2003 Focus SVT EAP $201X Build

I've done the clutch and the timing belt on mine, never had to take the engine out of the car. Sounds like you have more going on though. Find somebody who has the timing tools (cam bar and crank pin) for the timing belt, and it still might take a couple tries. VCT sensor is REALLY easy to replace, but expensive I think. Mine was just leaking oil at the o-ring, 5 cents to fix.

On the clutch, people will tell you you have to remove the subframe to get the trans out from the bottom. I am here to tell you that you do not. I don't see any reason you wouldn't be able to get the engine out from above, either.

Hoping to get in the garage tonight after wife and daughter are asleep. I'm going to need some guidance on removing the rusty crusty exhaust mani bolts.

Wire brush the the threads if studs, spray with kroil, liquid wrench, fox urine etc...

Rinse, lather and repeat.

Pray to your automotive God of choice.

Put the wrench to them

In reply to bgkast:

For some reason I decided to tackle this last night and put off draining the trans and pulling the CVs. This is what I saw looking at the exhaust bolts/studs:

Berkley I says. You can see how rusted the header flange and dipstick tube is as well. I'm going to have to order a new tube and spend some serious time with a wire cup and angle grinder. I decided to put on the 10mm on a 3/8 ratchet and give it a go. I honestly couldn't believe how effortlessly these came loose. Threads were perfect. I really can't remember the last time a bolt reversed out that smoothly.

The rest of my time was spent removing coolant hoses and cleaning up coolant that seemed to never stop draining from the radiator and t-stat hoses. I'm somewhat of a clean freak about coolant on the garage floor. I also removed the lower rad support and was awe of it's crustiness. These are new on rockauto for 25 shipped. I'm not going to waste my time cleaning this up. My oil pan has suffered the same fate also. It amazes me how some stuff is rusted to nothing and other steel pieces look new.

Today I'm replacing two light fixtures with 40W bulbs with two 48" florescent strips. I'm getting sick of working in the dark with orange lighting.

Your automotive God of choice must have been listening!

Those header bolts look terrifying. I really dislike undoing any fastener or connector that's not absolutely unnecessary.

dyintorace wrote: $1300 seems like a screaming good deal. Congrats! Do you think you can do what needs to be done while staying under the $201X cap? Hopefully you can without having to do something drastic like sell those great seats.

That was a very, very evil Inception, don't listen to him! LOL

Seriously great project car. I've professed a love of almost all things SVT since the dawn of, well, SVT. That's a steal!

I removed my starter motor a few days back. the teeth are worn at the corner, which is likely what would result in the intermittent grinding when I would attempt to start the car. The grinding has been going on for a few years, so it was time to replace.

I took off the clutch pressure plate and friction disc tonight. The friction disc is worn level with the rivets. Sounds like time to replace it to me.

Turns out I bought the wrong flywheel bolts. The 12-point head design is only for the non-SVT Zetec. Whoops. Now, I wait. If I found out a day earlier, I could have driten to C-F-M after work today. Unfortunately, I will be working during their business hours for the next few weeks. Oh well; I was already waiting for the flywheel holding tool. I found one used for $40 on Ebay. I have seen cheap/novel alternatives to loosening the flywheel bolts, but I like to do things the "right" way before using shortcuts. I'm hoping that I can flip it for a similar cost somewhere down the line.

Since one of my ball joint boots is torn, I decided to change it out. And since the ball joint is only $20 cheaper than an assembled MOOG lower control arm, with hardware and bushings, I decided to get a complete control arm instead. Since the other ball joint has just as much mileage, I might as well change the other side. Such is life.

This will bring my total part replacement to the following:

• Clutch (friction disc/pressure plate)
• Flywheel
• Slave Cylinder
• Starter Motor
• Right and left c/v axles
• Right and left lower control arms
• Front O2 sensor I had laying around

Plus new transmission fluid and all the supporting hardware.

I can't wait to get my core charges and tool deposits back!

