Twenty's Twenty-twelve

[Ringo64]

Cool! I like the chrome accented ones that you swapped for.

[bricooper78]

Me too, all these kids that HATE chrome, I like it. not a giant fan of chrome inside the car, but some accents really only look good chrome. And that's a nice little detail, so rest easy knowing a stranger on the internet approves of your trade!!

[[ChaosweaveR]]

The chrome trim looks good. Good thing I have Forza 4 to have my own Focus ST.

[Twenty]

Today I stopped by the body shop to check the colour samples they had on hand. Unfortunately, all four varieties of Yellow Blaze on the sample card were too dark. A new base coat will be mixed and we'll check again tomorrow with more samples.



http://officialthreetwenty.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/trial-and-error-and-chinook/

[Twenty]

And I'm really liking the new vents. Thanks guys!

[Twenty]

The side skirts are back:

This morning the side skirts were picked up, now wearing their new coat of Yellow Blaze. They look amazing and the paint is flawless; which makes it harder to have to wait to install them.

With the 'deadline' for the next round of updates a little under three months away now (the first big show of the season) I still have time to keep working on the car to get it ready, and these have a while to cure fully.

Next I need to track down a couple more clips which are unique to the ST side skirts, and new front mud flaps.

In the meantime, a few more photos...

[[ChaosweaveR]]

Are you gonna paint match the rear lower section of the rear bumper?

[Twenty]

Are you gonna paint match the rear lower section of the rear bumper?

That will ultimately be replaced so it's staying as it is for now. A company in the US (of which I know the owner through another forum) will be producing rear valences for sedans later on.

With the show I plan to put this in only three months away, I'm pondering a temporary change to the rear, just to finish it off. I need to talk to a friend about that...

[Twenty]

OEM ST side skirts - installed:

Yesterday afternoon my coworker called to let me know that the side skirts had been wrapped in 3M and were ready to go. I promptly got down to the dealership and picked them up.

I decided that I'd just install them now, and get them out of the way.

Off came the original side skirts, after removing the front mud flaps and an assortment of clips. Note the frozen soap underneath from the car wash; it was cold.

The clips were moved over to the ST skirts. Fortunately I only broke one during removal but had lots of spares.

These little flaps were pulled off of the stock pieces and installed on the rear of the ST skirts. They fit right on and I assumed that was correct...but when I saw an ST at the car show today I noted it didn't have them. Hmm.

Regardless, with those on the skirts were clipped in place and I tidied up.

It was fairly late when I finished up last night, so quality shots were hard to get. Today following the trip to the car show I was able to get some relatively decent ones though, even though the car is dirty again.

Boy, do they make the stock 16s look small though. You'll also note the rear mudflaps are still on. I've yet to remove them.

[Ghost]

that is looking nice.

[Twenty]

that is looking nice.

Thanks!

More soon, waiting on another part to come back from paint.

[Twenty]

Rear valance, part I:

With a front lip and now the side skirts installed, the rear of the Focus still needed attention. Unfortunately, having a sedan limits options for a rear valance. Currently, the OEM and 3D Carbon pieces are the only choices. In comparison, the hatches have OEM from standard and ST models, 3D Carbon, Downforce USA, OEM Zetec S, and so on. New sedan parts will be coming later this year but with an early May deadline, I had to choose from one of the two current offerings.

I still wasn’t 100% sold on the 3D Carbon design and it was much more expensive than an OEM piece, so I ordered the factory part since I had a plan in mind for its paint scheme.

It quickly arrived and I unwrapped it to check it over. All looked good so I then handed it over to the body shop and explained the idea I had in mind.

Today they called to let me know it was ready to be picked up, so I headed over right away. The picture below is a cell phone picture, sorry.

The paint scheme is one that has been done a time or two before on these valances. Because the factory exhaust is tiny and has a hidden tip, I didn’t want to highlight that by having the whole piece painted. Following the factory design, the central portion was left unpainted for contrast and to hide the lack of a proper exhaust tip. As well, the cross-hatch pattern between the reflectors was left alone as well. These are textured from the factory so to smooth that area would take far too much time and effort. The rest was sanded down though and then painted and cleared.

As much as I want to install this now, it will wait for a little bit and then be given a bit of 3M along the bottom since the mud flaps will come off when it’s installed.

May 4th keeps getting closer.

