot
So am I right in thinking then that you can no longer control the radio from behind the steering wheel as that now does the cruise control. Cool job though nice bit of thinking outside the box and I think cruise control is an extremely useful feature id be hard put to go without it now after being so used to it.

shietpilot

CIP4 wrote: »

@shietpilot
So am I right in thinking then that you can no longer control the radio from behind the steering wheel as that now does the cruise control. Cool job though nice bit of thinking outside the box and I think cruise control is an extremely useful feature id be hard put to go without it now after being so used to it.

Nope the radio controls still function like they did before. I just added 4 extra buttons for cruise control as the it seemed like the best place for them.

It will be useful for crawling past speed traps

Thats great work shietpilot. Fair play!

Toyotafanboi

That's very impressive!

Noccy_Mondy

Excellent work done, well done!

shietpilot

Changed the fuel filter on the XC90 D5 2.4.

Took an absolute age to drain the filter housing, probably because the old filter looked like muck and diesel wasn't flowing very well through it.

Turned the ignition on a few times to prime it, it started and died. Turned the ignition a few more times, started cranking it. It was cranking for a good 15 seconds and then kicked in again. A few rough idles later and the air was gone :pac: I was actually worried that I'll end up draining the battery before all the air gets out.

Top Dog

Fitted new wind deflectors, new aero wiper blades, Brodit pro-clip, mount for doggie-camera ... and then spent about 4 hours tearing up the old ply flooring. The amount of silicon and self-tappers was once again staggering. Hands and arms are numb and I've only just over half done! If it were dry I would have attempted the sound-deadening but hopefully tomorrow.

GvidoR

Here's how my interior has changed. Before:



After:
- Dash cam (semi-installed)
- Got rid of the terrible gear knob and installed a much nicer one
- Got rid of that air freshener and got a doge one
And today, painted those pedals black. Not exactly thrilled with the result but surely better than before. I think I will get the OEM rubber covers. Sadly whoever put these on, drilled holes through the non-removable gas pedal.

Next up, need to give it a clean and put in more LED's



Also, this happened...

Noccy_Mondy

GvidoR wrote: »

After:
- Dash cam (semi-installed)
- Got rid of the terrible gear knob and installed a much nicer one
- Got rid of that air freshener and got a doge one
And today, painted those pedals black. Not exactly thrilled with the result but surely better than before. I think I will get the OEM rubber covers. Sadly whoever put these on, drilled holes through the non-removable gas pedal.

You were doing fine up until this point! Mr America :P

Truckermal

Got a flat bottom wheel for the Audi..

Noccy_Mondy

You very bold man, you could have killed everyone!!!! :pac:

Maybe it's the road, but it looks like that car is coming straight for you.

Truckermal

Noccy_Mondy wrote: »

You very bold man, you could have killed everyone!!!! :pac:

Maybe it's the road, but it looks like that car is coming straight for you.

I went to Russia on holidays. ..

Actually, it was a B6 Passat!!!!

GvidoR

Noccy_Mondy wrote: »

You were doing fine up until this point! Mr America :P

I'm sorry, I meant accelerator pedal :pac:

shietpilot

Put new reg plates on the Focus today.

Mounted the rear ones using double sided tape because they were vibrating from the subwoofer :rolleyes: The double sided tape seems to soak the vibrations up it seems

Truckermal

shietpilot wrote: »

Put new reg plates on the Focus today.

Mounted the rear ones using double sided tape because they were vibrating from the subwoofer:rolleyes: The double sided tape seems to soak the vibrations up it seems

`
Actually done the same on Sunday as the car had German plates from new but I went for the normal pressed plate and it looks way better now.

Foxhole Norman

bmstuff wrote: »

Where please?

Sorry I only saw this now! Picked them up off Amazon from CKS Performance, came wrapped well and protected, they feel and look quality.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00LTQH624?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

GvidoR

Replaced rear wiper. It was funny, lifted up the arm and the blade just fell off. Makes much less noise now but these cheapo EuroGiant blades are crap. Anyone have any recommendations on some better ones?

