Anyone who has been watching the classic car market and in particular the classic Ford market will no that every performance Ford since the mk1 escort has massively increased in value in recent years. The latest of these fords to experience a price hike being the series 2 rs turbo along with the mk2 fiesta xr2, both of which will now set you back well over £10.000.00 for a really good one. It seems inevitable that attentions will soon turn to the next in line of the fast fords. The first generation Fiesta ST150.
With the prices of these hot hatches still within the reach of the average car enthusiast, now is the time to buy before the rich car collectors snap up the nice ones that are left out there.
What we have here at the KJClassics workshop is a very clean and tidy 74000 mile Fiesta ST150.
This one unlike most out there is 99% unmodified but for the tinted side repeaters as shown below. It came to us with Tinted headlamps which are not road legal. So they were the first thing to go.
Brand new replacement headlights were sourced and fitted.
When the ST came to the workshop it was clear there wasn’t going to be much work needed in order to bring it up to our sale standard but non the less the usual service and inspections still apply.
First up is the filters, oil and plug change. The plugs used hear are 60000 mile interval plugs so won’t need changing at the next service.
When the oil was draining i noticed the colour of the oil was relatively clean as far as oil goes. This is a good sign as it shows the car has been maintained during its lifetime.
Inspecting the old plugs can be a good starting point to determining the health of an engine. White plugs can indicate a lean fuel mixture, this can lead to over heating over long periods as a lean mixture ( more air to fuel) will burn hotter in the combustion chamber risking damaging the head gasket and even the tops of the pistons them selves. Black plugs on the other hand can indicate a rich fuel mix. This is generally bad for economy and can cause carbon to build up on the valves, valve stems and valve seats preventing a good seal and resulting in a lack of compression. Black plugs can also be caused by oil making its way into the combustion chamber through either the valve stem oil seals or up through the oil sealing ring on the piston. What we have hear is a very nice brown colour. A good mixture and no oil.
No.1 Piston
No.2 piston
No.3 piston
No.4 piston.
A compression test revealed very close to 200 psi on all 4 pistons. A very good sign of a strong engine. This shows the valves are sealing and the piston rings are not worn. The only reason I do this test is because it’s normal for these cars to be driven a bit hard being a hot hatch but it could seem not in this case. No excessive smoking, timing chain chatter, rattles or knocks to worry about. This one seems to have had an easy life.
Next up was the inspection to the steering, suspension, brakes and tyres. As you can see from the pictures the brake pads and the tyres are very nearly new having covered no more than 1000 miles since they were fitted in 2020. The discs are a little rusty but this is only to the surface and only because the car hasn’t covered many miles in the last year. This will bed in after a few miles as there is no pitting the discs. The suspension bushes, ball joints and bearing also showed no signs of wear.
It seems an obvious one for a car I have for sale but as seen above with the engine running there is no warning lights on the dash. The only fault code the car had was to do with a split in a wire running to the air conditioning compressor preventing it from working. Now also fixed.
There were advisories on the mot
.a small blow in the exhaust
.tinted headlights (now replaced by us)
.3 stone chips in the screen (repaired as seen above)
Last thing to do was a good clean up so here is the end result.
Now finished and looking and driving fantastic.
