RichardJ

Won't this be quite a complicated mod to do in terms of setting up speed/wheel sensors etc? Most EPS uses a road speed signal to increase the assist at slow speeds and trim it back as speed increases. Having full power assistance on, even at 60+ mph, would be an "interesting" drive.

I was just wondering if it was Canadian as it looked like it had the indicators on the rear quarter panel.

That's a nice example, and worth the effort restoring. Is it a Canadian spec one?

Taping up one of the pipe ends and filling the pipe as full as you can with with table salt (then taping up the other end) before bending it was a trick I learned from some American car builders. It works a treat as the salt stops the pipe from collapsing/kinking even on pretty tight bends. It's a bit fiddly getting the salt into the small bore of a brake line, though. You can then just flush it through with water after you've finished to remove the salt, then wait for it to dry and it's good to use.

Just remember to rubber mount with some anti-vibration mounts or similar it if you go for an alloy rad, as you can have problems with the alloy cracking if you bolt it directly to the steel mounting points due to a combination of vibrations, galvanic corrosion and the different expansion rates of the metals.

I've polybushed the subframe mounts and it seemed to work quite well without much of an increase in noise or vibrations. In general I found the front tolerated polybushing quite well. The back end was a different story entirely. When I polybushed the rear arms it made the car rumbling and growly and you could hear a lot of mechanical noise. Over 50 mph it was uncomfortably loud.

These are the kind of things that would be a doddle to 3D print if someone had the time to map out the part in CAD.

The speedo should be mechanically the same between KM/H and MPH, it just has a different dial face (e.g. 0-180 KM/H versus 0-110 MPH or 0-220 KM/H versus 0-130 MPH). You just need to get a replacement dial face, or get yourself a sticker to change the numbering on the dials, like this one for an Escort: Escort speedo dial sticker On the R34 Skylines, they have backlit dials so you can't just put a sticker over the dial face. Instead people use black marker pen to cover over the "K" in the KM/H symbol, leaving it saying M/H, and use an converter to change the electronic signal reaching the speedo by a factor of 1.6.

Sorry, I completely missed your reply. I actually ended up doing what you suggested, and used a piece of sheet metal to make up a replacement. It turned out pretty well all things considered, and looked convincing, it just didn't have the strengthening rib pressing on it. I tried to make it look similar by putting it on the gas hob until it glowed red, and then dropping it into a bowl of oil. That then gave it the blue/grey spring steel look like the original.

I don't suppose anyone has a spare spring for a mk3 PFL glove box available do they? It's the metal clip at the top of the dashboard opening behind the latch that stops the glovebox falling open too wide, and has two u/spire clips built in to allow the latch to fasten to.

I've done a Duratec conversion, which I believe is very similar in terms of the plumbing. I'm not 100% certain, though, so someone on here might be a bit wiser on Zetec specifics. The Duratec cooling system is a bit "backwards" in terms of how it is fitted together on the engine block - The thermostat is actually connected to the cold (lower) outlet of the radiator rather than the hot (upper) inlet from the water rail. The only reason a mechanical thermostat operates at all in this position is because there is a hot water bypass connected to it directly from the water rail (this bypass is basically what I am using for my heater feed), which keeps the thermostat at close to the same temperature as the water rail. If this is also the case on the Zetec, then you should probably connect the bottom hose of the heater matrix to the water rail rather than the top hose, as the water rail is the hot/pushing side of the system. Otherwise, you might find your system is pumping in such a way that it is creating airlocks in the matrix rather than helping move them to the top for bleeding out - you'll also lose the top hose as a reliable bleed point. A few other causes I could think of for your problems: - There's an air lock or other block in the Matrix (Neo) - as above, but once you've plumbed it in, the top hose of the matrix is normally a reliable bleed point and a place you can check that the system is pumping correctly. - broken coolant pump - also unlikely, as these tend to leak rather than just stop pumping. Unless it's jammed and the belt is slipping over the pulley (would probably squeal horribly though). - Connecting return side of the matrix to the wrong port of the thermostat or tee-ing it into the wrong radiator hose.

Dropping a nice modern quartz one in would be a perfect solution. Shame there aren't modern ones that fit.

Mine seems to tick reliably, but that is the only positive thing I can say about it. It's about as accurate as my darts playing ability if I was playing blindfolded on a windy day on a 200 yard long oche. I think there is a recessed adjustment screw on the back which adds some resistance to the mechanism and can speed it up or slow it down. Maybe yours has been set over tightened, which might explain why it runs slow and keeps stopping?

Cool - look forward to seeing the pictures. The only other thing I can think of that might be useful to know is that because the bends are near the end of the pipe, it's much easier to bend the pipe to shape before you cut it to size - if that makes sense. Basically, use an overlong piece of pipe, get the bends in the right place to line the pipe up where it needs to go, and then trim the ends down to the right size. The bends are all nice and gentle on the piece that you are replacing, so you shouldn't have any trouble with the pipe collapsing. If you decide to replace any of the other metal lines at a later date, specifically the ones with really tight bends/corners on them, a good trick I picked up from a US car builder was to completely fill the pipe with table salt first, and tape both ends to keep the salt in. The salt then stops the pipe collapsing even when you put really aggressive bends into it. You can then just flush the pipes through with water to dissolve the salt and clean them out, dry them, and they're good to go.