Paul Turner

Nic The alternator has just died on my Zetec, it uses the X-flow Lucas type unit under the carbs. I have been quoted £18 for a recon unit (6 month warranty) or £40 for a new (read old case with all new internals) unit (18 month warranty), both plus VAT. Paul

Paul I used my old x-flow starter combined with a steel flywheel when I fitted the Zetec, it needs to be the later pre-engaged 10 tooth type to mesh correctly. From memory the same starter works with a lightened Mondeo flywheel but a spacer is needed between the stater and bellhousing. Paul

Managed to get hold of a pair of 45's with air bleeds, Jenvey were most helpful. Unfortunately that's all I have obtained so there goes the excuse to be in the garage on Christmas day. Paul

Phil Just had mine done and its exactly as Oily says. I do not think there would be sufficient material in my manifold (Whiting supplied). Unfortunately I have just fitted the carbs temporarily to get the engine running thus cannot help with photo's. Paul

Thanks for the replies, looks like 45's, just got to decide whether to wait for the air bleed ones. Another couple of questions for the experts out there, does the throttle body size have more of a relationship to power or cc, I see on the DVA site that K series DTH bodies in 42mm size are good for 250 brake. What HP would a 40mm body be good for? Paul

Sorting out the bits to convert my Zetec to injection and I was hoping to get it all together before next weekend. The snag seems to be that my chosen supplier is unable to get 45mm throttle bodies with air bleed screws until next year, Jenvey are out of stock and not manufacturing them again until January (alledgedly). I have been offered 2 options, 40mm with air bleed or 45mm without. Maps are available for both options thus no problem there but my questions to those who have experience with injection kit are simply, is 40mm too small for a 2 litre with cams and a flowed head and are the air bleed screws necessary, I have only ever seen one tuner actually use them on my Webers. Paul

Me and the wife fitted the engine yesterday and for the first time I used the load leveller I bought from Machine Mart after I had helped a friend fit his VX using one, had never seen one before that. My car is a 92 dedion chassis without removable diagonals and the engine is a Zetec. It normally needs someone pushing down on the gearbox, someone checking that the speedo drive is OK, someone moving the car about and someone lowering the engine whilst checking that the sump is still clear of the front tubes. Normally this was acheived with 2 people plus a 3rd getting in the way but with the load leveller it was a doddle. We were still speaking afterwards but I can just about live with that disadvantage. Well worth the money, just give it a good greasing first. Paul

Slow Hilda I am currently in the process of converting to fuel injection on my Zetec thus will have a 3 year old Weber Alpha ECU and loom surplus shortly after x-mas (possibly before if Santa comes early), would this be of any interest? I was planning to advertise it once it was out of the car. It is really simple to fit, you would only require a throttle pot from Weber to turn it into 3D. I would expect your 40's with 36mm chokes to be fine with the spec you are talking about, I ran 45's with 36mm chokes but that was purely a case of fitting what I had, as you say it is the choke size that matters, 36's are the biggest you can fit in a 40 (I think) thus that would be a limiting factor if higher power outputs were required. Let me know if you are interested. Paul

Good to hear that. Does it mean you will be able to answer my many queries over the coming months? Paul

If its the "light duty" Escort box with the integral bellhousing don't worry about the weight, I have had one in both my Sevens and it weighed exactly the same a "rocket" 4 speed with ali case and ali bellhousing. Used both a 4.1 and 3.9 diffs, better with the 3.9 for crusing (185/60 13 tyres). The box was great but when I went to an 1800 x/flow and slicks I decided not to risk a breakage. Being a 4 speed there was no gear noise in top and the ratios were better that the rocket IMHO. I only ran mine with a 7 1/4" clutch. I have not seen it listed by Quaiffe for a few years now so a call to check spares availabilty could be worthwhile. Sold mine for £300 several years ago. Hope that helps. Paul