The special tool, "303-103" came in today. It made removing the flywheel bolts so easy!

I couldn't find any picture on the net of what it looked like installed, so this is what it looks like:

Now that the flywheel is off, I see that the rear main seal is weepy. Looks like the rear main seal has been added to the to-do list. "Might as well."

Very nice. Willing to ship out that tool to me once you're finished up with it? I will ship it back to you when I'm done.

I've been digging through craigslist for parts for cheap to flip. Found a set of Mach HID (factory) headlights for 60 bucks. Going to pick them up tomorrow. Should be good for 300-350 shipped. That will pay for my clutch kit. I also found a local scrapping an SVT block that has the oil separator and oil cooler still attached. Guy says I can have it all for free plus a box of free SVT parts he has leftover from a partout.

Sure, I can ship it out to you when I'm done. It is unbelievable that it's about $130 new. Damn special tools. For the rear seal, I plan to use a mallet and a flat piece of wood as my "special tools."

In time, I would like to repair my front end bodywork. One day while parked at work (public parking lot), I walked to my car to find that some dingleberry turned into my car, cracking my headlight, seriously gashing my fender, and gouging my bumper cover.

When at O'Reilly tonight, the counter guy gave me a discount on everything. That he knows my car by heart, and that I get discounts, means that I've been spending too much time and/or money there lately. Though their prices are certainly higher than Rockauto, O'Reilly is open until 10. Point, O'Reilly.

Well berkeley. In reinstalling the rear main seal carrier, I tore the crankcase gasket. I tried wedging thin pieces of plastic, metal, anything to compress the gasket; everything I could think of, but no luck. Here's hoping that some RTV squeezed into the seam will do something for me.

Preventative maintenance may have become degenerative maintenance.

Mitchell wrote: Preventative maintenance may have become degenerative maintenance.

I hate that feeling.

I was able to work on my car on Friday night. Both front Caliper pistons are rusted so bad that they are about to start leaking fluid. Crap. That adds more to the final tally. Rockauto has centric rebuilds for around 35 bucks after core returns.

Don't feel bad. I was replacing the rear springs and now I'm ordering an entire new subframe and control arms due to frozen bolts in the bushings. Invest in a sawzal before working on the rear suspension.

Be careful ordering from Rock Auto. My experience is it's a crap shoot if you get the right part or if everything is included that's shown. My Moog control arms had non greasable ball joints and one had a bolt kit, the other didn't. Having a special car like an SVT with specific parts is tough to order parts for. For those calipers, I'd hit up a local Car Quest and pay the extra.

Don't feel bad. I was replacing the rear springs and now I'm ordering an entire new subframe and control arms due to frozen bolts in the bushings. Invest in a sawzal before working on the rear suspension.

Be careful ordering from Rock Auto. My experience is it's a crap shoot if you get the right part or if everything is included that's shown. My Moog control arms had non greasable ball joints and one had a bolt kit, the other didn't. Having a special car like an SVT with specific parts is tough to order parts for. For those calipers, I'd hit up a local Car Quest and pay the extra.

I always cross reference part numbers to make sure. So far that hasn't let me down.

Feels like I'm just wading through rusty suspension components at this point. Tonight was two snapped bolts for the ball joint pinch bolt (on hub) and a ball joint bolt itself. The lower control arms are so cheap, I think I will just purchase new ones. They will include ball joints as well. I'm going to por15 the crusty hubs after some wire brushage. The wheel bearings appear OK. With new end links, calipers, pads/rotors, and tie rod ends, the front suspension should feel pretty tight after I'm all buttoned back up. It has just been a royal pain in the ass to take all of this apart. Snapped a few pictures tonight, but photobucket is not cooperating.

I dumped some oil back into the car, and so far, nothing is leaking.

I installed the clutch and flywheel, but mating the transmission to the engine is proving to be a real pain in the ass. I have raised and lowered the transmission 3 times now, and realigned tr friction disc. Much internetting is showing that some people get the spline to line up the first time. The only thing I haven't tried is turning the engine to mate the two. That's next.

