Advice/Help- Engine Tear down slows down

[JST4SHO1]

History-
August 2011- After Convention it developed an oil leak on the passenger side causing smoke when hot and had a shop “repair, replaced” the rear cam seals, crank seal, timing belt and tensioner, both pulleys- from Shosource
I had been driving the car since and drove it about 800 miles after the repair. I cleaned my parking mat and the car was great on/off driver until about a week ago. I went to start it in the garage and it made a horrible squeal almost didn’t start, stumbled and fired up. Sounded ok and I pulled it out, only to see the small puddle under car. Couldn’t tell if I was all oil or what but this was over the holidays and it hadn’t been driven and the liquid had soaked into the floor.
I let the car run for a minute and the squeaking continued and I even think I’m hearing a knock or something in the motor. I made a quick video of it running on my phone and put the car back in the garage and decided to take it apart.
I’ve been hoarding a complete 60k parts box and planned on somewhat restoring the engine bay so I figured why not.

Well I only got this far, and as you can see I’m beyond ****** and have no clue to begin with and planned to just take my time and now I don’t even know if it’s worth my time/money or even if its fixable/safe. Do I have any recourse to the guy I bought this car from? Car fox? EBay? A friend thinks a good metal worker could make the car right.

 

[19sho90]

Check the other spots on the car that are known to have rust. This doesnt seem to be that hard to fix. But is it worth it to you to fix the car? Cause by now NO money you put into it you will NEVER get out of it.

 

[JST4SHO1]

Check the other spots on the car that are known to have rust. This doesnt seem to be that hard to fix. But is it worth it to you to fix the car? Cause by now NO money you put into it you will NEVER get out of it.

Yeah its worth it to me.Your saing I either have to fix it or its worth nothing?

It has been a smooth tight car since Ive owned it and have driven it about 4k since I got 1500 of which was long distance travel. Everything works and Its had some previous work done to it including. The Quarter panels repaired, the hood front bumper repainted and the whole car wet sanded and buffed. New glass in front, new lights and all the wheels refinished.
Said to have new powerstering pump, water pump, crank sensor, egr, dpfe sensor, rear caipers, shosource catback, Eibach spring, Senseatrac struts, strut mounts, fuel pump, ac compressor.

I havent gotten the splash guards off yet, but is the plastic whatever it is stock?

 

[kevinspann]

Oh. It took me a minute to figure out what I'm looking at. The "plastic" you see is a sound deadener in a plastic bag of sorts, attached to the inner fender liner.


Holy shit, I've never seen a car with a hole in it there. That whole section of metal will have to be replaced. Pull the inner fender liner out and see what you see. After that, I'd pull the bumper and fender.

 

[rubydist]

to answer your question - no, you have no recourse against either the seller or ebay or carfax. I'm sure it was sold as-is, and you had an opportunity to inspect it prior to completing the deal. unfortunately, it is what it is.

 

[JST4SHO1]

Yeah I have to get a look under the liner, after I get a new Jack HF trip I think. Im just so amazed that someone would do so much to a car and not touch/notice this I mean it didnt happen overnight.

My problem now is the keeping and maneuvering the body pieces in my small garage that’s not attached to my home.

Do you have to remove the rockers to remove the fenders?

Could I get a piece from the bottom of the strut tower forward on that side from another car, and weld it in?

This is why the car had a strut tower hood relocation kit on it. But not a bar?

 

[kevinspann]

The stock struts attach to the firewall.

The rocker plastic should have a screw at each end, and fasteners on the bottom, philips headed push pin things. after all that is off, you lift it up off of the metal bracket that holds it on. It would be easier to pull the fender with the rocker off. And if the car is rotted in the fender well, I'd want to look under the rockers too.

Yes, you'll have to get that piece from another car and weld it in. I think Josh Walters (aka Typhoon5000) did that to his car.

 

[Rubix]

Those stupid foam bags hold moisture like crazy, to be honest I'm surprised we haven't seen more SHOs on here like this. What's the other side look like? What about the rockers?

 

[Ishodu]

Thats a good reminder for everyone to pull them damn insulation bags out of there. I did that many years ago.