Mike I run pretty much the same system as yourself with a couple of differences, I have no heater and the 2nd pipe T off from the bottom hose goes to the expansion tank. With a 92 degree stat the temp gauge normally shows 92-93 degrees, on a cool day it can take 15 -20 miles to reach this, 88 is reached pretty quick though. On my James Whiting supplied by-pass tube (connects to the stat housing at "d" in your description) there is an outlet (blanked off along with the outlet opposite "d") to supply the heater. This is how the heater in the original Ford is piped I believe. It may be worth trying this small modification, however since you say a valve is fitted and is shut off there should be no flow. If your temp sender (presume you have earthed it) is in the stat housing my conclusion is your stat is buggered. I am told this is not uncommon, the original on my engine was stuck in the open position when I dismantled it. If it is stuck open the top hose from the engine will start to warm up immediately rather than only when the stat opens. Do you have an expansion fitted? Paul

I have had my Zetec in for 3 years now and it has always gone up to the high 90's on hard acceleration but quickly settles back to the normal 92 ish afterwards. I use the Ford stat housing with bypass tubes. There is no heater and this puts the temperature sender in a dead area since the heater pipes would circulate water through this part of the housing, I have always assumed this is causes the strange readings and have from time to time planned to experiment with either a relocated temp sender or small pipes to circulate water past the existing sender. I had a head gasket fail after the first 1000 miles but since the engine was £150 out of a burn out this should probably have been changed in the first place and I have had no trouble in the last 6000 miles. I fitted the correct water pump thus that is not the problem. Even borrowed a fancy infra red temp sensor thingy from work and all that proved was the temp gauge was spot on and there were no hot spots. I stopped worrying ages ago. Currently preparing a fresh engine for next year, will this do the same? Paul

Genuine Irvin sheepskin jacket, unmarked condition. Size 38 ish. Phone 07903 504991 or 01623 439084. Could take to Curborough. £200 ono.

Sandy Where are you in Notts? I am in Sutton in Ashfield. I have a 2 litre Zetec with a Dunnell sump, front oil seal leaks a bit and there is a slight leak thanks to a iron gate stop (araldite has virtually cured that, its remained in place for over a year now). My cure is to put something on the garage floor to catch the odd drip. Had an interesting experience when I fitted a new rear oil seal, Mr Ford got that wrong from day one. Other than that no problems but I have seen evidence of slight leaks from porous welds on Dunnell sumps. Paul

Just fitted the Freestyle "trackday" spec kit plus adjustable front bar to my 92 de-dion. The original Bilstein dampers (with the machined circlip grooves - they give a bit of ride height adjustment) were still on the car fitted with SPR spec race springs and a 19mm front roll bar. Have only done a couple of hundred miles but the car feels more comfortable on the road, even the Mrs agrees with that and the turn in is definitely sharper. No nasty surprises on the occasions I have started to enjoy myself. With the adjustable spring seats they were a doddle to set up. Have not tried playing with the bar or clicks on the dampers yet, there are probably improvements to be found. Good value for a well engineered set up. Paul

Elie Might be 1 1/8" AF, I knew it was bigger than 1". 1 1/8" converts to 28.575mm according to Mr Casio. I have both in my tool box therefore it must be one of them. Paul

Elie Think its 1 1/4 AF, its 12 years since I had the Ital axled car so I could be wrong. paul

Phil Likewise hope you are keeping well. Without hijacking Nic's thread I did not find a need to up the limit from the 7300 I had Weber set my limit at. The Weber ECU is factory set at 6500 (thought I had a terrible missfire until I discovered what had happened) and I had to send a disclamer to Weber along with the ECU before they would up my limit. With hydraulic tappets I am a bit wary about going any higher but I have met a man with a Dunnell spec engine with standard tappets that used over 7600 regulary with no problems. Paul

Nic I have a budget similar to yours but only have a wife, 2 cats and a dog to support. My 2 litre Zetec is a £150 burn out special (mileage supposed to be 63,000 when I bought it!!!!) with Kent FZ2002 cams, ARP bolts, Weber 45's (36mm chokes) and a 3D Alpha ignition. The cams were about £300, the bolts £65, no other mods required but were time consuming to time in correctly (the Ford slots are no use with these cams, on mine they were 116 degrees ish on both exhaust and inlet). Last year on a "genuine" rolling road it gave 176 corrected BHP at the flywheel (7000 rpm) with 153 ft/lbs of torque between 4500 and 5500 rpm. Beautiful to drive. Next stage would be a modified head, probably need to speak to Ammo on that. Paul

