• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

Project Resurrection...

C

chrispage

CEG'er
Joined
Jun 1, 2008
Messages
56
Location
central texas
Well here goes nothing.

Short story/build up. So I grew up driving my 98 CSVT...and loved it. Well when I moved on to the VW world I passed down the CSVT to my little brother. On Christmas night he decided that he was going to take out a guard rail...tore up about 45' of guard rail and about 6 posts. Crushed the driver and driver side passenger door, and everything in between. But the car was still running.

Well the other day I came across a guy selling a 99 with a blown motor...but everything else was in very good condition...with original paint and an almost mint interior. So my dad "joepage" picked it up and I am going to attempt to swap the motor from the 98 into the 99. I have never done a full swap on my own. I have pulled a couple and help put one back in...but those were Volkswagens so I feel almost out of my realm here.

So I guess this thread is going to be my progression and attempt to pull this off before August 7th...because there is a small gtg here in the DFW (Central Texas) area and I would like to have it up and running by that time.

I have done some research...and I know there are a few things that need to be done prior to pulling the motor. But if anyone has any insight that would make my life easier...that would be great!

My plan so far:

I think I am going to leave the sub frame/lower cradle and just unbolt the motor/trans mounts as well as all the roll resistors. I am going to take the motor and trans out the top of both and do a direct swap.

So far...which I only got to work on it a little today...but I have removed all of the front end, and the battery bracket. I pulled the intake, as well as throttle body. So tomorrow I am going to drain the coolant and drop the radiator. Start tearing down/labeling everything that is connected to the motor and hopefully I can have one of them out by the end of the weekend.

I will have some pics up tomorrow...I know threads are useless without pics and most of you prob won't read all this anyway. But I am hoping to get some firsthand insight from some of you more knowledgeable guys! Cheers...


chrispage
 
I always leave the radiator. Idk about going from a 99 to a 98 i know some wiring changed over the years; but i couldn't tell you what or if it would effect you in anyway. O and it might be easier to just unbolt the a/c compressor and just wire tie it to the sub frame. Good Luck and I am sure someone here will be able to give you a walk through in greater detail then i can.
 
from what i have read the only posible snag could be the fuel system. I have not found any post mentioning a change in wireing betreen a 98.5 and a 99. But I am old and could be wrong.
 
He has a running SVT motor already so why would he put in a 3L :confused:. It is not the answer to every motor problem.

Anyway, use the entire wire harness from the car that has the blown motor. All the harness clips will fit the other motors connectors. This way you keep the harness from the car you are trying to save still in that car.

Leave radiator, pull coil pack, axles, shift cables, motor mounts(4), fuel lines, vac lines, etc..... It can be done in a weekend if all goes well. Be prepared to have busted bolts and some rust fighting you. Good luck!
 
With his straight 2.5L swap he won't need to buy a 3L, all new gaskets, port the intake runners, buy bugzuki plates, swap parts over from the 2.5L to the 3L, etc...... He has the engine already and it runs as is. This will only cost him fluids and time for the straight swap. He might want to consider replacing the clutch kit at this time depending on how his original looks, but I would get a new one of those just because.

Sounds like he just wants to be on the road again with it and enjoy driving what he once had.
 
he wouldn't have to buy that many gaskets but your right i didnt think about the cost of actually getting the 3l... i will admit cost wise it makes more sense to do the 2.5 swap but if you had the extra cash, which most people don't, but if you did i would suggest a 3l swap
 
Tranny on 98 was just rebuilt with less than 100 miles and brand new clutch. 98 also had all new brakes and rotors, bearings and axles. We have decided to drop motor, tranny, axles, struts/ springs still attached all together due to the fact that the mileage on the 98 is less then the 99 and a lot of the suspension components appear in better condition. Opinion?

We are taking the motor out of the bottom, just lift the car over the motor. Also going to clean the uim/lim as well as tb. Possibly going to replace various small things such as tire rods, ball joints, busings etc as we see fit depending on condition while whe have it all out.
 
sorry i haven't been keeping with the updates...i have been busy lately, and making time for the car here and there when i have a chance...and it doesn't help we live in central tx and its has been on average about 100 degrees during the day.