 

[sperold]

Of course it is worth fixing.
The nice thing about these cars is that part is still available...... in every scrapped Taurus in the country, and remember these were the best selling cars of their time.
To me, the fix for that is mostly accomplished from underneath, through the plastic inner fender.
Carry on with the engine work and by the time that is done, you will feel like tackling this issue.
Borrow a portable generator and a reciprocating saw, and hack that section out of another car, and you will figure a way to put it back in by going through that exercise.

Is that a strut relocation kit shown in the picture?

 

[Whydah91]

You must really love that car to sink that kind of work and cash in it. There's a 115k original no rust '92 MTX for sale in my town right now for $2700. Buy a straight original no-rust body and swap everything over if ya got a lot of expensive mods. Unless ya just love work.

 

[Rubix]

I'm just in disbelief your car has this rust man, this thing is so freakin clean everywhere else!!

 

[kevinspann]

Pull the engine and whole front clip, replace the metal, then paint the whole engine bay with BC/CC so it'll be shiny like the outside.

 

[JST4SHO1]

Yeah Im going to first wrap my head around all this and start with finding space to put parts and whatnot.
I a noob to this amount of mechanical work, but this time Im going to either watch it get done or do it myself. I thought I did buy a car 98% rust free I checked the Qp's but not under the front sheilds and with all the crap in the way I didnt see it.
Ive been reading a bit and was thinking I got get the engine out the bottom, but how much height is needed? Would a gen3 subframe be easily adapted to my trans and whatnot. I just recently found it has a 4yr old/8k mile jasper trans. Another reason the I decided to take her apart rather than trade it along with my other car for 10SHO/Fusion sport.

 

[JST4SHO1]

Well Ive got my inner fender all squared away had a bodyshop remove and treat the every area where this rot was present. It was only in the one spot thank god after checking the rockers and the other side of the engine bay. I then had another good section from a 95 welded in, checked everything over and apllied a coat of paint for protection. The body shop said it really was not effecting the vehicle in anyway and the car alligns perfect and tracks straight at 80mph.
I then finished my first 60k ever! with new rear cam seal,sensor, vc gaskets, wires, and new couplers and cleaned my intake. It came out great and I drove the car yesterday 50 miles with no noticable leaks or noise. I wanted to powder coat some stuff but its better to be sound mechanically and I just couldnt see how I wasnt going to mess everything up re-installing it haha.

I did notice that the ccrm tray had only 2 mounting holes in it, and four mounts on the module. When I looked at mine it was only held with 1 bolt and the other snapped of in the tray. Is this and upgraded unit? I was able to remove the broken bolt in the tray and its secure now with 2 bolts.
I also dealt with a stripped screws in my tps sensor and what a pain that was to remove. I only have 1 screw in there right now because the others were toast? can this hurt the tps sensor?
I also put new vacuum lines on the car and noticed that some of the hoses that were factory had some spiraled protector on them and the shosource pieces do not. Should I have transfered that onto the new line?
Thanks in advance and I also wanted to thank this forum for the wealth of knowlege here and the awesome people of the SHO community and the guys at SHOsource.

 

[kevinspann]

Good to hear it wasn't that bad of a fix. Any pictures after the repair?

 

[JST4SHO1]

No pics didnt have the camera and they really didnt use the whole piece that I had brought them. They just extended it under the lip of the strut tower and down, they also put the linner and my rockers back on so I didnt have to mess with it. What do you think of my findings though above?
I also forgot to mention that when I went to connect to the firewall ground strap to the intake it pulled out of the firewall, and the hole was toast. So I just grounded it on the pass. strut tower under something there, see any problem doing that?

 

[rubydist]

grounding to the passenger strut tower rather than the firewall will be fine.

the ccrm really should have 2 bolts holding it in, so it doesn't bounce around.

the tps will be fine w/ one screw, as long as that doesn't come loose.

the vacuum lines will be fine w/o spiral wrap. typically, the old stuff is so brittle that you cannot remove it and re-wrap it on the new hoses/lines anyway.