Mondeo Mk3 rear droplink replacement

Disclaimer: I am a complete amateur at this stuff. Please do your own research and use your own common sense. I'm not responsible for any damage you do to yourself or to your car. I'm just sharing my own experiences here for the hell of it :)

This was several weeks ago and I’m forgetting the details now but, anyway, it’s all covered in a very good TalkFord Wiki here: “Droplink Replacement – Rear”

I had the suspension knocking noise (more like a loud rattle) coming from the rear driver side for quite some time, and it happened when going over even very small bumps and dips in the road. Apparently, worn out droplinks (anti roll bar links) are a common cause of this on high mileage cars like mine, so I bought two replacements. These were made by “TRW” and the part number was JTS457.

I did soak the nuts holding the old droplinks on with penetrating fluid for a few hours first but maybe leaving them overnight would have been better because everything was still quite nicely seized up. I also found it very difficult to get enough leverage / force on the ball joint part of the old droplink with the Allen key and only managed to do the driver side one in the end…

For the passenger side (with the still good droplink) I could feel that the Allen key was going to round off the hex recess if I kept trying at it, so I’ve had to leave that one in place… Bugger!

The nut on that side will probably need to come off with an angle grinder, but I have more pressing things to do at the moment so it will have to wait. (Note to self… remember to loosen the lower nut while the link is holding everything steady before you go cutting away the rounded off top nut! )

The new TRW droplinks have a flattened edge on the ball joint parts so you can choose to fit and remove them using two spanners rather than the one spanner and Allen key. Much more sensible, I think.

One slightly strange thing about the TRW replacement droplinks, however, was that they came with 5/8” nuts rather than the 15mm nuts that are on the original Ford parts. I didn’t think anyone still made things using imperial units…

Happy 120th !

Shortly after doing this job, the car made it to 120,000 miles (okay okay, 193,000 km then).

Fairly normal for today’s cars I guess, but I remember when I started driving this would have been an unusually high mileage for a car to reach; even if the engine could take it, most cars were a pile of rust before they could make it this far!

Mondeo Mk3 handbrake adjustment (keyhole bodge method)

Disclaimer: I am a complete amateur at this stuff. Please do your own research and use your own common sense. I'm not responsible for any damage you do to yourself or to your car. I'm just sharing my own experiences here for the hell of it :)

I had to adjust the handbrake a couple of weeks ago in readiness for the car’s MOT. It would have been a failure otherwise as there was a lot of free play in the handbrake and it took a total of eight ‘clicks’ to get the thing fully engaged.

( Some Mk3’s have an automatically adjusting handbrake which I’ve heard is not very good, but fortunately the one on my ‘54 plate Mk3 is the manually adjusted type ).

You take up the slack on the cables going to the rear wheels by tightening up a 16mm adjuster nut on the equaliser bar that the cables are attached to; this is located above the heatshield (a dimpled metal sheet) which is fixed above the middle silencer box. I managed to reach this area of the car without having to jack it up but it probably would have been easier if I had done so.

The heatshield is held on with 10mm nuts and the Haynes manual says that you should remove this, or slide it right out of the way, so you can then hold the other side of the adjuster mechanism steady with a 6mm spanner while tightening the adjuster nut. So please follow that correct advice and do it the right way, okay?

For myself, I could see that other bodgers before me had just removed one heatshield nut and then bent the rear offside corner of it down far enough to be able to access the adjuster. So that is what I did too. The equaliser bar and 16mm adjuster nut is thus revealed…

I had to use a deep 16mm socket on this and also, as I opted for this ‘keyhole bodge’ method, a very long extension and universal joint as follows…

I checked that the handbrake mechanisms on both rear wheels were not seized up before making any adjustments (get someone to watch them as you engage the handbrake, or point a video camera at them if working solo). Then you can adjust the nut… with the handbrake released, of course.

You are supposed to tighten the nut until “there is clearance of 1 mm between one of the rear caliper’s handbrake levers and its stop”. I’m not sure how much clearance I ended up with but after two or three full turns on the adjuster nut I had a nice firm handbrake which only took four to five clicks to fully engage, so I was happy ( the MOT tester was too! )

Mondeo Mk3 oil pressure sensor replace

Disclaimer: I am a complete amateur at this stuff. Please do your own research and use your own common sense. I'm not responsible for any damage you do to yourself or to your car. I'm just sharing my own experiences here for the hell of it :)

My Mondeo Mk3 is such a well behaved, polite old girl… she always waits until I have finished up on a contract before telling me there is something wrong. Last year the ignition coil pack died just two days after contract end, and this year the same immaculate timing but with an apparent oil pressure issue; the low pressure light suddenly came on while driving along and despite having plenty of oil in the engine.

