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Ford Racing Puma #401 Underbody refurb and rebuild

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#1 · (Edited)
Ford Racing Puma #401 Wax Stock 2013 Top 16 photos

Sorry for the continuous updates I have just copied these over from the Puma Forum...

Hi all, my name is Alex (fatttty) and I am the proud owner of a Ford Racing Puma No. 401 of 500.

|For any of you now familiar with the Racing Puma here is some quick info about the car-

Ford Racing Puma (FRP) #401 of 500

The FRP was a special edition model of the popular Ford Puma that was designed developed and built by Ford Racing in Borham, originally 1000 were meant to be made but only 500 ever made it off the production line. They feature the Zetec 1.7 VVT engine with different cam shafts, engine managment, improved air intake system and a full racing exhaust with 4-2-1 manufold and 100 cell sports cat (from standard) producing 157BHP.

Externally they have wider alloy front wings, extended steel rear arches, wider front nad rear bumpers and all came in Ford Racing Imperial blue paint. They all came with 17" wheels, 295mm front brakes with alcon racing 4 pot calipers up front.

Inside they had Sparco Ford Racing seats with blue alcantara trim, matching door cards and steering wheel.

As many of you know I previously owned a Lupo GTI which was sold earlier this year. I had originally wanted one of these even before I purchased the Lupo, at the time they were just out of my budget so I had the lupo. My itch for one of these cars didnt go away so as I grew tired of the lupo the hunt was on for a good FRP.

I found this one in Birmingham so very local to me, it had been fully repainted inside and out, all panels correctly alligned and lots of new parts such as hubs, barings, bushes and powdercoated rear beam and front wishbones.

Here it is when I first got her-







My plans are to fully strip the underside, refurbish and replace any parts which require it before fully undersealing the car and painting.

I've owned the car for 5 months and covered just 50 miles. Sad I know, but it will be worth the wait when it is done.

Alex
 
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#2 ·
UPDATE: Got the car in the garage and the strip down begins :)

The new home for the next few months-



Starting taking the rear brakes and calipers off, rear discs have seen better days-



Had a disagreement with one of the caliper carrier bolts 913mm bolt wih a 12mm socket bit hammered on lol)-



Removed the rear discs and caliper carriers-



Removed rear axel beam and ABS loom-



Tomorrow will be removing fuel tank, exhaust back box and brake lines

Alex
 
#3 ·
UPDATE: Removed the nasty mild steel exhaust back box, got a new stainless steel Piper exhaust system ready to be fitted after the rebuild.

Fuel tank unbolted and ready to be removed-



Removed fuel neck-



Fuel tank off this was a nightmare to get off and one of the scariest things I've done on a car due to the petrol fumes and possible death by fire!! Taking this to be sandblasted and painted in the next few weeks so will look minty fresh-



Back box removed-



Next up was removing the brake lines, these are really rusted and I will most likely replace these with copper brake lines to ensure they dont rot again. Rear main brake lines removed-



Removed the swing arms for the rear axel, these will be powdercoated along with the rear axel beam-



A few of the clips I removed from the underside these are mainly for the handbrake cables and brake lines. Hoping to replace these with new Ford items-



Most of the removable parts from the rear end of the car are now off so I can start getting to work on stripping the old paint and attacking the surface rust on the back of the sills and the underside of the boot floor.

More to come guys, Alex
 
#4 ·
UPDATE: for the past two weeks I have been stripping the old paint and under seal from the boot floor, chassis legs and the rear sill areas. Its hard work, but I want to get everything back to bare metal so I can get the best possible rust protection for the future.

There's still a little bit more to do, and a few small patches of surface rust that need grinding down but I'm pleased with the progress, its slow going but will be worth it in the end.

Excuse the photos its a bit difficult to make out what some of them are!

Boot floor area-





NS chassis leg, pretty much done all old paint removed and the rust patches have been pretty much ground out-



OS chassis leg, still needs the remaining paint and sealant removing and a few patches of surface rust to sort still-



Looking down the car from the rear, you can see the boot floor and where the fuel tank should be. The light grey paint near the back is actually the original underbody colour. Debating on painting it that colour or perhaps the body colour (imperial blue)-





Removed the rear suspension struts it preparation for sanding the rear wheel arches, the rear struts look pretty much brand new and having checked the fronts they look the same. Really pleased with the condition. Also the original Eiback stickers are present and in good condition which is quite rare too :)

Struts after a quick wipe over-





More to come this week, hoping to finalise the prep on the boot floor and hopefully get the arches ready for stonechip painting.

