Repairing my Ford Car - Not Another Ford Repair Manual by George Peterson - HTML preview

SERIOUS INJURY TO BOTH PARTIES.

Once a suitable place has been found, it is time to make the car safe. Apply the hand brake and place a chock underneath the wheel. If you are working on the rear then chock the front, vise versa if you only intend to work under the bonnet like we are there is no need to chock any wheels.

At lunch time, I quickly had a look through the Ford owner’s handbook and the Ford manual trouble shooting pages. They both seemed to point to an electrical fault on either spark plugs or spark plug leads. There were more serious faults but I always think it is better to look for the simplest first. Having owned this car from new, and it only ever having had genuine Ford parts fitted and I have looked after it very well, I knew it was not a serious fault as you do get to know your own car and how it behaves.

I checked the spark plug leads were all on tight. The Ford owner’s manual then advises me to check the spark plug condition. I know I changed these for genuine Ford Motor Craft plugs only two thousand miles ago so I would be very surprised if it was a plug causing the problem. I will check them just to be on the safe side. I am always very careful when it comes to the high-tension leads as they need to be in the right order.

My firing order is 1,3,4,2 and I knew the rotor spins clockwise. My engine is all marked up with tipex so the number one lead has one spot of tipex on it and number two has two spots and so on.

I removed number one spark plug and it looked fine so it was replaced and the lead reattached. I repeated this until I removed number three lead and spark plug. The Spark plug was much darker then the others and seemed wet. It appears the problem was here but I checked number four just in case. My dad taught me once to check a spark plug just simply reattaches the high tension lead and hold the plug against the engine block. He told me to use a wooden stick or pliers with rubber handles so you eliminate the chance of an electric shock. Have a friend turn the key whilst you check for a spark.

As my work college turned the key, I watched for a spark, it soon came to my attention on number three cylinder I had no spark at all. I simply detached high-tension lead number one and placed the plug from cylinder number three on to

the end. Once again, my mate turned the key. Straight away, there was a strong spark.

I drew the conclusion that the high-tension lead was to fault. As I did not have a spare one, I needed to replace all the plugs and leads to enable me to travel home via the Ford dealers where I can collect a genuine Ford replacement set of leads. I intend to replace all five leads. There are four spark plug high-tension leads and one lead that go to the coil.

Once home, I unpacked my genuine Ford high-tension lead set and laid them out in size order. The shortest spark plug lead was for number one cylinder moving to the longest and furthest away from the distributor cap being number four.

The remaining lead is for the center orifice that leads to the coil.

One by one, I disconnected the high-tension leads and replaced them with my genuine Ford replacements that fitted perfectly. Once all four were done, I then located the coil lead and changed that like for like.

I then turned the key and my faithful Ford Fiesta ran as good as new once again.

In conclusion, I advise all would be do it yourself mechanics to obtain the Ford owner’s handbook and Ford manual for their particular model and year. I would strongly recommend they only use genuine Ford motor parts. There may be cheaper alternatives available but you cannot beat genuine Ford motor parts for quality, durability and piece of mind they will fit first time and last a long time. They also have an excellent warrantee.

My Ford Fiesta is in excellent condition for its age, it is reliable, safe and very economical to drive either in the city or on longer motor way journeys. I really believe fitting genuine Ford parts has been cheaper in the long run as I have had much less hassle during my years of Ford ownership than my friends with European cars.

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