djaychela

To answer here rather than PM (so others can read in the future).... the quick rack that I had was an LHD one that came with a job lot of parts I bought. Obviously being LHD the internals were not interchangeable to put in an RHD one, and I sold it along with the new LHD shell I bought that had a weld-in cage fitted. I heard rumours that a Nova rack would be adaptable to fit in the Felicia, but didn't look any further than seeing the superficial similarities between them; might be worth looking at as there are plenty of rally ones about if it does check out. I am indeed now running an Ibiza, with a 2 turn lock-to-lock rack in it (custom made by a swedish company), and it transforms the car on gravel, it really does, but then so does a C/R box, LSD, decent suspension, etc., the list is never ending!

If you want to tell if pads are rattling, try dragging the brakes with your left foor while holding down the accelerator with the right foot - i.e. left foot braking - while you're driving along. It takes a bit of practice so try it somewhere with nothing to hit, but it's really useful for checking things like this. Had pad rattle on my Mum's Passat the other day as the rears were fitted wrong. Left foot braking showed that it was definitely brake related in seconds. Other than that, check there's not a stone or similar stuck in a hub or disc shield - I've had that before and it made a similar sound.

Do it better - replace it with a steering joint from something like a Fiesta. Half an hour with the MIG welder and you'll have super-precise gear changes and it won't wear out either. £10 well spent.

I blew up a passenger airbag in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orw_m8h8n5E So they did exist... and the passenger one is WAY more serious than the driver's side...

Disabling them is a BAD idea. Many cars' protection systems rely on the airbags being a part of that system. Disabling them will increase the likelihood of being injured. In the case of the pre-tensioners, it may well mean the seatbelt works less well than it should, and that's a really bad idea. I think it's very unlikely they would spontaneously go off - the 15 year rating is far more likely to be a "will work" than "will go off randomly". You don't "need to do something in the next few months", it'll be fine - the lifespans given are estimates, and there's no information anywhere that there have been problems. Airbags have been around over 20 years in some territories without issues. Do some research, and you'll see you're making a mountain out of a molehill - Mercedes, for instance, now say that airbags should last the lifetime of a vehicle, whereas they originally said 15 years. RACV in Australia say they know of no cases of older airbags causing issues in a crash due to non-inflation, or having gone off spontaneously due to age. http://www.racv.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/racv/Internet/Primary/my+car/car+safety/safety+equipment/airbags/older+airbags

Yes, in the same way you must get your car serviced every year regardless of mileage. It's all CYA stuff, don't worry about it.

I'd check it after a few miles, if I were you... once the hub has had a few heat cycles from the brakes in it, it may loosen up, so worth a check.

No, to replace part 4, you'd need to remove the whole assembly from the car, and then use a press (10 ton hydraulic or similar) to press part 4 out, which destroys the wheel bearing in the process (part 9). You then press the lot back together with a new wheel bearing (you can support it in a way that allows this, trust me), and away you go. Wheel bearing is about £12 or so. Dead easy and quick to do if you have a press, and also means you won't need to get the steering alignment checked, which you will have to do if you replace the entire hub assembly (which is the normal way to do it if you don't have access to a press). Having said that, either way it can be a right PITA to get the hub carrier (part 10) off the strut - most come off OK, but I've had a couple where you can't get the bolt out (part 13), one of which didn't move even when I spent an hour on it with a blowtorch after it was off the car (just to see if I could, rather than anything else). It's possible to do the bearing without removing the strut from the hub, but it would need another helper to hold the lot in the press (and of course it'd all have to come off the car which isn't that bad, just 2 bolts on the strut top). If you have a press, then go for it, but (no offence) if you're asking on here I assume that you don't.

I'll have a look this afternoon... I've cleared my inbox, had no idea that had happened!

That's the right sensor. No, you can't swap the other one - the MPi one is two in one - one for the ECU, one for the gauge. I think I have several in the garage that you can have for postage (had lots of spares when I had a Felicia rally car in my avatar). Cue moderators!

Yeah, as you say,the problem is proving it more than anything, if you've taken it elsewhere then you don't have much chance. Still, lesson learned, and at least it'll behave itself now!

I've never had a significant camber deviation on a Felicia with new wishbones - I've fitted plenty, as you can imagine - the biggest deviation was about 0.25 degree, which didn't make a significant difference and without adjustable top mounts there's not much you can do with it anyway. Toe, however, has varied a fair bit. FTR I've seen plenty of wear from toe issues, and you don't always see the textbook feathering of tyres at the edges. I had one car that was miles off, the tyres were feathered, but plenty of cars I've bought and sold have had similar issues without any feathering. Girlfriend's car has exactly that right now, and the camber is spot on. The toe isn't.

I'd be surprised if you got -2.5 degrees from a worn bush... Anyway, far more likely cause of wear is that the toe in/out is off, causing the wear. Roll bar link wouldn't make any difference to it, FTR. I'd also be surprised if the rear mounting itself had moved significantly - it's been a while, but IIRC the wishbone mount's design wouldn't leave room for significant movement of the component, but either way it certainly needs to be checked after anything has been replaced. And given that they've replaced the entire arm it's unlikely that it would be dimensionally identical to the original. Poor form on their part for not having alerted you to this, though. Whenever you get any front component replaced (wishbone, bushes, joint, etc), then it's worth getting the tracking checked for this reason.