A quick search for possible causes included:

1.  Of course… low oil. Nope! I also visually checked the top of the engine through the filler cap and everything was well coated in oil. Engine sounded fine too.
2.  Faulty oil pump. Likely need to remove engine to fix.  Please God no…
3.  Faulty pressure relief valve. I’d have to take the inlet manifold off all over again. Please God no…
4.  Faulty pressure sensor. Easy and cheap to fix. Please let it be this!

The inimitable and over-caffeinated (?) American, Scotty Kilmer, has a rocking video on pressure switch replacement on a Honda. So consider this a quiet Englishman’s equivalent for a Mondeo Mk3 and go pour yourself a nice cup of tea and put a little Mozart on… okay?

The pressure switch is easily accessible and is situated just to the right of, and above, the oil filter. Here it is shown with the connector already removed...

You will need a deep 21mm socket to remove this... I was lucky enough to already have a 21mm spark plug socket that fitted very well. I changed my oil and filter at the same time but you could change just the switch if you wanted to… you will lose a little oil in the process of course.

The replacement sensor/switch I bought was made by “ERA” and is part number 330029. This one has some solid red sealant on the threads, but if you get one that doesn’t have this I am told that you should put some high temperature silicone sealant on the threads before fitting it.

I also cut a millimetre or two of the green plastic off of mine so that the socket fitted onto it better...

Clumsily, I managed to round off the sump plug even more than it already was when I was taking that off…

So I put a new one of those on too. That was part number 333590091, made by “Guide Pro”, and it has a M14 x 1.5 thread with a 13mm nut. Use a ½ inch socket on it though for a tighter grip but, yes, it’s easy to round it off if you’re not careful!

I treated myself to a low range torque wrench (5 to 25 Nm) for this job as I do have a tendency to want to overtighten things. This piece of kit covered both the pressure switch (15Nm) and the sump plug (28Nm) nicely…

Here’s the new pressure sensor/switch and oil filter fitted…

And the good news is that the oil warning light is now staying off. Yay!

Mondeo Mk3 brake pipe replace (offside front)

Disclaimer: I am a complete amateur at this stuff. Please do your own research and use your own common sense. I'm not responsible for any damage you do to yourself or to your car. I'm just sharing my own experiences here for the hell of it :)

Two years ago I had an advisory on the MOT for “slight corrosion” of the offside front brake pipe. I’ve now found some time to look into it. I gave the pipe a good rub with wire wool and mostly it was just some protective paint/plastic which had flaked off where the pipe is exposed to the road but there was one bend where there was some actual metal corrosion and as this would not rub out with wire wool it seems that my advisory had now turned into a potential MOT fail. I really must stop ignoring these ‘advisory’ things !

Cars are generally manufactured with steel brake pipes because it is the cheapest material but, of course, these will eventually rust. When they are corroded badly enough they need to be replaced and are generally replaced with "Kunifer" pipe ( 90% copper / 10% Nickel ).

The offside front seems to be the easiest to access of all the brake pipes on a Mondeo so I thought I would try to DIY this one.

Here are all the tools I used...

Clockwise, from top:

• Flare nut spanners (avoid using ordinary spanners on brake unions as there is a risk of rounding off the fittings). You will need 11mm for male fitting and 13mm for female fitting. I also used the 16mm spanner for tightening/loosening the die on the pipe flaring tool
• Pipe flaring tool for 3/16” pipe. This is the more expensive kind of flare tool ( which can be used in situ ) and is very easy and accurate to use. You could use one of the cheaper vice mounted tools instead if you wanted.
• Pipe bending tool
• Pipe cutter – just a standard plumber’s pipe cutter that you would use on 15mm / 22mm household copper pipe
• Brake fluid – for lubricating the threads of the pipe unions and to top up the reservoir when you bleed the brakes after fitting the new pipe
• String – for measuring, against the existing pipe, how much length of Kunifer pipe you need to cut
• Stanley knife – poor man’s deburring tool, for deburring the cut pipe and putting an internal chamfer on it
• 10mm ring spanner – for tightening the jaws of the pipe flaring tool
• Felt tip pen – useful for marking the length of pipe to cut and marking points on the new pipe where bends will be made
• End caps – make these yourself as part of practicing how to use the flaring tool. If you make two male and female pairs then you can avoid any brake fluid spilling on your nice driveway etc
• Male and female brake pipe unions (10mm x 1mm). You’ll need three of each as a minimum if making the end caps but you may as well buy a whole bunch of them as they are so cheap.
• Kunifer pipe – 3/16" diameter. Sold in 25ft coils. Offside front pipe needs about 4ft of pipe. (Keep the rest for when your other pipes need replacing ! )
• Length of ½” PVC pipe – use this to straighten out the pipe as it comes off the coil
• File – for filing off the burr after cutting the pipe and for filing an external chamfer on the cut end of the pipe

