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Sousa632's 2001 Duratec Sable LS Premium Wagon

100K views 525 replies 45 participants last post by  ice445 
#1 · (Edited)
01 Sable LS Premium Wagon, Duratec. Auto Climate control, Cloth seats, pleather door inserts, column shift.



I bought the wagon to replace my wife's Saturn wagon cause we needed more space. Space we got! I picked it up for $1400 and have done a bunch of work to it since it was in my driveway in June of 2011. So far I have replaced the battery, coil, plugs/wires, UIM/LIM gaskets, a few vacuum lines, PCV/PCV hoses, front/rear brake pads and rotors, 3rd cat, 2 o2 sensors, rear balljoints(YES...... a wagon DOES have rear balljoints and YES....... they are replacable), the heater blend door motor, and typical routine maintenance items.

This is how she looked when she came home, and what she replaced in the background...







Ripping in the engine to replace the UIM/LIM, plugs wires and coil




It was hot this day....




I took the Tbird Sport rims I had on my Tbird and put them on the wagon with 225 60R16's on them










After that I put the stock rims back on it and started tinting the rear windows. I never completed that yet with winter set in and no garage to do it in.....







Finally setteled on getting rid of the black Tbird rims, and painted them silver and I'm sticking with that. I might sand them back out and go gunmetal in the spring but I'm not quite sure yet. This picture I took down the road from my house just after Hurricane Sandy right by the water. This area was under water during the storm......... we lucked out.









She's been put to work many times






Cant do that with a sedan! ^^



I'm in process of fixing the lovely door panels now -_-. You can see how bad they are here.




Once the weather finally gets above a reasonable temp to go out and work on the car I have front struts, balljoints to do to it. I also have to get a replacement heater bled door motor(warranty item). I'm hoping to have them done soon cause it's driving me nuts having parts here, and not having them on the car where they are needed............ :angry:

She's been a trooper! I used her to drive the family to NC for vacation, as well as dropping the seats and loading it up with stuff to take to the recycling center as well as trips to home depot for doors in my house. A true all purpose vehicle without being a gas guzzeling truck or a van. Can't go wrong with a wagon! With a new set of front tires I wouldn't hesitate to drive this car down to FL(which I might to get away from this damn cold, and visit family). :p I need to get some new pics...... all these are old minus the one from Hurricane Sandy but that's still like 3 months old.
 
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#62 ·
Not as much as I get when I remove all the seats, bumpers, doors, and put twelve box fans on the side of the car!
 
#64 ·
No need to remove anything just add something. Has to be a Toro to be Bull compatible.
Toro......... Bull......... I see what you did there :lol2:

So I've been looking into the wagon again and had a hell of a time with the lack of being able to locate the part number for the strut rod bushing to the frame. Thanks again to Jon for helping me find the part so I can go to a dealer tomorrow and try to get it.

Linky to that debacle
http://www.taurusclub.com/forum/124...3-wagon-rear-strut-rod-bushing-body-side.html


If all goes well, I hope to have this put back together by the weekend(can't do anything on it this coming weekend as I'm re-roofing my parents house :mellow:). I already have the rod out it needs to be sanded down and resprayed. I have the rod to arm bushings so it'll be nice and tight back there. Then it's onto the oil pan gasket.....
 
#66 · (Edited)
Today I got the strut arm bushings for the wagon. Comparing them side by side there's a big difference. The old ones just turned to mush and are soft as anything.





So while I had it out and it had a little rust I figured I'd sand it down and give the strut rod a coat of fresh paint. I think it came out good. I had to use my heat gun to warm the part being it's so damn cold here, but it worked out well.




When it's not 10* with the wind chill I'll go out and reinstall everything on this side, then tackle the other side. Once those are done, I'm going to do the motor mounts, and start soaking the exhaust bolts so I can get the crossover out to do the pan gasket. Plenty more work to get done, but she WILL be Carlisle ready! I hope:rolleyes2:
 
#67 ·
I understand waiting on the temperature. I was outside earlier for about an hour and it is absolutely miserable where I'm at too. Though I am a single degree higher with the wind chill than you, so I guess it is "warmer" here.