Bought a 2 litre Zetec, told 63,000 miles looked sound, dashboard fire caused by dodgy hand free installation (alledgedly), no oil leaks other than the rear seal were visible. When I stripped the engine to a bare assembly a couple of things became immediately obvious, there was a brand new clutch (both drive and pressure plates) that must have been fitted minutes before the car went up in smoke, you could still read the part numbers, plus there had not been a new oil seal fitted at this time, surely this could have led to clutch slip. Anyway fitting a new rear seal would be a doddle with the engine on the stand whilst I was carrying out the remainder of the prep, off came the carrier and out came the seal, marks in the carrier witnessed there had been a new seal fitted in the past. The seal also showed that the carrier had not been centred, one side of the rubber was flat the other side knife edged. Followed Mr Haynes instructions but due to the size of one of the ali lugs on the carrier (it was touching the crank) it could not be centered, filed a bit off, centred the carrier, fitted the new seal, sorted. 5000 miles later still OK (I think). From new the seal could never have been centered, how many more are like this? Paul

Have had my 2 litre Zetec in now for about 2 years and 5000 miles. WIth the 92 degree stat fitted the car runs at about 92 degrees on the gauge. I used a Whiting cooling kit (bypass water rail under headers-mail rail along chassis) and I beleve that is the same as Dunnells. For the first couple of months I suffered from trapped air in the rad, it is a non-Caterham rad but was built to the same dimensions. The gauge used to osscilate between probably 88 and 94 but over a long run it did eventually settle however rapid acceleration did see the gauge rise as quickly as the rev counter to approx 96. After much head scratching I borrowed one of the fancy infra red temp sensors from work and looked for any hot or cold spots but it revealed nothing other than the fact that the gauge was accurate. At this point I spent a few quid on a tee piece and some unions and installed a bleed pipe from the top of the rad to the expansion bottle via the teepiece and existing bleedpipe, I already had a spare tapping in the top of the rad. That got rid of the air lock and somehow the temp fluctuation virtually stopped. It did not get rid of the sudden rise of the gauge under acceleration, I have stopped worrying about that, I have a theory that since I do not have a heater and since the sender is in a dead area of the stat housing that may be having an effect. I used a Kenlowe adjustable fan switch set at 98 but with a dash mounted manual switch I never let it get that high in traffic, most of the time unless you are stood for a long time the temp does not seem to change. After having had x-flow Sevens for 14 years running at 78 degrees to see the gauge at 92 was a bit worrying but I believe it is normal for modern engines. Sort the missfire and enjoy the car, the Zetec is a lovely engine. Hope that helps. Paul PS Just noticed you are in Notts, so am I, -mail me if you think a look at another car would help. Edited by - Paul Turner on 12 May 2004 20:30:30

I use a standard Ford 2 litre Zetec filter, it fits in my 93 de-dion chassis with no clearance problems. Have used Magnatec 5W 30 for a couple of years now but I recently visited the Millers factory shop and bought 5 litres of their 5W 30 Ford spec semi syntehic for around £12.00. No idea of the price in the shops. Paul

Nick I have couple, 5mm on both, located in North Notts, Ring me on 01623 439084. Paul

Don't know if the Dunnell potentiometer is set the same as the Weber potentiometer but you check the Weber one with the throttle at idle position and ignition on, touch a voltmeter positive wire to pin 1 and the negative wire to pin 2, the voltmeter should read 0.75V + or - 0.05V. There should be screws to enable the pot to be loosened and rotated to give the correct reading if its out. Hope that helps, Dunnell did tell me the Weber pot worked with his ignition system when I considered buying one. Paul

John When I installed my Zetec the sender from the x-flow fitted staight in on my 94 engine. Can I assume that you have a later engine, if not it should fit. PAul