I’d never made a brake pipe before so before removing the old pipe I did some practicing. There are plenty of Youtube videos covering the process. This one is quite good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qli4jSGoDTo

Straighten out some of the pipe by pulling it through the ½” PVC pipe as shown here: https://youtu.be/BHGPfA1xAjY (the pipe slides through easily if you keep the little plastic protective caps that should have come with it on)

Cut a short length of pipe from the coil with the plumber’s cutting tool. File off the protruding burr that the cutting tool leaves.

Continue 'internal deburring' and also make a small 45 degree internal chamfer in the pipe using the Stanley knife blade

Make a small 45 degree external chamfer on the pipe using the file.

Now the pipe end is ready for flaring….

Use the flare tool to make a male end (using OP1 of the tool’s die) and put a male union (small 11mm connector) behind it. Put the female union (large 13mm connector) on the pipe and then make the female end (using OP1 and then OP2 of the tool’s die). Remember to use the punch grease when making the flares.

Male end…

Female end (union/fitting is out of view)...

Connect the two ends together... doesn’t need to be excessively tight, but tight enough for the two ends to press together and form a sealed joint.

A brake pipe for a mountaineer... ?

Now cut the last two inches off of each end and turn them into end caps by hammering the pipe closed ( I also ran some solder along the hammered end for good measure ). I made up two sets of these...

Okay, enough practice! Let’s get the old pipe off the car...

Unbolt the engine bay end of the pipe (a plastic bag underneath the joint is a good idea to catch any brake fluid) then quickly place male and female end caps on to prevent losing all your brake fluid…

The pipe can now be released from two plastic clips at the back of the engine bay; these were quite stiff and had to be carefully prized open while pulling gently on the pipe. Be careful not to whack that nearby plastic brake vacuum pipe.

Jack up the offside front of the car and remove the road wheel. Please be safe! I use a trolley jack AND axle stands AND several sections of tree trunk all wedged under the car. You don’t actually need to get under the car for any of this but you do need the road wheel off in order to access and remove the pipe.

Remove the small piece of plastic cowling at the bottom of the wheel arch for easier access (2x 11mm bolts and 1x 8mm bolt)

Unbolt the male union from the flexible brake hose and fit the other pair of end caps…

The third, and final, clip holding the pipe in place is just out of sight behind the wheel arch. Have a look with a mirror...

I also found this one quite stiff, but you can see how it works... just prize the clip open while pulling gently on the pipe.

I found that the pipe could now be withdrawn through the wheel arch without needing to bend or cut it in any way. Great! That means we can use it as a template to fabricate the new pipe entirely outside of the car.

With the old pipe removed, take the end caps off and drain the fluid out of it.

Measure the old pipe length with the string and cut some Kunifer pipe to match that. Mine came to 121 cm, which included some extra for the flares and also a centimeter or two extra just for good measure ( I did end up removing a few centimeters though, later on, before making the second flare in the pipe).

When bending the new pipe be careful not to scratch or dent it or you may need to start again. That’s what happened with my first attempt… my pipe bender is a bit cheap and nasty and also I was trying to make every bend entirely with the bending tool. My second attempt was successful though and this was because I only used the bending tool to get the approximate shapes and then made final adjustments by hand.

I made the male end first (the bends at that end are more fiddly) and then worked towards the female end making all the bends. Compare the two pipes carefully for length and cut off any excess before making the female flare. Of course, it’s better to be a little too long than too short, as the bishop said to the actress, and I think my pipe was about 1 centimeter longer than the original.

Here is the finished pipe... Hooray!

Now fit the new pipe to the car... feed it in through the wheel arch, push it into the three clips and then connect up the wheel end of the pipe first followed by the engine bay end.

Finally bleed the brakes, top up the brake fluid reservoir, check very carefully for leaks and then test the brakes. I drove around some quiet, empty streets doing a few emergency stops and then checking for any leaks at each end of the pipe until I was satisfied that all was well.

