my Moonstone Sierra RS Cosworth ...

Bear with me as this thread has a bit of catching up to do.

In 2005, getting a clean (back when we were allowed to use water!) and how the engine bay did look ...

Jealous!

Hey Rudeboy,

Nice to see on here as well.
Looks better in the flesh. Looked great at SFS last week.

Chippa

I have driven it often in good weather whenever I could ... and its street presense in Australia is awesome.

Then then one day whilst I had it parked (securely) at work I came out to find a puddle of coolant under the car. Long story short: my water pump was leaking from the shaft seal so it was off the road for the car and time for a newy.

I had a few other issues that needed sorting so this was the time. I knew that to make this car reliable I need to replace any 20 year old (original) perishable items (hoses,belts etc) that might let me down at the worst time. Things I wanted to do included

1. replace the water pump
2. power steering fluid lines were seeping (the ones at the bottle) ... they needed to be replaced before they failed
3. fix up any messy electrical wiring (particualy at the battery. I'm not an electrician but i am very fussy and I HATE messy wiring
and a general tidy up was in order.

So the car ended up like this ...





I didn't even have a garage to work in

Quite a few parts are looking scabby, so whilst I was in there they were either rapaired or replaced. For instance;

MAP sensor bracket and PS bracket sand blasted and in my makeshift spray booth ...



Ta Daa ...



Bonnet catch was nasty ...



But sourced a new one ...



And bonnet stay rod was sanded and repainted and installed with a new fitting kit ...





... and yes, I have polished the inside of my bonnet [:o)]

Nice car Moser.

I've also had a number of Fords before including a KH AWD Turbo Laser but always wanted a Sierra ever since I saw DJs car. Thankfully I still get to see them quite regularly between visits to the DJR museum, which is only 10 minutes from home, and Bowdens mueseum at Buderim.

I'm keen to get a fairly standard Sierra and just make it reliable to use, much like yourself. Hopefully I'll have something to add to this section shortly :)

BTW, are you located in Victoria?

Paul.

Righty'o time to get serious ...

One of the things I had to do was get stuck into the PAS system ... the return line (small dia) from the metal cooler line to the reservoir was seeping fluid ... in a year (with not much driving) it had gone from 'max' to 'min' and you could see it was wet with fluid ... not good enough for me. Also the supply line from the reservoir to the pump was cracked ... sure to fail one day.

Whilst I had the PAS system open it was time to replace all rubber hoses so nothing (fingers crossed) would let me down. Also the cooler line was terribly crusty and looked poo pooe ... (it looked worse in real life) ...



Out came the pump for a clean up and this was the line that was poor and my greatest concern ... at the time a new replacement was not available and I lucked a v good second hand one on ebay, but now Roose Motorsport reproduce it in silicone.



some piccys of what I could see on the hose, the cracking ...





Arrggaahhh those clamps ... next was to replace all rusty clamps with these awesome full stainless clamps (you don't want to know how much time I wasted trying to find these) I actually found the listing of these clamps in the 'concourse' section of PF and discovered they are made in Australia by Tridon ... solid band, smoothed edged and all stainless steel (how I get hung up on the details) they dont cut your hose and with a bit of metal polish come up SHINEY ... fully recommended. I get Warburtons to order them in for me and I use them on both my cars.