Good luck for the rest of the stuff on your to-do list. Working in the cold just sucks, especially on cars.
 
#68 ·
So today I put the passenger side back together with the new bushings and did the same to the drivers sde.




It'll need an alignment when all is said and done as well. I keep adding up money I need to put in it..... and it's looking like more and more...
 
#76 ·
The kids were playing in the yard and so was I :lol2:

Thanks Mark. I was getting tired of the ugly faded out 'chrome' that was in there and figured I'd see if I like the black. I like it and think it's a clean look. I'm going to do the wheels in black again so I think it would complete the look.

Soaking the exhaust bolts on the crossover pipe so I can see if I can get them out to do the oil pan gasket now. Hopefully they are not going to give me too much of a problem. That pan gasket it leaking and really needs to be changed.
 
#77 ·
Well being this weekend was REALLY REALLY busy I figured I'd see what I can do with the 2 hours of daylight I had left to get the Y pipe out so I can do the oil pan gasket. I broke out the tools and started having at the exhaust bolts/nuts on the Y pipe. MUCH to my suprise the ones at the front manifold came right off. :huh: No screaming, no cursing, no throwing tools, nothing. :rolleyes2:

I had taken the 3rd cat out before so those bolts are 'new' with antiseize so they came right out as well.......

Then trouble in paradise. The 2 bolts to the rear manifold...... one snapped off, and the other had a rounded head before I even touched it(didn't notice that before). I'll have to cut that one out, then drill those out/replace with a nut and bolt like I did with the 3rd cat. The good thing is it's in a LOT better/easier place to do it. I had to stop though cause my shoulders were popping every time I moved them after putting a roof on my parents house yesterday..

Another step closer to the car getting fixed for my wife! :rolleyes2:
 
#78 ·
Lol, I just realized you dipped the side chrome. I thought the difference was that the T-Bird wheels were back on.

Oddly, when I changed my gasket one of the nuts on the third cat attachment was just snug, not tight. No telling how long it'd been that way, possibly since it left the plant.
 
#80 · (Edited)
You got that right!! I'll take having to drill out 2 easy to get to bolts than all 6 having to be cut off. Truth be told, I was amazed that the nuts on the front mani were that easy to get off. Nothing but a simple 3/8" ratchet that took them off. I'm thinking I'm going to grind off the other nut to get the pipe out of the way, hit them with oil for the next few days, then take out my trusty flux core welder and weld on a nut to the end of the studs. There is enough to play with so maybe the heat will help loosen things somewhat where I can get it out with the threads in tact. It would make things just that much easier.

That oil pan gasket is a mess! It's leaking oil all over my concrete. I have to put a peice of cardboard under it so it doesn't get all over.

I'm also pleased to see the charge in the battery still holding strong. It was 12.5v resting after I charged it. Today I checked and it was 12.4v. I have not started it since last Monday.
 
#81 · (Edited)
Today I played took out the Dremel with a cut off attachment and had at that bolt to get the Y pipe out..........




I'd say I was sucessful :) Now that it's out there's all the room in the world to get at that horribly leaking oil pan gasket. I also took a good hard look at the front motor mount and it actually looks like it's in good shape(minus surface rust). The hydraulic part of it looks in tact, so now I'm wondering if it's the rear one that's shot.

Anyway, onto more pictures.






These are the bolts that gave me trouble....



A look into the front cat



Front motor mount



What do you think does this mount look bad to you? Looks ok to me



So next on the list.... get the oil pan gasket, do that then get those bolts out or drill them out, then put it all back together. Little by little it's getting done.
 
#83 ·
About 1qt. It honestly wasn't all that bad till the car sat for most of the winter. When I used it more often, it didn't leak as much but within the last 500-1000 miles it started leaking more and more. Not for long though :)
 
#86 ·
Leaking hydraulic oil from the one by the firewall is not unheard of, that's where mine had failed on the 2000.