I’ve checked the pipes on the other three corners of the car and I think I’ve caught those in time… I can only see some light bubbling of the protective coating on the parts of those pipes exposed to the road, so I’ve now coated those with some thinned grease (50/50 LM grease / unused engine oil applied with an old paint brush) to protect them from actual metal corrosion. 

Update: Okay, the car has just passed this year's MOT so my new pipe was good... but I now have corrosion advisories on the two rear brake lines so I'll see if I can address those properly a little bit later on this year...

Mondeo Mk3 inlet manifold remove / PCV hose replace

Disclaimer: I am a complete amateur at this stuff. Please do your own research and use your own common sense. I'm not responsible for any damage you do to yourself or to your car. I'm just sharing my own experiences here for the hell of it :)

So, aide-memoire in case I have to do this again...

Engine idle had been quite high and erratic on our 2004 Mondeo for several months. Not too bothered until garage pointed out that it was due to air leak in the PCV (positive crankcase ventilation) system, specifically a split in a rubber hose, and that it would cost mega £££’s to get it fixed.

The PCV hose (aka oil separator pipe) takes combustion blow-by gases from the crankcase, via a one-way valve, into the inlet manifold. The symptoms of a split PCV hose are high idle (in our case 1000 to 1500 RPM, with short surges to 2000 RPM when vehicle came to a stop) and poor fuel consumption. You’re also getting unfiltered air into the engine through the split; this doesn’t get much of a mention but probably isn’t a good thing.

There’s a bit of history with the Mazda L/Ford Duratec HE engine used in Mondeo Mk3 in relation to this. Covered in more detail here but it goes something like this:

• 2000-late 2002 (Pre-‘facelift’ cars). Inlet manifold with small diameter PCV hose. Also features “swirl flaps of death”; air flow tumblers which after time work loose, disintegrate and are ingested into the cylinders usually writing off the engine. Owners of these cars have usually removed the swirl flaps as they are not really necessary.

• Late 2002 onwards (some pre-facelift but mostly facelift cars i.e after mid-2003). Manifold was revised mainly to fix swirl flap weakness, but also introduced a wider PCV hose which unfortunately, years later, has become prone to splitting... causing vacuum leak and idle problems.

• Ford then released a revised PCV hose which is not prone to splitting ( part number is 1440473). Not sure but this may have been fitted as standard to cars made after 2004/2005 (?). In any case if you’ve got the original hose in a 2004/5 Mondeo then if it hasn’t already split it soon will and you will need to replace with the newer hose.

The replacement PCV hose costs £40 inc VAT which is pretty steep for a 6” long piece of rubber tube, but that’s not the worst of it... Mazda decided to locate the PCV valve and hose deep down behind the inlet manifold and it’s impossible to replace these items without first taking the manifold off, which is why it’s an expensive garage job (4 or 5 hours labour).

Somebody on TalkFord forum actually managed to replace their hose by removing the throttle body and flap actuator only and leaving the manifold in place, so I tried that first but found it impossible… he/she must have very small hands!

So I carried on with manifold removal as per this “Craig’s DIY Car” video (No need for any Haynes manual – his video covers everything perfectly)

Engine with throttle body removed (placcy bag over it to stop things falling in), flap actuator removed, and the electrical & fuel injector connectors labelled and removed. Note: Don’t use white paper stickers next time... they fall off. Use white insulating tape instead.

I could not manage to disconnect the TMAP sensor down at the front, so unscrewed and pulled the whole unit out instead.

However there are three or four others connectors down below, at the front, which were really hard to reach and wired in tightly so I was afraid I’d break some wiring down there. Gave up on those in fact. Two on the left... one for starter motor (?) and one which looked a bit homemade/repaired with insulating tape and one or two on the right. Need to properly id these at some point...

Lost my nerve at this stage, and time was running out for me too, so decided to change only the PCV hose with a partial manifold removal… i.e. if you cannot get the manifold completely out then you will not be able to replace the PCV valve and I also found I could not change the manifold gaskets either like this (but you can generally re-use the existing ones – they are rubber. Just be careful with them).

So… carried on with removing the manifold bolts. As I was unlikely to be able to fully remove the manifold with some wiring still in place, had to be really careful not to drop any bolts. Small but strong magnet (e.g from a fridge magnet) blutacked into the 10mm socket did the job. Make sure not to let the magnet touch the side of the socket itself...socket then attaches itself to other things nearby as it approaches the bolt head and, if not secured well enough, it gets left behind when you try and remove it. So yes, also wrap the socket, adaptors, extensions etc really firmly in insulating tape. Don’t want any of those coming apart.