Alex
 
#5 ·
UPDATE: Got the day to myself on Sunday so thought I'd get some hours in on the car. I'd ground all the surface rust down to just pitted metal as advised by the guys from Rustbusters. Just needed to mask up the fuel and brake lines and the outerside of the sills ready for painting.





The paint I used was Epoxy Mastic 121, I've only ever read good things about this paint and I've seen a few restoration threads that have used it. Its a 2 part mixture of 2 pac paint and an epoxy hardener. I rollered the majority of the boot floor and where the fuel tank sits.





Quite pleased with the reults though the boot floor will be redone in a few areas as I had missed some of the old underseal in a few areas. The paint has shown this up so want to get rid and redo those parts, you can see the lumpy parts in the corners in the pic below-



The epoxy paint is athrecite in colour buts its difficult to tell in the light under the car. I will be most likely be zinc priming and spraying a different colour. The spray should get in all the little gaps and give better coverage.

While the expoxy paint was curing I attacked the fuel tank, stripped all the old paint off the underside-



And made a good start on the top half of the tank (also removed the fuel sender unit and rubber seals etc)



More to come soon.

Alex
 
#6 ·
UPDATE: Got a good few hours of work done on the FRP this weekend. Last week hadn't gone well and I was a little disheartened with the whole thing. But feeling much happier now with how things are moving along :)

Progress with the fuel tank, I stripped the remaining old paint from the tank so it was just bare metal. There were a few bits of pitted surface rust on the top of the tank but this part is up against the boot floor so you can never see it. The underside is lovely and smooth so should look great when painted and fitted.

Etch primed-



Dusted-



Coat of grey hammerite stone guard for some protection-



Just got to give it the final coat of silver :)

The boot floor and underside was treated to two coats of etch primer (forgot to take photos) then two coats of stone guard-





Th final finish colour will be Ford Dove Grey, which is a nice light pale grey (similar to the lupo interior plastics) as far as I can tell this is a pretty close colour to the one used at the factory.

Started work on the spindles for the hubs, only done one so far. Stripped the old paint off ready for painting-



Quick coat of hammerite smooth silver, this needs touching up a little but ran out of paint grrr :(



And finally, got my copper pipe for my new brake lines. All I need are the new connectors which I'll pick up in the week.



Thanks for looking, Alex
 
#7 ·
Quick update; had my rear calipers back from being refurbished. Sent them off to Big Redd Brakes in Worcester. Really impressed with them, had the full works.

Fully stripped
Electro plated in Ford OEM gold (as they were from factory)
New pistons
New seals
New bleed nipples etc

Also had the carriers and slider pins done to match...





Finished the fuel tank, finished in OEM flat silver. Replaced the rubber seals and the plastic fuel line clip. Refitted the fuel send pump so its all ready to bolt back under the car once the underside is fully painted.

Top side; few bubbles from the old surface rust but ground it down to pitted metal so as good as it could be-



Underside; pleased with this, should look nice and clean for shows-



Made my copper brake lines too, will upload pics when I get chance. Loads more to come guys and gals :D

Alex
 
#8 ·
Got the final colour nailed and painted the boot floor and chassis legs over the weekend. I'd originally wanted to use Ford Dove Grey, but after a quick first coat I didn't like it so made my own pale grey colour. Its difficult to tell the colour in the photos cos of the work lights and the garage being dark. But it looks great in the light so hopefully will look nice, bright and clean.







Made my new rear brake lines from the copper tubing I'd brought a few weeks back with some help from my uncle.

Old V's New-



New stainless brake line connectors-



Started to sort through all the clips and parts I've picked up from Fords the last few months. Here's just a few that are needed to replace most of what I have removed so far lol



This week I'll be sanding the old paint off the fuel and brakelines running down the centre of the car before giving them a quick coat of paint, also need to seal and paint my rear arches. My rear axle should be back this side of Christmas so I can hopefully start piecing her back together again around January :)

Alex
 
#10 ·
great work, can get disheartening when doing long term projects, i did when i done a front end strip on my cerbera, but once your finished its worth the effort and knowing that the car is fully protected is great.

I done all mine outside so at least you have a dry garage to do it in.
 
#22 ·
Great job matey very nice car and I bet you can't wait to get it finished then stand back and admire your hard work. I'm doing a similar thing whilst modding my Impreza engine. and am tempted to do the engine bay at the same time now after seeing this post.
Keep up the good work
 
#29 ·
Thank you, at the time they were released on the road price for the FRP was £22,750 so a whopping £8k more than a standard puma. They were just too overpriced and bombed. Mine and most others were owned by managers of the dealerships, they were given a good discount and helped shift the stocks.

Their lack of popularity has made them very rare and hopefully a future value increasing classic (he hopes!)

Alex
 
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