Also hoovered the interior a bit.

JohnBoy26

GvidoR wrote: »

Replaced rear wiper. It was funny, lifted up the arm and the blade just fell off. Makes much less noise now but these cheapo EuroGiant blades are crap. Anyone have any recommendations on some better ones?

Also hoovered the interior a bit.

For the escort? Anything from Bosch,Valeo,Champion, or Hella should do the job fine. If you want to spend a little extra I'd highly recommend getting genuine ford wipers, they are excellent.

GvidoR

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

For the escort? Anything from Bosch,Valeo,Champion, or Hella should do the job fine. If you want to spend a little extra I'd highly recommend getting genuine ford wipers, they are excellent.

How much are they? Do I need to go to a dealer for them or do they have them in motor factors too?

JohnBoy26

GvidoR wrote: »

How much are they? Do I need to go to a dealer for them or do they have them in motor factors too?

For the Ford wipers you'll have to go to a main dealer. The others can be got at the motor factors. Not all will carry all of those brands, some might stock bosch , others will have valeo ..etc.

As for how much the ford wipers cost, tbh I don't know but as far as I remember they were a bit more expensive but worth it.

This might give a rough idea as to how much they will cost.
http://www.fordpartsuk.com/shop/ford_escort_premium_wiper_blades_kit_lh_and_rh_f_1714580_c_279.htm

Noccy_Mondy

They're about 35 ish for the front ones, but that'll depend on what size you need. That's what I paid for the focus. Think the rear one was 18 or something like that. It's more expensive because in the focus' case it's a unique wiper that suits the curvature of the rear window. Only Ford seem to make them, hence the price.

Toyotafanboi

Don't think i posted these up yet. only took the better part of a year but finally popped the dash cam wiring into the Celica!

It was handy enough, the cigarette lighter charger is a bit gaudy perhaps but the camera is 5v i think so that rules out hard wiring it in somewhere as i wouldn't know where to go about reducing voltage etc.

just popped the cable under the gearstick gaiter along with the Parrot kit, along by the fusebox, up over the pedals and up the A-Pillar.

only problem is i can't get the camera to stick to the glass. it came with a little double sided foam pad and i used that up when it was fitted in my Corolla. i've tried all manner of double sided tapes and foams but none of them seem to stick it, so if anyone has any ideas i'd like to hear them! i reckon the likes of tiger seal would stick it, but i'd like to be able to remove it again if i change cars!







i'm no photographer :pac:

CIP4

New wipers time.



I said I'd try these trico neoform as they are about half the price of Bosch aerotwins / OE ones. It was Renault ones that were on it and tbh they did look better as they have an easier clip on system you can see the difference trico left Renault right. The left one went on ok the right was a pain wouldn't clip on it was a pain eventually got it on though.



Standard Bosch one for the rear easy normal fitting system. Anyway only time will tell what the tricos are like I suppose.

morritty

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Don't think i posted these up yet. only took the better part of a year but finally popped the dash cam wiring into the Celica!

It was handy enough, the cigarette lighter charger is a bit gaudy perhaps but the camera is 5v i think so that rules out hard wiring it in somewhere as i wouldn't know where to go about reducing voltage etc.

just popped the cable under the gearstick gaiter along with the Parrot kit, along by the fusebox, up over the pedals and up the A-Pillar.

only problem is i can't get the camera to stick to the glass. it came with a little double sided foam pad and i used that up when it was fitted in my Corolla. i've tried all manner of double sided tapes and foams but none of them seem to stick it, so if anyone has any ideas i'd like to hear them! i reckon the likes of tiger seal would stick it, but i'd like to be able to remove it again if i change cars!

i'm no photographer :pac:

Woodies or any hardware shop should do decent double sided sticky pads, probably 3M

CJhaughey

Lidl were selling packs of 3m double sided adhesive recently, I probably have a piece of VHB in my car seeing as I carry so much crap around with me!