... I thought the OP had made it clear he was asking for advice, not advertising the parts. Given the amount of time it took for me to sell similar, I'd be surprised if someone would buy them having seen this thread - as I said above they're fairly niche parts for a progressively ageing car. Obviously there are fees on eBay as it reaches a huge audience, and gumtree is free, but there are plenty of other places which are free as well. But on the original point that you made, I think the £12 would only be worthwhile if it meant a sale which otherwise wouldn't have happened did so, or the price reached was considerably higher than elsewhere. In my experience that's not the case.

Not really, you'd be able to sell them elsewhere without paying anywhere near that!

I had a new throttle body that I bought when I first got the rally car, plus a new coilpack. When I sold them, I didn't get much - IIRC I got £20 for the TB and £10 for the coil pack. The problem is that even if they are near-new and super-expensive, the Felicia is a cheap car and it's still a secondhand part. Most of it isn't worth much, alas, but at least the TB and CP are small so you can store them without issue and send them cheaply. Having sold a -lot- of Felicia parts, I think most of it's not worth much - at one point I couldn't sell a complete leather L&K interior for £100 - ended up putting it in my recce car...

Nothing to be done if the cable is adjusted properly. You can try slackening it off a couple of turns and see if that helps, but if not then it's new clutch o'clock. Garage? £250? TBH I've only had 3 things done by garages ever so I'm not really up on it. Clutch kit should be sub-£100, it's 2 hours to do, a bit less if you encounter no rusty bolts or other issues. I'd say they'd probably charge you for 3-4 hours?

In my previous post... ;-)

I've done a couple using the self-tapper method, both on bike engines I didn't want to split. Both went fine, just needed to be careful when drilling the pilot hole that I didn't go too deep (I put a depth stop on the drill to stop it) and that I didn't make a mess. One screw either side, 2 minutes with a pair of pliers, job done. As far as this specific one is concerned, if access is tight, use a right-angled adapter or a flexi drill driver. I've used both (and an air drill, which was pretty small) to do similar poor access things when I didn't want to remove the engine to do them. You have to take it easy with them, but they do the job and save hours. Plus you can drop the engine down a bit by releasing the offside mount? Needed to do that to get the bottom pulley off a later petrol one (with the 6-rib pulley) to miss the chassis rail, the extra inch was vital.

If you prime the pump before turning the car over, you generally won't have to bleed the injectors as no air will get in there, but it's useful to put that there in case anyone needs it. As you say, it's easy enough to do, the kind of job you're worried about before you do one for the first time and afterwards you wonder what you were worried about!

It was a while ago (2 years) that I did my mum's, and I don't have the car any more... so no pics! There's a bleed nipple on the diesel pump - IIRC it's actually in the fuel pipe itself. Once you've done the above (change filter, with it pre-filled to save effort and time), you can attach the suction pump to this nipple, loosen it off a bit and then pump to suck the air out and diesel through to the pump. Once it's there, do the nipple up and it'll start OK. I -think- you need to have the ignition on for this to work as the immobiliser cuts the fuel off, but I'm not 100% on this (as mine was disabled). You'll soon know as nothing will come through.

I wouldn't fill the new filter with fuel from the old.... it'll have some water in it, unless you've recently drained it. Other than that, as said above is about right. Try to stop the fuel from running back to the tank by clamping the hoses, and definitely pre-fill the filter. If you can prime the entire system on any diesel it'll make starting easier (or indeed possible). Mk 2 Focus TDCIs are supposed to be an "absolute ******" to start, did mine without missing a beat by pre-filling the filter and bleeding properly with a pump before trying to start the car. Started on the button, didn't have a problem at any point. The Felicia is dead easy to do, and dead easy to bleed, just take it one step at a time and it'll be fine.

Looking great, James. Wish I'd never sold mine.

Honestly? Hideously expensive. You're talking thousands in labour - anything like this takes a LONG time as there are problems to solve, which will involve lots of time and money sorting them out. More than likely, custom driveshafts, a cooling solution (you may get lucky, but most companies that would take this sort of thing on would be dealing with bespoke solutions to fit into the space provided, so you're talking £500+ for a radiator, maybe £500 for a pair of shafts), gear linkage to sort out, fabrication of mountings (and probably subframe and even chassis mods to suit, as the engine bay isn't that big), etc., and then prep and paint once it's all in place. Lots of hours, and if anyone's charging a decent rate, I'd guess you'd be looking at £5k plus the cost of the engine/box? Bear in mind you will be paying for them to get the knowledge of how to do it. The second/third/fourth conversions would take a lot less time as all those things would have been worked out. They could, I guess, nick Tom's ideas, but there's still a lot of nuancing that's needed to get an engine where it's not supposed to be. Tom's done the 1.6 16v (check out the later parts of his 1.4 16v conversion thread) - mates to the standard Felicia gearbox, making things much easier. As soon as you change the box on a FWD car, it gets complex, and unless things are right, it'll also be unreliable as the shafts need to be at the right angle and indeed the right lengths or else things will go pear shaped very quickly...

If it's supposed to have a cat, you have zero chance in the real world of it passing the cat test. There is (of course) a loophole. If you had put the engine from a pre-CAT test 136 (which of course is the same physical engine as the felicia's 136) and had a letter to show the origin of said engine, then the MOT emissions test will be for the engine, not the car, and then you will be able to pass, suitably set up.