Ownership Verified: Old car out, new car in.. could've gone smoother

Nice, I should really get around to waxing my car. I've already passed the 3 (!) year anniversary of me getting my car.
 
and sorry for missing pictures in this thread, my server did crash and some of the files are missing from the new hw. shall update some of the pics back when i get the time.

And i know i should use phyrefile.

And i got my car rustproofed with finikor treatment, they cleaned my car with wash, underbody wash, motorbay wash, interior vacuum and floormat cleaning as a bonus. + i got two tickets to finnish baseball game held today in our city.

I was pleasently surprised by the fact that the treatment gave also sound insulation as a bonus. Quite a noticable one too..
 
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and the pampering continues, new brake discs and pads to rear, spark plugs, ht leads, oli filter and fresh oil...

Should be up to the task against Finnish MOT...
 
And a finnish mot passed without a comment...
 
aaaand my right side xenons are out, got a replacement bulb yesterday and today i tackled the task.. everything went smooth until i turned them on.. very dim light and then it stopped working. the old xenon was definetly burned (black etc) so i thought it was the bulb.. i changed the bulb again (which i bought for the other side) and the same thing happens. Bulbs are GE d2s xenons and the bulbs the car had are the oem ones philips 85122 d2s.. Is the reason in the bulbs or have i fried the ignitor or the ballast..

Next step is to return the GE:s (shop opens at monday), try it with proper philips and then trying to switch the ignitors and ballasts to the other/working side. Gladly now i have at least one working light for tomorrows trip, so I dont need to drive with high beams on all the time :)
 
todays testing confirmed that the power source (ballast) is not working. philips bulbs did the same as the GE ones. changed the non working side ignitor to the working side ballast+bulb and it worked, working side ignitor and bulb did not work on the non-working side..

Luckily it was the most expensive part that could be broken :p
Now I need to ask around if the local shops sell this part, or I might order them from the states.. Any experience with oemxenonparts dealer?
 
There seems to be some quite cheap replacement ballasts on sale on Ebay (30 ? including postage from the States to Finland, so no import taxes). I have no experience with xenons though, so I have no idea about the quality of those parts.
 
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Nice ride, not that common. And the only right colour too.
 
well got a quote for the ballast from 3 different places..
ford dealer quoted me: 452e for one ballast
non-brand dealer: 250e for one
xenonwebshop: 139e

So i went for the chepest (its the same Hella ballast) ofc..

I checked the right ballast model and it needed the removal of headlight. Who thought it would be nice to have a bolt inside the front bumper/fender that holds the headlight? luckily it was accessible without removing my right front tyre and wheel arch..
 
and now i have 2 working xenons!
 
Had the ST serviced, it was making some noises and a jiggly butt feeling when going over bumps so I decided to change rear arb drop links and rear arb chassis bushes, it had a massive effect. I got to see the old drop links and the center bushings were torn in two pieces, so it was a good time to change them. A year ago the same service noticed that it was leaking some coolant from the thermostat and I decided to change that also. New oil and filter and gearbox oil change for a good measure.

After that much changed parts and servicing I am good to go?
Nah.. rear shocks are in a state that require new shocks because they have been freezing solid in the -25C to -35C weather we have had for the past 2 weeks. So they are leaking. Also my AC compressor is leaking (seems like i dont have cold air coming next summer) and they found some leakage on the power steering pump, it had leaked a bit last time I serviced my car about a year ago, but we decided to monitor it. The weather was the same as now (-25 to -35). PS oil level dropped about from middle to the min state in a 3 week period, but after weather went over -25C it hasn't leaked a bit. Until now. It is under monitoring again.

Im about to order new shocks from over seas and seems like im going for Koni Yellow, opinions about them?
I am not going to lower this car and the car wont see that much track time that i would want to invest on race/sports shocks.

So it is piling the bills as usual, but after all I adore this car still, the looks, the feel and I just like to drive it. So I am prepared to pay a bit more to drive this than some gray econobox.
 
changed the rear shocks (ford ST170 originals) and now its running fine again. i dont need to watch out for every bump anymore.
 
Very nice. Euro bumpers really set off the body style so much nicer than the US plump bumpers.

Paint the wheels white?
 
I have been thinking about it.. restoring the wheels (curb scratches from the previous owner) and painting them.. preferably white.
 
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And another boring washed and waxed update. Summer tires and interior cleaning + wash + autoglym red super resin polish wax and Dodo Juice Purple Haze wax. Didnt have time to try out the autoglym, zaino z-5 + dodo combination. What ive heard it wouldve deepend the colour more, but im happy with this combination also. Shame that the paintwork is quite poor all around the car. Theres scratches and "sandblasted" bottom half of the left rear door. Wax did not do anything to the smoothness to it. Looks like the lacquer is gone. Colour is fine but the surface is very rough, machine buffing and proper detailing could do the trick.
 
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Small update on the car front, my headlights started to look worse and worse during the winter and especially this summer. I toyed with the idea of wetsanding (2000grit) and then some polishing compounds to get the scratches, yellowish tint and minor cracks to diminish..

So first try today, not with sandpaper but with mequair's headlight restoration kit. Which was the easiest of choices available and when the new headlight units costs a tad under 800? per unit, I am willing to spend some money and try some "miracle" stuff also..

Starting point with my left headlight..
IMG_9973.jpg

After some 15-20 minutes of drilling (the polishing pad is attached to a drill) with mequair's plastX
IMG_9974.jpg

The results were better than i expected.. the yellowish tint is gone, clarity improved and its a lot smoother now..

Its no mean a perfect result, the deeper scratches are still there and when viewed from the right angle the surface is still a bit rough.. but the stuff did well in my opinion for a plain polishing compound.

Wetsanding is on the schedule but for that I am going to remove headlights and sand them in a more controlled environment.

Some more pics... first my right side headlight (which is not done yet, because of rain and flat drill battery..)
IMG_9976.jpg

And the refurbished side as a comparasion..
IMG_9975.jpg


Pictures are straight from the camera and i tried to keep the settings as the same.. ofc they are not from identical direction and lighting in my parking spot may change...

Feel free to post tips for wetsanding (shall i use plain hands or is some sanding "block" better for it)
How does grit 2000 + farecla g3 (how about korrek kliineri) + this plastX + some finishing wax (dodo juice purple haze) sound for a combination to rescue these precious (as I have found out) babies? :D
 
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Biggest thing to remember when restoring headlights, don't skimp on the sanding. 2000 grit is way too smooth to start with IMO. I started with 400 grit and worked through different grades up to 2000, and even then some clouding remained because I didn't sand hard enough.

I used a kit that came with polishes and most importantly UV sealants that made the biggest difference. The headlights were still quite opaque from sanding when you put the stuff on, but afterwards they come out crystal clear.
 
Remember after you polish them clear you need to put some sort of UV coating on them like Lamin-X or something similar. You sand off the factory UV coating and if you don't replace it your lights will look worse very quickly.
 
Bump... Another update on the car, only service that it has needed in this time period were normal maintenance + new front struts, front springs, front arb droplinks and arb chassis bushings.. subframe alignment solved also the camber problem (left 0, right 2,00 is now left ~1, right ~1).

I also passed the 50k kms mark with this car now, which is about 3 years old (i got the car 30th of June 2010) so I have averaged about 16,6k kms per year.
 
Some grave digging to this thread and small update:

New rear springs (one was snapped) and ignition coil pack (to sort out a slight studdering on revs below 2000)
It is ready for MOT. After MOT ill start buffing out the headlights (which has been a long project for some reason) with wet sanding + polisihing compounds. Ill finish it off with clear lamin-x.
 
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