Merkur xr4ti boa. Pg1 pic heavy

[Jaanus]

Hi

Got my hands on a Merkur xr4ti shell couple of years ago. Sadly the engine had been sold to somewhere else.

[Jaanus]

After removing the xr4 trim :D







'murican safety standards? 2 piece front and back bumpers


2 piece headlights, plastic

[Jaanus]

Strengthening that you won't find in an ordinary sierra


Under the skirts

After some work


Cut the merkur headlight bracket stuff off to fit the euro headlights

And the other side in the works

[Jaanus]

Seat mount, the typical sierra spot to rot

New nuts for front arb


Black engine bay,  so that oil and dirt wouldn't show :D

[Jaanus]

merkuri rear axle is 7,5", but drum brakes are not preffered by me. Also fitted 5x112 pcd parts from Scorpio

scorpio driveshaft on the left and also the driveflange? Dont know the correct term

Cleaned the inside of rear arms and flanges for them to fit. Tight fit, as scorpio ones are bigger

Abs rings slightly rub against the arms, but they will wear themselves in.



Fuel tank also got a fresher look

[Jaanus]

Time for the engine to go in

Gearbox crossmember, from some mk1 sierra. Tunnel on the merkur is really narrow, though in previous sierras i've had, there has been no issues fitting wider members

[Jaanus]

Wiring madness :D trying to sort out stuff that aren't needed.



And then fuel started coming out of a wrong place
Fixed


Ps pumps, boa left, dohc right

And a new rad, nissens


Also replaced the waterpump. 4 bolts snapped in half, fitted with gasket silicone.

With these things done it was time for first drive

[Jaanus]

Fitted also fans and made the wiring using a sensor from burton and a relay

New parts for the front end


But the package i got from Burton contained these:

Not the kind of stuff that would fit a Sierra, so i sent them back. Part no on the box was correct though.

2 weeks later recieved the correct stuff


After that the front end got assembled. Fitted polys topmounts, arb and front arms.

[Jaanus]

Something off with the front wings, one wheel sticks out 



Out with the old and in with the new

2sets coz one is for a friend


A while later i also swapped the o-rings for the injectors, one was leaking.
New Pcv valve also with the grommet, broke the hose on that so put new one there too.

Dont have the original air filter housing and sierra ones dont fit, so i made a piece to fit cone filter

[Jaanus]

Though the hole in the tank was fixed, peril was not over coz i found another one. This one was above half tank so i kept putting off for later. Till one day moving the car it seemed that it was out of gas (gauge 0 and car didn't want to run). Pulled the tank out and it had 10+ L of gas in, not much, but still
Anyhow, this is what sierra tank looks like compared to merkur tank

The baffle inside. Blew pipes through with air, sloshed it out with fuel. Fixed the other hole with lead.


Started on giving body some attention

[Jaanus]

Meanwhile installed handbrake cable. I haven't used one on my previous attempts of building a sierra.   This time reminded me, that the bolt holding holding handbrake cable spring was snapped in the caliper. So i dug out other rusted calipers and fitted together with new parts.
Granted, i messed up with the handbrake lever, ordering both the same side ones, so i cleaned up one old one as best i could.

If ordering new pistons to the rear, keep in mind they will come empty, so you'll get to fit the insides of your old ones to the new.


Upon googlin found these bolts are not available new(except ebay). I went diy way, fitting M6 bolts with nuts and washers.
Took the picture before fitting, and i changed it a bit, but general idea remains the same



And after all that, this is pretty much the current state of the car. 50 shades of gray
[/quote]

[capri v8 driver]

Looking good! A other merkur saved.

[mk22door]

Awesome work!

Love Sierra's, but never knew about the strengthening on inner wings on these XR4Ti's.

Why did they do that, American laws?

[Jaanus]

Who knows why merkur got these upgrades. It also has reinforcements under the floor, like the granada mk3 facelift and doors had crashbars inside(I replaced the doors with sierra doors)

parts no: 1630672
             1630673

http://catalog.autopartmaster.com/?action=cat_ford_part&s_id_part=15489&s_id_model=65&s_code_image=Z001772200

[Jaanus]

Fitted central locking, but i am still in need of a door handle cable. Seems to be harder to find than i thought.
Also fitted the el. windows & el. mirrors. Mirrors are mk2 with the switch in the door corner instead of the older ones where the switch is on the door card.
A bit fiddling with the exhaust, fitted some sort of backbox.
New foglights i managed to find a few years ago, finally made their way off the shelf. Added yellow film for protection purposes.

