[AndyReact]

Here is my Puma - 1.7 R reg, i bought it off a mate for £250, it has ford racing Ka suspension on the front, but other than that it is standard (apart from the silly silver mirrors!)



plans are to get it handling nice, and generally just give it a bit of a tidy, failed MOT on rear beam bushes and a rusty sill, i have bought a spare rear beam and fitted some new standard bushes to that - i am gonna drop the old beam off (fork type) change the top mounts, and refit new beam (eye type) and these :



the Ford racing Ka rear suspension my mate never fitted, cos it was for the wrong beam type!!

and at the front, gonna be fitting these :



and probably replace the top mounts too, the front shocks/springs match the rears (FRK) but they have been on for approx 30k miles, but i think they should be OK!

[ScubaSteve]

What make bushes are they

[Bigdame]

Wow, bargain for £250!!!
Must say, its nice to see a budget build, rather than people with ample spare cash throwing loads of money at their cars
Be interested to see this progress
Cheers
Damo

[AndyReact]

They are flo-flex bushes (from eBay) £36 I think for front kit - they do rears and ARB bushes too, made in the UK and cheap!!

I forgot to mention I have done the FRP style airbox mod and fitted a K&N panel filter too!

[AndyReact]

old bush...



bush insertion "tool"



worked well! i had just been given that vice by my neighbour, so hadn't had chance to bolt it to my bench! (and my shed is full of stuff so i can't really get to the bench anyway! lol)

i am just giving the beam a bit of a clean up and lick of paint ready to go on! that should impress the MOT man!

[AndyReact]

bit of weight saving (that sh*ts free!! lol)





only really stripped this out to ease access to rear beam and top mounts, not sure if i will put it all back in yet - the seats don't weigh a huge amount to be fair!

[AndyReact]

bit of retro recaro goodness :



only a trail fit, i need some fiesta mk3.5 runnners to get them in - so if anybody has any, let me know!!

work has started on swapping the rear beam/suspension...



more to come this weekend!!

[AndyReact]

out with the old :



in with the new!





rear spacers had seen better days




total cost so for (including the car) is £445.16

This post has been edited by AndyReact: 15 March 2012 - 07:19 PM

[StevenRaith]

Nice work so far - lucky you have some land to work on, my car cost would be significantly less if I didn't live on a 10% incline street with no off street parking

You want to get those arches looked at though, won't be long before they won't be repairable, if they even are now. I assume you are well aware of the Peugeot 206 Front-to-rear-swap-the-sides welding trick?

This post has been edited by StevenRaith: 18 March 2012 - 02:47 AM

[AndyReact]

No, not heard of that, but you can do a similar thing with a mk1 vw caddy, only you use the fronts from a mk1 caddy/golf!

Cheers for the tip, I will look into it!

[StevenRaith]

As I understand it, the front right wing from a 206 is close enough in curve profile and shape to fit to the rear left wing of the Puma (and the same for the other side, natch) - cut out the metal from both respective wings, clean up the edges, weld it in, clean it up, paint it.

I expect there are some caveats, as ever, but it's a fairly well known trick round these parts, and one I plan to do myself at some point over the summer - my rear left arch is slowly disintegrating from the inside out. My right arch appears in better shape, but I won't know for sure till I cut back the paint and see how rotted it is.

[AndyReact]

small update



front seats and carpet out, found that the central locking module was unplugged, that will explain why i couldn't get into learn mode to program the key up!! i assume it was when my mate took out his ICE install to sell the puma on, he must have knocked the plug out!

next job, is patch up the big hole in the passenger sill and get an MOT booked, i have just sold my other car, so need this on the road ASAP - plus its near the end of the month, so wanna get it taxed ASAP too!!

i now have 3 cars, none of them are road legal at the moment!!

[AndyReact]

new "race tube" to replace the centre section with a knackered silencer...



the nuts that hold the centre section to the flexy are just blobs of rust, so i am gonna cut the flexy off and weld on this new one - the flexy is past it anyway!



got my flo-flex bush in...



and it doesn't bloody fit i need some genuine ford wishbones if anyone has any going spare!! or i might have to ditch the poly bush there and run standard/FRP - i would prefer to keep the poly's though now i have bought them!!

[ScubaSteve]

Not sure that would sit any different in a genuine

[AndyReact]

Hmm, pretty sure I have read on here that poly bushes don't fit none ford wishbones? I didn't look at this particular dimension before fitting them though!!

[YOG]

Powerflex rear wishbone bushes don't normally fit in non-Ford bushes as they have a metal outer casing, similar to the standard and "FRP" bushes.
It is the variation in the holes in the non-OEM wishbones that causes problems with the press fit.
Pumaspeed state this in their Powerflex add and Powerflex have a note in their packaging.

[ScubaSteve]

Yeah pressed in bushes don't work in non gen however that floflex one isn't pressed in and as long as its snug should be ok

This post has been edited by ScubaSteve: 07 April 2012 - 08:55 PM

[AndyReact]

The flo-flex isn't snug, it can move up and down approx 7mm!

If genuine wishbones ain't gonna help I will get on to flo-flex and see if they can change them...

[ScubaSteve]

It shouldn't matter if there is a bit of up down play there's no such force in those directions on that Bush. It's job is to stop horizontal movement of the arm

[AndyReact]

weldzzzzzz



not a bad job for my 2nd ever go at welding! it was totally sealed apart from 1 tiny hole, luckily it was right on the bottom edge so i could zap it up while it was still on the car!