My sapphire

[Jeroen]

I can still remember how silly that first engine sounded without any compression at all :)

It can be quite refreshing to drive something completely different, like I did three years ago by changing to a Volvo 850 (has covered about 469000 km's now )

I must have spent about 10+ years and over 300.000kms in Sierra's. Most of those kilometres were done in my 1990 Sapphire Turbo Diesel, and it quite hurt when I had it picked up by the scrapper. They picked it up in the early morning like at 6AM, so it was 'suddenly' gone. A few of its luxury components were swapped to my next car, which were again swapped to my last Sierra. Of which I now only have the piece of metal with VIN number stamped on it 

The part I would worry about most, is rust.

[Marc]

I have driven quite a few other cars that were build in the last 10 years, Focus mk1 and mk2, Mondeo mk3, Volvo V50, Lancer Evo 7, 2010 Mustang, 2010 Chevy Impala, 2010 BMW 316i and probably some more. But most newer cars don't really interest me, I find them quite boring. The 3 and 5 series BMW I do like though, but the 316i was just a bit slow.    I wouldn't mind having a nice 3 series, like a 325i, 330i or even a 335i. Even the 3 series diesels are nice cars. It's just that you can't really start collecting cars... 

[Marc]

I had the cam covers blasted and powder coated.



And fitted them afterwards. Before fitting them I thoroughly checked for any blast material inside the covers, but there was not one in there.  :D







In the pictures it seems a bit orange, but in real life it's a nice red colour.  8)

I knew of all the horror stories with blasting and powdercoating, therefore I didn't do the plenum.

[Marc]

I also took the oil pump apart to check it for wear.





I thought it look quite OK, so I put it back together.



And bolted it back on the engine.





After that the sump could be mounted again.



Fitted the exhaust manifolds.



And the crank pulley with the water pump.



The water pump pulley and fuel rail with injectors.



Alternator with bracket and tensioner...

[Marc]

Fitted the plenum together with the EGR valve and piping.



I also fitted a sandwich plate between the remote arm and oil filter, so I could fit an oil pressure and oil temperature sensor.



And refitted the flywheel and clutch.

[Lemon-Ade]

That looks great with the red covers on , a real credit to you Marc

[Marc]

Cheers mate!

Since the engine was still not in the car and I had been planning to retrofit aircon for a while this seemed like a nice moment to make some preparations.

On a Sierra fitted with aircon, the bulkhead is different because the vaporizer slides halfway through. So I started taking the dash out and removing some sound deadening material from the bulkhead. After that I measured and marked the part that needs to be removed.



The aircon vaporizer is fairly big...



So I took the angle grinder, drill and hacksaw to make a nice big hole in the bulkhead.



Seen from the engine compartment...



And trimmed the edges so the vaporizer fitted neatly.  :D

[Marc]

Together with the aircon kit I got the metal "box" that is normally fitted to the bulkhead. It's welded to the bulkhead on the holes where I drilled out the spot welds.



The vaporizer also needed two brackets on the bulkhead. Unfortunately I didn't have those, so I bent some small metal plates in shape. Welded a nut on the backside and welded the brackets to the bulkhead.



After that I sealed all the grooves on the in- and outside.



And also sprayed everything to make sure it won't rust.

[Marc]

Put the sound deadening material back.



I taped all lose parts together so it's fitted quite nicely.



Put the loom back in place.



And the heater with hoses back in...



Put all the shields under the bonnet back in place.



And the upper side of the dash.



And finally the aircon wiring, again 3 relays added to the bunch. 



Fitted the rest of the dash and the new aircon switch. I also fitted an oil pressure, oil temperature and voltage meter.





And a cosworth speedo  :DD



And finally the engine back in!

[Marc]

While the Sierra was off the road it was a nice moment to also have the rear arches done, as there where several rust spots. The hole for the radio antenna was also closed as I fitted the amplifier for the rear window a while earlier. I'm not doing bodywork myself, because the goal is to make it look better, not worse.  :oops:





In the end I decided to not only do the rear but the whole car. If I won't do it now it will never get done. So off with all the other parts too. 



After that it was up to the bodyworkshop...

[Marc]

After returning from the spraying cabine.



And the newly fitted bonnet. :)





Some parts back on...



And the bumpers and elektrically adjustable head lights fitted.

[Marc]

And some pictures when it was completely back together. Unfortunately the Ford logo on the grill came loose when trying to clean it, so that's missing in the pics. 

[Dave]

My god! bet you really know your way around that car by now. 

[Marc]

After quite some time I finally found a rear seat with head rests and centre arm rest in the trim that matches the front recaro's.

I also got some cloth trimmed C-panels and finally fitted the whole lot.





I also found some heated seat switches from a Granada. And since the Sierra also has the blanking plates to fit them as standard I put them in.



But switches that don't work are useless, and I didn't like to swap my recaro's for seats out of a Granada...

So... the only option was to order some heated seat pads from eBay and build them into the recaro seats. Unfortunately I have no pics from fitting the pads as it was quite cold, so I was in a bit of a hurry.  The only visible thing is the wire that runs to the back of the seat.



The pads have two different heater settings, but the standard switch won't work with two settings. So I fitted the switch that goes with the pads underneath the seat adjuster. It's out of sight, and this way I still have the two heater settings.  :D

[Marc]

Since the car was feeling a little bit awkward lately and the rear right tyre was wearing unevenly, it was time to replace the bushes in the rear suspension. All bushes except for the swinging arms bushes were already replaced with PU items. But since the rear beam that's on the car came from a Granada which has the same metal bearings as the Sierra Cosworth I left those in. But they were obviously worn by now.

