What sayeth the hive mind? (Focus content)

Back in June my little brother was car shopping, he wanted something fun, reliable, and fair on gas that could carry him and if need be his 4 kids, when the wife was along they could take the minivan. Against my advice, he went to a used stealership and found a 02 focus 5 door, that he fell in love with and without any input other than SWMBO's okay he took out a loan on it and purchased it. 5 months later the bottom end is shot. He has seriously taken a liking to it, but you can hear it in his voice that he's sick over the idea of finding something else, as he still owes 6500 on it. (don't ask me how, but dang.... he got taken) He has taken it to a dealership and they quoted him around 4k for a used replacement motor. He's 3 hours south of me @ 70mph, should we just start shopping for motor, or rebuild the one he has?

He has no real knowledge when it comes to wrenching, and to give you an idea on his driving style, a spirited 30 min run down the interstate in my miata had him a bit nervous. I know he hasn't done this, he's had two oil changes since he bought the car, he thought the rattling he was hearing was a sign he needed an oil change. His daily commute/run about might total maybe 30 miles. Probably closer to 15. So if wrenching is involved, I will very likely be heavily involved. It's been a LONG time since I've played with the bottom end of a motor.

So what sayeth the hive mind? Which direction would you go with the "project" being that far away.

Edit: oh yeah 02 2litre autotragic 5 door focus.

My experience with Zetec's is that they are very tough little engines. The one in your brother's car must have been seriously abused. Because they are tough, it's an engine that I wouldn't mind taking a chance with a scrapyard sourced unit. Around here, I can purchase a used Zetec for between 250$-500$ any day of the week and once you remove all the plastic bit on top the focus is pretty easy to wrench on. So I would just go in that direction. Just my .02$

In reply to fanfoy:

Thanks for the input, I was fairly certain they were tough little motors, but no first hand experience with em.

On another note; do these have belts or chains for timing? service interval on water pump and timing parts?

thanks again, digging through car-part.com I'm finding engines from 450 with about 100k on em. Starting to think that may be the way to go.

It's a timing belt and it's at the typical 100k mark. So I would budget that, plus maybe a valve cover gasket because all the ones I've seen were leaking to some extent.

Regular Zetec is non-interference, so you don't have to worry about bent valves on a junkyard motor (or his) either.

Friends of mine get hosed on deals like this all the time. I gave up on giving many friends car advice because they always seemed to do the exact opposite of what I recommend.

One even told me once; "Well, the salesman said financing was a great idea!"

One word of advice on changing a Zetec. If you get a motor out of another Focus that has a manual trans and the recipient is a autotragic, make sure you swap the crank sensor bracket/adapter. The sensors are the same, but the bracket/adapter/holder is different for the different trans types. Have the wrong one in, it won't run and you have to take either the motor or the trans back out to change it. Happens all the time. Just wanted to save you the aggravation.

I hope this helps.

Tony D

Junkyard engine in it to get it running, then rebuild the bottom end of the one you take out for a spare.

How big of a pain are these to swap out? Anyone know? Can it be done in a day, assuming one has all the said parts? Engine, timing belt water pump, upper and lower rad hoses, plugs, plug wires, valve cover gasket, oil pan gasket, probably should look at motor mounts etc. Basicly don't want to have to deal with it again for awhile.

Last auto trans vehicle I pulled the engine on was a camaro. Drop inspection plate, use screwdriver to hold flywheel while breaking loose converter bolts and rotating flywheel to the next bolt, remove fuel lines, unhook harness from motor, drop exhaust mani, rad hoses and pull motor. Same process? Can the engine come out of the top or does it need to come out the bottom? Can the trans stay in place is the big question.

Prob need to go buy a book don't i?

I would plan on doing the timing belt, water pump, gaskets, etc with the new engine out of the car one day, then put the whole shebang in on another. The old one should come out the top (usually only mid engine cars come out the bottom), but I've never pulled a Focus motor before so I can't offer more advice.

Books always help but you can probably find .pdfs of the FSM or similar on one of the Focus forums free. Or a DIY of someone who has done it before.

Now- it is the Zetec, and not the lame old single cam Escort motor, right? They drop valve seats all the time...

Yup Zetec. Called him last night and offered to help him with the swap if he could get it to me. I've no way to get all the tools down to him, nor would I want to have to keep track of it all while dragging it down there.

1. What does little brother want to do here?

2. I don't mind helping swap an engine; but your brother needs to step up and take care of the little issues you get with a swap. Or will you be driving 3 hours to fix every problem?

3. It is nice of you to help - good luck with the swap.

Streetwiseguy wrote: Now- it is the Zetec, and not the lame old single cam Escort motor, right? They drop valve seats all the time...

Of all my 20+ escorts I have only seen one with a dropped valve seat. on the 1.9.

Been doing research on Foci as I have a yearning for a ZX3 and see C-list often has folks looking for these Zetec engines. Some last well some seem to die! Haven't found a reliable reason yet.

Bruce

Datsun310Guy wrote: 1. What does little brother want to do here? 2. I don't mind helping swap an engine; but your brother needs to step up and take care of the little issues you get with a swap. Or will you be driving 3 hours to fix every problem? 3. It is nice of you to help - good luck with the swap.

This. Given his upside down nature and what I ALWAYS see in the for sale ads, is he has to stick with keeping the car and not in 10k miles putting it up for sale or trading it in for even more upside down-ness, because someone gets nervous nelly about it being a used motor to take a dump some time soon and it may as well be someone besides me.

Depending on the layout, since it is a Ford, might be advantageous to drop the engine and trans out the bottom still attached to the subframe and lift the body off. Then just scoot the subframe out for ease of working on it.