[Jaanus]

New boot, without the wiper

Electric boot release, opens with central locking remote. Cut a piece off the lockbarrel, so it is there, but doesn't work :D

[mk22door]

I love the front bumper, I would like one for my base model 2 door.

Anymore updates?

[Jaanus]

I love the front bumper, I would like one for my base model 2 door.
Anymore updates?

It's a Hella spoiler on the mk1 bumper. I haven't really seen one anywhere, I got mine years back.
I've also got this kind of thing laying around, wondering if to put it on or not  It's from an escort, but fits sierra.


I've fiddled with the interior.
"fixed" the door handle cable thing temporarily. The isolation was broken on the handle side end. I cut one off a 4dr cable, taped together, and put a screw with a clip to hold it so it wouldn't move. It is now possible to both open the door from inside and use central locking.

It would be nice though, if i got a new cable.

I didn't bother looking far a carpet very much, so i used the material left over from covering the subwoofer box. Cut it to fit, used spray glue to hold it in place. Looks okay now, lets see how it holds up.



the box.



And the boot release works from the remote. Fitted new shocks for hatch, supposedly 750N strenght, probably suitable for supporting the cossie wing. Takes a little nudge to open the hatch, but some force is requiered to close it 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YRgGM8FM94

and yes, it does burnouts. no doubts there
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knVEGWiPY2U

[Jaanus]

Took the steelies off to get them painted and different sized tires fitted.
Meanwhile temporarily fitted 15" winter tires with slightly bigger tires and noticed LF tire touching the bumper. The wheel sitting forward than other.
Fitted new tca-s, cuz i remembered i got last ones from diff manufacturers. This didn't help though. So i also installed the granada ARB instead of the xr4 one, that helped.
Also got rid on 2cm flanges in front, cut old brake discs to get 8mm flanges. Due to MB wheels being 7,5" et41 they wont clear the shocks without flanges.


Also fitted 16,5cm speakers, 4pcs.


Rear parcelshelf is made of 18mm plywood, covered with same fabric as the sub and the floor :)

[capri v8 driver]

There is progress!! Keep it up!!

[Jaanus]

Not posted for a while here. I'll share some stuff :)

Continuing the sound system, end of summer..
Tore off the audio stuff from friend's w140
The sub was ofcourse fitted the box made previously

some rudimentary tweeter holders



Replaced the 16,5cm speakers in front doors with the ones from the Merc., that left me 2 speakers to put somewhere..
Rear quarters had some room :D

[Jaanus]

Last thing I did, was clean the driveshafts and give them a coat of hammerite :)
Also new cv joints


Also, I have been playing with LSD-s
Inside of a 7,5"

One set of rings. Total of: larger discs 18pcs, smaller 34pcs, rings 17pcs.

7,5" casing:

7" casing

Also found that there are 2 versions for the 7" diff.
One with the set consisting of 2 discs and small ring

And another one, 3 discs and a large ring like in the 7,5", but smaller than in the 7,5"

[Jaanus]

I used AE 500k cst diff fluid to put the lsd-s back together


So far I have done a 7,5" for a friend's Granada mk3.
A 7" for testing on my car.(swapped it later for a worn/old lsd diff and a bit of money  )
And a 7,5" to which i added one set of discs also.

Since the diff fluid is not so easy to get, not so popular stuff here, so I ordered a couple of fluids from the States.
7" is common for the Sierra and these can be found. I have one  in pieaces on the table, waiting to be put back together, with discs added and 500K fluid. I also have one 7" spare for which I have planned 1Million cst fluid.

[Jaanus]

Sold the car without engine. Sold Boa to a friend to put in a "Fiesta" instead of a Bob which spun a bearing on the dyno.

[capri v8 driver]

Said to hear you sold the Merkur. Everything must come to a end i guess.