Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Zetec Maintenance well she threw a rod

ok so im new to this forum. how ya doin im Riley. ok now that we got that out of the way here i go. so my buddy who previously owned my contour gl beat the crap out of it which led to it throwing a rod. he noticed it was "knocking" and i said tis a rod knock so go easy on it. well needles to say he didnt so it blew. we went around for about a month looking at cars for him. then he said well scence you helped me out so much you can have my contour for free and he handed me the keys and know its sitting in my driveway. so here i am with a perfictly good car with no engine. know im not a novice at all when it comes to cars i work at a shop and love modifying my 92 MGM so im asking you guys how hard is it to do an engine on one of these cars. doesnt look to hard but are there any trick to it. im planing on getting a junk yard engine for a bout 500$ so i want to do the work my self. also im not planing on making this thing a racer by any means just a dayly 4 cylinder driver that will get good gas milage. what kind of milage do these things get any way. i apologise for the long post and any mistakes i have made. thanks in advanse.

Riley

musta had serious internal problems, i beat on my car all the time and i'm approaching 150k and no problems at all.

If you have a lift and can drop it from the bottom it's cake. Just drop the whole subframe assembly with trans and engine. Taking it out from the top with a lift is a bit more awkard but still not overly difficult. Sometimes the axles are a little pain in the but, but the actual engine removal is pretty easy.

Thats amazing, this is the first zetec I have heard of that has thrown a rod. my old one had 135K on it, I had it toped off on the freeway at least once a week. That thing ran like a dream. When I sold it the guy that bought it was astonished that it ran so good, he said "its obvious that you take really good care of your cars" Which I do... Plus the occasional italian Tune up

You can download a ford CD on how to remove the engine, ill link you when I get home from work.