SouthEast Build 5cudo

[Lord Beany]

Great work Tenpin, this is gonna be a good'n!

You know this build thread is going to be even longer than mine with the detail you are including. lol.

I think i've said it before, but paving the way and making future builders lives that little bit easier.

Keep it up mate.

Beany

[beemaman]

top job tenpin

 your scudo is going to have first class coverage,its the small details that are posted that really give people the knowledge of how these kits go together and your the man (lol) looking forward to seeing some finished 5cudos this year....

do you think newark is a possability ?

 keep up the posts mate its gonna be a good un 

[tenpin]

   - that's what the sky was doing today - so nothing new to add - as it's all being done on my drive and I don't fancy getting that wet.

Mind you, the neighbours are all talking... Lots more of them, whom I've never met, are walking past and asking things like: "are you doing another one?", "have you still got the other one?", "what car is it?", "what's this one going to be?", "my partner's car mad, can I bring him round to have a look?"

One, I'm not particularly sure about: "Oh, it is nice that you've got a hobby!"

 - tenpin

[MADMAN]

As a "hobby" tenpin, it sure beats a train set 
MADMAN 

[tenpin]

Doors

When you fit the doors you have to reduce, by a small amount, how far they can open. This is due to the position of the Cougar hinge and increase in size of the 5cudo door.
This involves modifying the door check strap. There are two ways of doing this, one by drilling a hole in the strap and dropping a bolt through it, however my pics show how I did it by spacing it out with washers.

Pic - door strap - the LH one is the same as the RH one - it's just mounted upside down.

 - tenpin

[tenpin]

Doors cont

This is what the door check strap looks like in situ (Pic 1). You can just undo the hinge bolt and the two nuts to release it. However, to remove it from the car ...

[tenpin]

Doors cont

You need to remove the door cards. You can then get access to the door strap by removing the loudspeaker, on my car I also unscrewed the window relay on the RH side,  which made it easier to get my hand to the back of it.

Pic showing loudspeaker (4 screws) and window relay (2 screws).

 - tenpin

[tenpin]

Doors cont

Once removed, I dropped washers over the bolts and refitted it. Remember to refit the gasket over the strap....

I found that 7 washers per bolt reduced the door opening sufficiently. (In practice, I think 7 is the maximum that you could fit and still have enough thread left to bolt the strap back into the door!)

 - tenpin

[tenpin]

Doors cont

Here's a pic of the front edge of the door when opened. It's taken from inside the left hand wheel arch looking towards the rear of the car. It shows where the door skin will hit the Cougar - I've arrowed this point.

(You may notice some shiny metal to the left of the arrow - that's where I removed the lip on that bracket at the point at which it would have hit. Means I need to use only 7 washers instead of ? more.)
Note that you may need to use more or fewer washers than I did - it all depends on the exact position of the door skin in relation to the Cougar door, oh, and the Ford manufacturing tolerances... 

 - tenpin

[F430kid]

Hi tenpin you need to be carefull with all this posting... You might active a build thread with more pages than Beany's
I'm realy enjoying your build thread and it is realy clear and shows what a build of this category is like!
Good luck 

[str00dle]

Tenpin your build guide is awesome, it is really helping pointing out all the bits i am currently doing or need to go back and fix. Hope you keep up the pace as i have mine booked in for paint on the 28th April. 

[tenpin]

Doors cont

I took the front section of the kit off the car and thought I'd take a pic of the edge of the plate that I ground a bit off (to allow the door to open wider).

 - tenpin

[tenpin]

Front suspension:

Well, it's official - I hate suspensions, actually it appears that the feeling is mutual! When I did my 3Sixty, I had all sorts of problems with bolts that were siezed.... Today I've got a stubborn bolt on the front suspension - I've left it sprayed with WD40 (or equivalent), so hopefully tomorrow it will play nicely!

Here's some pics of what you should expect!

This is of the LH side. I supported underneath the hub with a jack. I unclipped the cable going to the brake disc. You need to remove the bolts highlighted by the arrows.
The 'red' one is straightforward. The 'green' one requires you to use an open ended spanner (15mm I think - I used an adjustable) between the bracket and the drop link. You can just hold that spanner in position whist you undo the nut.

 - tenpin

[tenpin]

Front suspension cont

Here's a pic of the 'green' bolt showing the drop link and the nut held by that spanner, once it's been undone.

 - tenpin

[tenpin]

Front suspension cont

This pic shows the connector from which I disconnected the cable - green arrow.

Bit difficult to see it in the pic, but the red circle highlights THE bolt (needs an 18mm socket) that has to be undone to release the shock absorber. This is the one that's not budging at the moment, but it will......

 - tenpin