Socket with the magnet in it…

Socket/extension arrangements that worked for me are shown below...

• The top arrangement worked for most bolts (10mm socket, long ¼” extension, ¼” to 3/8” adaptor, plus a 3/8” to ½” adaptor as required)

• The middle arrangement shown was for removing the TMAP sensor screw (Torx T20 in ¼” socket with ¼” to 3/8” adaptor)
  
• The top rightmost bolt near the throttle body/accelerator cable gubbins needed the universal joint with the long ¼” extension

All bolts are visible except for the middle lower bolt. Tried a torch and mirror for that one but found it easier just to ‘feel’ the socket onto the bolt.

Upper left bolt is almost invisible but you can actually see just a sliver of it through the gaps in the manifold above so use that to ‘see’ the socket onto it.

All bolts (18Nm torque) should crack open without excessive force (i.e very firm hand pressure plus a bit more)

As with the throttle body, flap actuator and dipstick, keep all the bolts and screws safe. Here’s the card that was made up for the manifold bolts… numbering gives the order in which to torque them up again later (i.e from the middle outwards)

This is as far as I got the manifold detached from the engine body with the cabling still in place. Just an inch gap really. Edges of the swirl flaps are visible in each port... they seemed to be in good condition; no freeplay or damage. Does look black and oily in there... normal for a high mileage engine? worn piston rings? PCV valve failing/failed? Don’t seem to be burning any oil though.

Just enough space now to get the PCV hose off… vulcanized/stuck onto each end though. Managed to split the PCV valve end of the hose with a craft knife and was then able to prize it off. Did something similar, and also used some heat, to get the manifold end of the hose off.

Il Bastardo !!! ( 3 inch long split smirking at me )

Here’s the new hose (1440473)

Compared to the old hose we see that the new one has a double wall

You could say it’s rather over-engineered now what with those clips and all. They are glued on but mine fell off whilst trying to fit the pipe. It’s okay though, space is so tight that this tube ain’t moving anywhere and I had no space to manoeuvre the clips back on anyway. With the restricted space I think jubilee clips might be better anyway for any future removal/refitting.

PCV valve end of the new pipe went on first. Heated it up a little first. Still very tight to go on (silicon grease might have helped perhaps?). As with the removal, careful not to use too much sudden force... the PCV valve is plastic and looks quite breakable.

Then the manifold end of the pipe went on... not much space to apply heat to it but managed a little. Somehow managed to get some force onto it through my palm and slowly got it about 90% on… good enough! Hand and arm now badly scratched up and bruised :(

Refitting the bolts, I used the magnetized socket but also tied some thin cotton around each bolt head with the other end tied around my finger. No chance of losing any bolts!

The torque wrench I have is rather large and unwieldy so I was only able to accurately torque up bolts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7… had to use a smaller wrench and guesstimate 5, 6 and 8. Tighten them up in sequence from the middle outwards.

Next, reconnect all electrical & injector connectors, reattach the TMAP sensor, throttle body, flap actuator, throttle & cruise cables, air inlet pipe and battery. Lastly, don’t forget to reinstall the oil dipstick (this dipstick nearly did!)

Engine started up after three attempts. What a relief !

Warm engine idle is now back down to about 750 rpm. Fuel consumption has reduced from about 30mpg to 38mpg. Nice !

Summary... took me two days to take apart and one day to replace the hose and put all back together again  (i.e read about it, worry about it, check it, double check it, do it, triple check it... for every step). Next time should be much, much quicker. May need to cut that wire that looks ‘home made’... mark each end and then do some terminal block/connector on reassembly etc. Also, apparently I could have lifted the radiator fan out of the way for some better access to those front wires (?)

Concensus on TalkFord forum is to remove swirl flaps even on cars with the revised manifold and flaps. To quote one poster there: ”If it’s not on the menu it can’t get eaten!”
Usually can hear them clattering away when they are going bad. So if that ever happens or if start to get failed PCV valve symptoms then do this job again... but properly and change the PCV valve and remove the flaps. New gaskets too...

• PCV Valve part number is 1331598 ( * )

• Inlet port gasket ( x4 ) part number is 1119284 (but you already have these)

• EGR valve gasket part number is 1119833

• Video for PCV valve replacement

Happy Mondy now... finally getting some TLC :)

( * ) Note to anyone that has strayed here needing to do this job on their car, the part numbers referenced here are for my car. Yours may be different. Would recommend a chat to someone at www.fordpartsuk.com... give them your VIN number and they'll look up the correct part numbers for your car. ( I think you can do this here too: https://www.etis.ford.com/ )