Tonight I made some dowel pins to help align the transaxle: cut the head off of M10 bolts and notch the tail end to allow a screwdriver to turn them. Then, place them in the transaxle bolt holes of your choice. Of course, this took a few trips: get a fake Dremel from Harbor Freight, and promptly burn through all of the included cut-off discs. Then, go to Home Depot, and buy a 20 pack of official Dremel cutoff wheels. Much, much better.

And that leaves me, tonight, at the same exact place as I was last night. Argh. I can't imagine where I would be if I had to contend with rust as well.

Wanted to update with a few pics to one-up Mitchell.

Where I'm at now. New garage lighting makes working on this car so much easier.

Crusty knuckles. These have a future date with a wire brush and "Zero Rust".

This is how berk'd the caliper pistons are. Remans are headed my way soon.

Right now I need to finish pulling the axles, button the suspension back up, remove lower dogbone, drain remaining fluids (brake & PS), disconnect fuel line, put back on the ground and pull the engine.

My goal is to get the engine on the stand and clean up a lot of surface rust and re-paint the bock. I will be changing out quite a few things, but I hope this will go faster with the engine out. Remember I basically work on this car on Friday and Saturday nights, so progress is slow.

Had a big weekend. My 29th birthday was Thursday, and my daughter's first birthday party was yesterday. I asked for cash instead of gifts from wife/relatives, and was able to manage enough to order my OEM clutch kit. After the party was cleaned up today, I had a friend from work come over and we were able to pull the engine. Pushed the car outside and seen it in the sunlight for the first time ever. There is a lot of nasty on that engine to cleanup, and I really have my work cutout for me. I wish now I would have labeled things a little better, because getting the electricals back together my be a bit too much to remember. I've done it before, and I just don't seem to learn my lesson.

Now I'm working in the garage with the engine and the car pushed outside. I need to get the trans off the engine and put it on the stand. That will just have to wait I suppose.

I had a ton of electricals undone, and labeled basically none of them. I just carefully laid out all of the wiring, made sure it didn't snag, and hooked the connectors to the most logical nearby plug. Ford was kind enough to use a lot of different connector shapes, so the correct mating plug was easy to find.

ScreaminE wrote: For some reason I decided to tackle this last night and put off draining the trans and pulling the CVs. This is what I saw looking at the exhaust bolts/studs:

Wait, that's bad? Every car I have ever owned looked like that at best!

In reply to pinchvalve:

I grew up down south. A lot of things that horrify me about this car are "meh no big deal" to you Northern folk.

Been working on tearing down the engine/trans. No pictures sorry. Was able to pull all of the wiring harnesses that were still attached to the engine, pulled the trans/clutch/flywheel. Clutch disc was worn completely smooth. Felt almost greasy like a lead pencil. The pp and flywheel were pretty clean looking. Either way, new LUK unit is on order along with a lot of gaskets from RockAuto.

Hoping to get the engine on a stand and completely "torn down" by Friday night so I can wire brush and possibly pain the block over the weekend. I'm not separating the head/block because the head was rumored to be taken off 55k miles ago due to what was thought to be a bad exhaust valve. The paint is flaking off the block like I've never seen before. Going to wire brush with grinder and treat with naval jelly and re-paint with engine enamel. I'm thinking red because everything in the engine bay will be black including the valve cover (wrinkle paint).

I would love to have the engine and trans re-assembled by the end of April and put back into the car. I'm basically going through the engine first, then the front/rear suspension, the interior (have two leaks), and finally the exterior. Sometime I wonder why I took on this project, but then I remind myself how nice of a car I will have with all up to date maintenance and upgrades for under $3k. Even if I decide to dump this car after I'm done with it (I don't plan to), I can still get every penny back from it when I'm done.

Keep up the good work; it is worth it in the end. After everything that I have done to mine, I enjoy it more than I have in years.

I finally dropped the flywheel holding tool in the mail, so it should arrive by the weekend.