Make sure you don't need a crank seal while you're in there.
 
#87 · (Edited)
I checked the crank seal Nick and it looks in good shape and is not leaking so that's one less thing I have to do. :)

With a GORGEOUS spring day off I fiigured I'd have at the oil pan gasket today. OIL OIL OIL is all I have to say. I don't think there's anything I touched that didn't have a coating of oil on it. From the looks of the mating surfaces, it was leaking for a long time too......




You can see the baked on oil film here. I used the flat razor to backwards scrape both mating surfaces, then followed up with sandpaper and some brake cleaner on a rag to get it very clean.




Now here's the interesting stuff.... which you Duratec owners might want to look at if you have that pesky oil pressure flashing light. When I was inspecting the bottom of the pan to see if there was anything in it I found something...



That is a hunk of sealant from when Ford put your engine together, which was in the area where the oil pickup tube sits. They put sealant on the block side of the engine where the block and front cover go on(you can see it in the first pic, top right.... that hunk came from the top left). Apperantly they put a LOT on there and it squeezed out on the inside of the engine. With time it broke off and fell into the pan. So I inspected the oil pickup tube screen.......



In there were more smaller peices of the sealant, and one peice of metal(found nothing else metallic and did a quick inspection but found everything else in good shape). I cleared it all out and was suprised how much of that sealant was blocking the screen. Not any more :)

This is the rubber 'plug' that covers the flexplate which hides 2 bolts.



This is where the sealant has to go on both sides of the pan to get a good seal to the front cover/block split.



All back together and cleaned........ for the most part.



I have to get the oil to fill it back up, I had a new filter so I put that on while I was in there. I also ordered the rear engine mount and the trans mount but those are not anything to stop me from putting it together and driving it. I did also get the exhaust manifold gaskets..... and I'm committed to fixing it for my wife so I can get rid of the van so it looks like the manifold gasket is on deck for the next repair. Once that's done it all goes back together, gets a new windshield, alignment and it's back on the road. Lots to do.... not enough time to do it. Oh...... and I'm happy to say that the battery is holding a good charge. It's been over a week since I started it last and it's sitting at 12.3v.

I'm trying to get it 100% completed before the end of May so I don't have to renew the plates on the van.
 
#91 · (Edited)
Welp......... today was a nice day out and I figured it's time to get a little more done so I can move on selling something here. I drilled out the 2 bolts that broke in the rear exhaust manifold flange which was no easy feat when you have no leverage or room. I was able to get the y pipe back in, with new gaskets.

I had to weld a peice of the bracket on the y pipe back on there because it snapped off, god knows how long ago. Luckily enough the peice was still there when I took it all apart. That gave me a chance to fix my flux core welder and use it :) .

I put the battery back in, turned the key and VROOM... fired right up. No additional exhaust leaks from what I did so that's a BIG plus. I also wanted to run it to test my job on the oil pan gasket. No immediate leaks. I parked it with a cardboard box under it just to see if there were any leaks after some time....... nothing, and it's been about 4 hours since.

So being that I was in a working on the wagon mood.... I figured I'd replace the trans mount as I have that and the rear motor mount sitting here.




That mount was toasted! It was almost fully compressed was spongy, and rusted on the inside. Here's the new one installed.



It was a bitch to get that new mount and bracket back in place because of the 2 bolts at the bottom of the bracket that tie it to the mount. Being that I removed the inner fender liner to get a better shot at the trans mount, I figured I'd get rid of this...



Bye bye silencer!



It does look pretty good in here. Not much in the way of rust. So all I have to do at this point is do the drivers rear motor mount, swap the Sable rims back on it, then sell the bird and start driving the wagon again. Who knows, if money gets better I might just pay someone to do the rear mani gaskets cause I sure as **** don't want to do them.
 
#92 ·
Nice progress John. You're right, it does look pretty damn clean! And that mount is toasted!
 
#93 · (Edited)
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