SVA
Preparation & donor parts:
04/05/08 - Stoneleigh Kit Car Show. Met Neil Everett whose website has been much of the inspiration for my choice of kit (see mymojo.co.uk) and had the first oppurtunity to see a Mojo up close. Tried out Neil's pristine Mojo 2 for size and decided to really start pushing this project forward.
21/06/08 - Newark Kit Car Show. Met Ali Clark from Stingray Motorsport and chatted about all things Mojo! Let the hunt for oily bits begin!
30/06/08 - Located XR2 uprights, brakes and driveshafts on eBay. Also found reconditioned MKII escort steering rack.
01/07/08 - Bought RS2000 track rod ends from eBay
03/07/08 - The kit has been ordered! Collection is provisonally due mid August. Also located Sierra callipers, Sierra steering column, Capri uprights, hubs and brakes on eBay.
05/07/08 - Collected Fiesta donor car from Waltham Abbey. Well under £500 including tax and 8 months MOT! Thanks eBay!
I used eCarInsurance to get a one-month 3rd party F&T policy on this car so i could get it home- total cost around £30. It also allowed me to test out the engine/gearbox etc prior to removal to make sure that there weren't any problems. Given that the car had a new cluth in January, a new catalytic coverter in march and the gearbox was refurbished the previous year - there shouldn't be too many problems. I only wish I had the engine bay steam cleaned now before I declared it SORN...
My plan is to remove all of the bits that I will not need, particularly most of the wiring loom, and check that the engine/ECU all still works. That way, I should end up with the bare minimum left in the Fiesta that still allows the engine to run and I will know exactly what needs to be transferred to the Mojo. I intend to use the Ford ECU for the moment and upgrade to Emerald/Omex and a larger engine when time and funds permit.
09/07/08 - Received the Haynes manual for the Fiesta. That should help!
16/07/08 - Received the Sierra calipers, steering column and switch stalks from CosworthSierraShack (eBay). The calipers seem ok but need to be refurbished before going anywhere near the Mojo! I could get an exchange set from a number of places and prices seem to be around £70-80 each, but I'm going to do the refurb myself since they're fairly simple things really and a full refurb kit is only around £50 which gives enough parts to do both! I'll try to document the process as much as possible and put a pdf in the 'resources' area, but for now here are some photos of rusty Ford parts.
03/08/08 - BiggRed brakes (www.biggred.co.uk) will do a full refurb with guarantee for £79 the pair. For this price, it seems utterly foolish to even bother mucking around with these brakes myself, so into a box they go and the next time I see them, they'll be all bright and shiny and probably a bit more effective at helping me avoid lamp posts.
Weather permitting, I'm hoping to make it to the Peterborough show this weekend...
05/08/08 - Stripped down the Capri uprights tonight. The bolts holding the calipers onto the hubs were a little tight to say the least and I ended up using a 5 foot long broom handle jubilee clipped onto a 24" breaker bar with a 19mm impact socket to remove them. Another lesson learnt - good sockets are important, and the more leverage the better!
The hubs themselves came off very easily after removing the split pin, the nut cover and the hub nut. I'll clean the brakes up later on, and drop the uprights off at Stingray for exchange when I collect the kit.
12/08/08 - Disassembled the Capri bearings, and started cleaning up the hubs.
Parts list:
Click <here> to go to a list of all parts used so far.
Build manual:
I must have read the build manual about a million times before even thinking about buying any parts! It is full of information and should be enough to get the build done but I am aware that there are a fair few assumptions within it's pages! Undoubtedly, this is because there is more that one way to build a Mojo, and it would be impossible to create a comprehensive manual. I consider myself fairly well skilled when it comes to bridging the gap between instructions and reality with a large helping of common sense (and sometimes brute force), but I am certain that there will be a large number of emails and phone calls to Sylva and Stingray!
For this reason, I am creating this website to record my process of building a Mojo, both for the benefit of any other Mojo builders and for my own benefit. In a few years time, it'll be useful to have a reference of exactly what part I used where!
For now, a PDF version of the build manual can be downloaded form here.