After one day the car looked like this.



Fitted a plastic bag over the drive shaft for the rain...









All parts that come from the left side.



And the right side.

ou

The metal bearings are pressed inside the arms. After 20 years of dirt and water they are rusted solid.
What is also very nice is that Ford fitted the inner swinging arms bolts from the diff side. But without undoing the diff you can't get the bolts out.  :roll:  When they're going back in I'll put them in from the other side. 

[Marc]

Since the bearings were rusted solid in the arms, I went by the local Ford garage. They were so friendly to let me use their 15 tons press. One didn't even come out the first try, but in the end it was all done in 15 minutes.  :DD

The arms without the bushes.







The old bearings.



And some new Polyrace bushes fitted.





And the arms back on the car.







And all the other parts refitted too. I put an extra ring on top of the spring to have the car run a bit higher. But I'm not sure whether that's actually an improvement... 

[Marc]

Since the Polyrace bushes from Rally Design were not a tight fit in the arms I had some problems with the rear arms moving under braking and acceleration. After a complaint to Rally Design they sent me a new set, but those had the same problem, after that they gave me a refund.

Then I tried some Floflex bushes, as I have never had any problems with those. But while they movement of the arms was less than with the Polyrace bushes it still didn't feel like it should. 

So over to the best but expensive solution, the sferical bearings the cossies have from standard. As I didn't feel like buying 4 new ones (at 80 pounds each) I found a set of rear arms with OK bearings in them. At the end one bearing still had some play in it, so I bought one bush from GGR to replace it. Luckily the local garage was again nice enough to let me use their 15 tons press.  :D



But now it's back on Sierra Cosworth arms instead of Granada Cosworth. I could tell immediately when looking at how the wheels sit in the arches.

[Marc]

And I tried some different wheels, 17x8 TSW Hockenheim R's in anthracite, but fitted those to the cossie later.

[Marc]

Finally also upgraded the front brakes. The 260 mm discs have been replaced by 283 mm Cosworth 2wd discs. An old an new disc next to each other.



Fitted the disc and the caliper carrier. The bolts of the carriers are M12, so I had to drill the holes in the hub from 10 mm to 12 mm.



And the caliper with new EBC greenstuff pads.

[Lemon-Ade]

Looks great on the hocks Marc , a lot of works gone into this saph 

[Marc]

Cheers mate!

[Marc]

Finally continued with the aircon install. Last year the problem was that the pipes from the condensor didn't fit due to the fact the condenser was from a Sierra DOHC. As the V6 condenser was no longer available in the Netherlands (yes, still from Ford, for around 900 euros    ), I ordered one in the UK. Unfortunately they put on their site that they have it, but in the end I get send a condenser for an Opel Corsa. And then they still dare to say it also fits a Sierra. 

Corsa condenser:



And a drawing of how the Sierra V6 condenser should look like (picture from their own site):



So still no Sierra V6 condensor. In the end I thought of getting the DOHC condenser modified, but that one turned out to be broken. Getting a Granada Mk3 condenser with matching dryer was also no option. So in the end I ordered a condenser for a Sierra OHC with dryer and had the pipe modified to fit the V6 aircon compressor.

So now all pipes, condenser, dryer and compressor are fitted. It's a bit tight, but it all fits.  :D

The pipes near the vaporizer.



Pipe from the compressor to the vaporizer. Not much room to get the pipe through the plate behind the inlet plenum.



And the compressor.



The pipe that was modified.



And the new condenser with dryer.

[Marc]

I also needed the engine cooling fans to come on when the aircon is switched on. In the bug-eye Scorpio there's a relay box that controls the fans.



When the coolant temperature switch reaches the first level, both fans switch on in low speed (fans switched in series) and on the second temperature level the fans switch on in high speed (fans switched parallel). When the aircon is on both fans are also in low speed, but when the pressure in the condenser gets too high, the fans switch over to high speed.

Fitted the relay box to a location where there is still room. 

[TimoXr4i]

Do you use cossie 2wd calipers to marc?

[Marc]

Those are Scorpio 24v calipers with 283 mm 2wd cossie discs.

[whiteestate]

So much work has gone into this car I'm amazed well done pal whats the next mod you think you'll be doing ?

[cossiemk2]

Those are Scorpio 24v calipers with 283 mm 2wd cossie discs.

I had problems with this combo.

If the discs heat up they'd  expand and hit the inside of the carrier.

Swapped to 278mm discs and it's OK now.

[Marc]

After reading about roll centres in Dave's posts I was interested in what it was all about. So I started reading up on the subject. I found this site about the BMW E30 very informative since it has the same front and rear suspension setups as the Sierra. http://www.e30m3project.com/e30m3performance/tech_articles/susp-tech/index.htm

I turned out the tcas should be placed such that they point down slightly from the cross member to the hub, like shown in the pic.



So I took some pics on how the tcas on my sapph were standing. Apparently lowering the car didn't do the roll centre much good.





But then the next question was how to fix this, as it isn't really good for the handling of the car. I found out Ford had thought about this themselves and gave the 3dr Cosworth some special front hubs for this matter. As it was a homologation model it had to run the same hubs on the track as the road cars did on the street. But the hard part is to find those hubs for a nice price, as there aren't that many and they are quite sought after...

[whiteestate]

Marc what you can do is fit roll centre correctors !
so say you lower the car by 30mm you pack the lower ball joint by 30mm therefore bringing tca back to its original position and the camber will also remain the same.
I remember this from my escort rs turbo days quite a simple part to machine as well.

[whiteestate]

Cant find any pics but when i get 5 i will try and draw something out