Brokendown said:
he wouldn't have to buy that many gaskets but your right i didnt think about the cost of actually getting the 3l... i will admit cost wise it makes more sense to do the 2.5 swap but if you had the extra cash, which most people don't, but if you did i would suggest a 3l swap
Click to expand...


yes ideally it would be the perfect time to do a full 3L swap, throw some headders on, and do all the other stuff that would make this an ideal car. BUT, at the moment we don't have the money sitting around to build that kind of car, and we were going to just part out the wrecked one and cut our losses until i found the other car on CL...for cheap. so it made for the perfect oppertunity to get down to the nit gritty of the csvt and for the youngest generation "kerrypage" to learn to turn a few wrenches.

also on that note it is going to be his car, he is 16 and it is going to be his first car. he doens't need anything that has a lot of extra money invested into it. it was my second car when i was 16 so it is kind of cool to help be able to pass it on even with the misfortune of the wreck.


anyway enough chit chat...onto the car. well as joe mentioned above we will be taking pretty much all the mechanical part of the front end. all we reall have left to do is seperate the fuel lines and finish unbuttoning everything. we ended up taking out the radiator just to add clearance. here are a few pics.

donor car...
2nreq1t.jpg


donor motor...
2ytxvna.jpg

xzo6p.jpg
 
ok i got a little more work done today, for the most part everything is unclipped/unhooked. just need to disconnect the shift cables. i remember there is a certain way to disconnect them but i don't remember exactly how...need to do a little reading first. also put together a dolly to drop the motor on so we will be able to move it around once we lift the body up.

now i didn't have the tools to remove the fuel lines, so what i did since the uim was off i just lifted the fuel rail/injectors and just moved them to the side. i think this will be sufficent enough to drop the motor out the bottom. may have to actually quit being a cheap ass and break out the $10 and just buy the tools.

also i don't know if it was mentioned or not but the uim/lim as well as tb we really gunked up...so those are going to be dipped in the solivent tank to eat all that crap off. is that a normal occurance for them to be dirty? i will try and get a picture of it for you guys tomorrow...but it is pretty bad.

other then spilling some coolant here and there as well as old rusty bolts everything is going pretty smooth. glad we decided to start with this motor that way we will know what we need to keep and what not for the good car...as far as misc bolts and nuts go.
 
i know i have been slacking on this...i was out of town for almost a week and have been busy getting things together for upgrades to my car.

but basically where "i'm" at is...good motor is out...and i am about halfway through the second. taking a little more time with the good car to not break any clips, and to fully lable everything so the install of the good motor goes smooth. i have been slacking on the pics as well, but i will try and post some tmrw! the goal for tmrw is to have the bad motor fully unclipped just being held by the upper motor mounts until i can get the hoist and dolly over there as well as the good motor.
 
i would just like to thank joepage first off for finally lending a hand at this car!

got a little work done this evening...ran into the notrious rear subframe bolts problem...but thanks to joepage and a little surching he did through the archives we were able to acomplish what we needed to. but didn't get much time to work on it because we were trying to solve the problem on our own before turning to the computer!

did a few other here and theres not really much progress, i will be back over there in the morning...shooting to have it running in less then 2 weeks.

as promised...here are some pics...i have been meaning to post for a while now...

donor motor dropped ready to be taken to the new car...
2qs5pb7.jpg


here is a quick shot of the new car...
r8wb2c.jpg


here is some of the carnage from the damaged motor...yes that is multiple holes in the motor!
2dgm450.jpg

2rw3h2t.jpg


i pulled this from the whole you see above...it was floating in there...as you can tell from the damage...
20sywxv.jpg


access hole to the rear subframe bolts...
hsp7bp.jpg


and the ••••• of bolts that came out of it!
2mi5o4i.jpg


and here is yours truly...joepage and kerrypage the night we gave kerry his new car!
EDIT: YES JOEPAGE IS ROCKING THE VW COOZIE!!!!! SUCKAAA
x3zdhf.jpg

34rbo0z.jpg
 
didn't really do much today...it was far too hot to be out there! but i did get the good motor ready to be transfered over to the good car.

2eofa69.jpg

30tp507.jpg

2zpimw1.jpg
 
ya something i did a long time ago and decided they were too gay to put in my car so i have just had them sitting in a box for about 2 years. the quality is top notch...just a little gay! good eye!
 
got to work on it for quite some time today...as it rained and was the first day in 18 straight days it wasn't over 100 degrees. good car/bad motor: radiator out, all fluids drained, subframe out, lower control arms out, shift linkage off, uim off, almost everything is unclipped and tagged...just need to lower the motor a bit to get to the harness that runs along the firewall. all clips from under the motor are undone.

should have the bad motor out and the good motor to the good car location this weekend. i start school monday, so my "busy" days are about to get even more busy!!! haha! but looking to have it running by next weekend if we can get all the replacement gaskets (uim, lim, tb), lower control arm bushings, new injector o rings, all the fluids (coolant, brake fluid, powersteering), a/c recharged and o rings for that, going to put a new battery in there, and we will have to get it aligned.

man looking at that list it makes it seem like we still have sooo much more to do! too bad its harder to put things back together then it is to tear it down...!

Cheers...Chris

EDIT: sorry no pics today...i left my camera at the house when i went to go work on it...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top