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Project: Ugly Betty

T

tophe7d

CEG'er
Joined
Aug 20, 2007
Messages
180
Location
Chicagoland Burbs
Project: Ugly Betty is going into full swing today. Betty is a salvage title SVT with front end damage (Thanks Hotrod88). The goal is to do a complete SVT/MTX swap into the SE. Today I gotta cut damaged rad support out of her to free up the engine. I plan to have the engine and trans 90% out of the car today, if not completely. Next is to attack the subframe. I will try to update with pics as the project goes on. Hopefully all will go well... :)

The plan is to have the new engine and trans dressed and ready to go into the SE over the long Holiday weekend.

Wish me luck! =D

Chris

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I'm out in Lisle.

Long day today. Lost a few hours getting my tools and the cherry picker from a friends house. Overall, I'd say it's about 75% out. I still need to drop the exhaust, hook up the hoist and start pulling engine/trans mounts. Oh and I need to pull the stubborn drivers side half shaft. I will say that someone has definitely gotten into this car before. The passenger side suspension showed signs of hack mechanics work. Nuts rounded, lower ball joint pickle forked and the threaded end of the half shaft was pounded on with a hammer. Dumba$$!!! :mad: I also think someones been in the trans too. The passenger side trans mount has a broken bolt and a few things down by the trans were zip tied in place. I'm guessing to replace the clutch? :shrug: Either way, I'm definitely gonna look for other signs of tampering when I get the assemblies out. Being as I did test drive it before I bought it, I'm still optimistic that all is well internally. The gaskets and new slave unit are ordered and on the way. Hopefully these will be all I need. I'll be back at it tomorrow night. Need to get more bulbs for the Halogens... It's pretty dark in the parking lot. :laugh:

Chris

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That screams no fun in a parking lot. Granted I pulled one motor on my dads gravel driveway....I cheated though and used his bobcat :D
 
I've pulled an engine 5 times in that lot. Thankfully I rent the garage that you can't see in the photos. Of course it's full of other toys which is why I can't use it, but whatever.

More progress today. I got the SE engine pulled and started dressing the SVT with the new harness'. Ran into a few glitches between the harness' and the sensors. Gotta get a socket in the morning. I did get the shifter cables and shifter installed, but didn't get the pedals in. Hopefully tomorrow I should have the engine installed and possibly started. I still can't drive it as I'm using the auto subframe and cut the rear mount bracket off the manual subframe. I plan to use the tow rig to get the car over to the welders place and have the bracket installed. Should be pretty easy from there and then vroom!

The wife took some pics today.

Thanks,

Chris

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:D

Chris
 
Dude, you are really moving on that. Nice job. PM me before you get rid of the body, I might need a couple parts.
 
Beans said:
You sure thats a svt engine? SVT valve covers are supposed to be black.. front and back
Click to expand...


I agree. Look at the cams in that motor by taking off the front valve cover. Green striped cams are not SVT, orange are SVT..... :eek:


My '95 SE cams:

Front head-
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Rear head-
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SVT CAMS:

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Yeah, it's an SVT. It's a Ford reman'd engine. There are a couple things I've found while playing with it. I found the stamp on the side after I scraped off the crud. This car has definitely been gone through and not in a good way. I did drive it before I bought it, so it is ok.

Well it's all together, but no start. Got some figuring out to do. The computer, harness and all should match. It's a early 98 so the pats should be external of the computer. Gotta do some searching and asking. So close, yet soooo far away. :(

Thanks,

Chris
 
Did some digging and research and think I may have the wrong PCM in the car...

I bought a RJL1, with harness', for what I thought was a early '98 Tour with a stand alone PATS unit. The PATS LED on the dash does not function anymore. No blinking, no nothing. I'm thinking that this is because the car is actually an integrated PATS/PCM car. That being said, then I would need a SFG0 out of a late '98/early '99 SVT with accompanying key/chip.

I think I'm on to something, or at least I hope so. The car is my daily driver so I need it running ASAP. I did all that work in a short period of time because I had to. The long Holiday weekend was perfect, my planning was not.

One more question, if I were a stand alone PATS box where would I be hiding in the car? This way I can always verify if it exists or not.

Thanks,

Chris
 
Still looking for a computer for the car. Hopefully I'll have one shortly as well as a drivable Contour. :blackeye:

More pics from the other day thanks to the wife...

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Chris :)
 
Hey Chris, it's Neil. I would say it looks cold in IL, but we just got snow today in TX. :blackeye:

Hope you can find the culprit soon. Best of luck, man.
 
Hey Neil. Didn't know it snowed in Texas? Shows what I know. :shrug:

Project update:
The SFGx ecu w/key is officially in the mail. It should be here by Friday. Hopefully I will have some good news to report later this weekend.

Chris :)
 
Pats box is under the steering cloumn I do believe I've replaced those systems before.
 
What the hell...... I wonder what the deal is. Do you have everything that goes with the ecu like the keys, halo, ignition cylinder, etc.?
 
I got the computer and key, but no ring. I finally got the car to crank by jumping the clutch switch and grounding the jumper wire???

I'm in the middle of printing out my PATS diagnostics flow charts from my Ford CD manual. I've got a few ideas now. Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit more successful. Worst case, I've got ALL the pats stuff from the black car if necessary. The only thing I will have to buy would be the Nautilus fuel rail adapter kit... Should've done that in the first place!!!

Thanks,

Chris
 
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