1988 Merkur XR4Ti
This is my third Merkur, I found it on eBay (unsold), and contacted the seller and worked out a deal.
Click on the pictures to enlarge...
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| I bought this car from Glens Falls, NY. It ran but had a hole in the oil pan, so I brought it home on a trailer. It had only 82000 miles on it from new, and came with all the original Merkur paperwork, but no window sticker unfortunately. The leather interior was in good shape, it just needed a clean and some hide food. | ||
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| I decided to remove the engine, rather than change the oil pan with it still in. Here I have removed the head, turbo, intake and other ancillaries. | Here is the engine, dangling off the end of a huge hoist. | This shot has become almost a must every time I remove an engine (see Capri page), so why break with tradition? |
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| With the engine bolted to a Cummins engine stand, I could remove the oil pan. While the engine was out, I figured I might as well give it a rebuild. This proved to be a good idea, since I found the rings on number 4 piston had seized where the car had been sitting for so long. Had I not found this out, it would have caused problems later on. | ||
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| The crankshaft was measured and found to be exactly within specs. It was reinstalled with new main and rod bearings. The cylinder bores were fine, so the pistons went back in after a good cleaning. The block was decked to make sure the head face was true, then cleaned and painted. The flywheel was refaced to give the new clutch something to bite into. | ||
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| The cylinder head was ported and larger valves fitted. This was also skimmed to make sure it was flat, and new camshaft bearings fitted. I checked the combustion chamber volume to make sure the chamber volume was fine, I think each chamber was about 68cc. Before fitting the head, I also checked the valves, and re-ground them to provide a better seal. | ||
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| Here is the rebuilt short block being hoisted back into the engine bay. | The engine bay was degreased and painted as best I could. The cylinder head was fitted with a Fel-Pro 1035 head gasket. The valve cover is an earlier one, cleaned and polished. | |
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| A roller camshaft was fitted from a Ford Ranger truck. The intake manifolds are ported 40-Bob items (actually, only the lower one is at the moment, I have a 40-Bob rotated upper intake for when I fit my Cosworth intercooler). The injectors were cleaned by cleaninjectors.com, a complete set of plugs, wires, rotor arm, distributor cap and PCV valve were sourced from Forced 4 motorsports, and other gaskets and parts came from BAT. | ||
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| Finally, the car was finished! The original tires were dry-rotted and worn, so I bought a set of 16" Focus wheels from eBay, and fitted them to the car using 25mm spacers. The tires were Kuhmo 205/50ZR16 which I got from http://www.tirerack.com for $45 each, a much better price than some of my local tire stores, one store wanted $125 each for Toyos. The 25mm spacers are possibly too wide at the front, there is evidence of rubbing, so I might go to some narrower ones. | ||
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| I guess I should have fixed the heater motor BEFORE I put the engine back in. Still, it was fairly easy to do with the engine in place. Contrary to the Merkur shop manual, you don't have to remove the valve cover. But the false bulkhead behind the engine is tricky to remove, and you have to disconnect your air conditioning lines. Once the blower/evaporator assembly is out, you can open it up and get to the motor. Mine was shot, and the one I got from a junkyard didn't work either until I shorted out the thermal cutout. This is shown in the third picture above. | ||