Haven’t updated ya’ll on the Fiesta. The job has been done, but there’s a bit of a story to go along with it.
While fighting with a CV shaft, the car fell 90% of the way of the quickjacks. The rubber blocks that the car sits on rolled while I was underneath prying on things causing the entire car to shift to the left about 8-10”. Fortunate in terms my life, a corner of the driver’s side rocker panel dug into the quick jack and prevented it from coming completely off. I don’t know if the passenger side would have held or not had it come completely off - it was at least was further under the car after it shifted - but it was easily the closest my life has ever come to ending while working on a car.
For reference, I’ve had an arm swing out on a 2-post lift while a car was in the air, and a hydraulic jack fail while changing a tire.
Anyways I finished the job. Onto the pics.
Transmission out from the bottom. The subframe does not need to removed on the Fiesta
Toasted TOB/Slave assembly
Fresh OEM bits. For those curious, the clutch that came out of the car had probably 30% left
Transmission back in. I did this entire job solo. To aid installation, I removed the hood and used my ceiling hoist to hold and adjust the position of the engine. I used a motorcycle jack to lift the transmission up, then bench pressed it in the final few inches. Fortunately the clutch was aligned and after a few seconds of vigorous wiggling and twisting the input shaft splines aligned and the trans slid home.
Damaged rocker. Fortunately this is covered with the plastic body piece, which broke every clip that was holding it on when the catastrophe occurred. I knocked this back in as best I could, applied primer, paint, and clear to prevent corrosion, and clearanced some of the inside of the cover with a Dremel.
Clip explosion
New clips installed, 3M adhesives applies. Not great, not terrible for a car with 100k farts
It’s back on the road now and working properly. I did find a torn balljoint boot that I’ll address soon - loaded/complete OEM replacement control arms are only about $60 and can be removed and installed in about 30 min.
All told, I did this job in about 11.5, I’m told Ford pays 9. Nice knowing that I can still sling some wrenches if I have to.
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