[Ringo64]

Doesn't look half bad, we'll see once on the car

[Ghost]

on the car pics! and does this make the bumper look lower? what did the other choices look like?

[Twenty]

on the car pics! and does this make the bumper look lower? what did the other choices look like?

It's still waiting for 3M at this point. After that's done it will be installed. It'll make it look lower, because the black plastic you see here will be body colour:

This is the only other choice currently out for sedans:

A couple more should be due out this year. I know the individual who is overseeing that so I know what's coming.

[Ghost]

that one is hella sweet!

[Twenty]

Euro tail lights, part I:

These, I was keeping as a secret while waiting for the box to arrive. Today FedEx dropped if off so I got right to work.

I will admit right now that these are not OEM lights but are identical inside and out. Ultimately I hope to track down OEM lights and swap them in though. A big thanks to Mike at Rebel Devil Customs for importing these and then sending them north to me.

The European sedans get rear fog lights built into their tail lights, seen here down from where the revese light sits.

Looking at the back, you can see where the second bulb goes.

With a meet to attend a few hours later, I wanted these to be installed right away. A quick comparison between North American and European:

And, installed!

Now, the reason this is listed as part one is because there is still more to do. I need to find a wiring loom so that the additional lights can be wired up properly. Fortunately I have a friend in the UK who can hopefully get that for me. I also need to decide if I'll wire these in as additional brake lights, or find the proper fog light switch as well.

[Ringo64]

Rear fog lights? What sorcery is this?

[Ghost]

i believe its what the locals call "black magic".

[[ChaosweaveR]]

Rear fog lights are required on European cars, you'll notice Audis and Mercedes with them in the states, they're always on the driver's side.

[Twenty]

Rear valance, part II:

Along with the Euro tail lights, the new rear valance is now on! As I showed in a previous post, I had ordered a second OEM valance and had part of it smoothed and painted body colour. I then gave it to my manager at work to have some 3M applied along the lower edges behind the wheels, to avoid rocks damaging it since our roads are still covered in the gravel put down for winter. Ideally the paint should have had much more time to cure before having 3M applied, but it would only pose a problem when removing it which I don’t intend to.

Yesterday one of my co-workers, one of my managers, and myself removed the old valance and installed the new one. In order to do this the whole rear bumper had to come off, but three sets of hands made it light work. We were mostly concerned about a loose end of the bumper or valance smacking the car and scratching the paint so we had someone covering each side and another supporting from the middle.

Some of the photos below are from my phone, as I didn’t take my full camera kit to work with me.

The new rear valance was all clean, the 3M was in place, and it was ready to go.

The last shot with the black valance in place. The rear mud flaps also came off during the swap, to match the front.

A few screws in the wheel wells, two bolts by the tail lights, and two clips underneath kept the bumper in place. With those out it then was popped out from the brackets on the body of the car and placed on the stand. The valance snaps into place along the bottom of the bumper, so one by one the tabs were released and then the two pieces came apart. I don’t have any pictures of all of that, but I stopped to take a couple after the new painted valance was installed.

This was the first time I was really able to see how the paint matched the bumper. As with the side skirts it can vary based on the angle at which you’re looking at it, but it’s really good in real life. This is about as different as the two parts will look.

We lifted the bumper up and put it back in place, and then put everything else back together. You may notice in this shot that the gap along the bottom of the trunk lid is uneven. We fixed that after.

At last the Focus was put back on the ground and I could step back to admire the new look. The reflectors are yet to be reinstalled as I want to remove the existing vinyl tint and redo it first.

A big thanks to Mike and Mike for the time they spent with me on this. It was much nicer than trying to work in my garage.

[Ghost]

OH EM GEEZ! that looks good. got an overall farther away pic?

[[ChaosweaveR]]

I just noticed the Sonic decal in your rolecall.

<3

[Twenty]

QuickLIFT install:

The hood struts for my sedan and my friend Mario's ST arrived so we installed them last night. Overall it was a very straight-forward procedure and no permanent modifications to the cars were required. One wiring loom had to be slightly repositioned so it wouldn’t get pinched but the instructions show that. We actually tucked ours under the plastic shield on which they sit, to really keep them out of the way.

One bolt from each fender is removed and a ball-stud is installed in its place. For the upper end of the strut, the bolts holding the hood are removed to add a bracket and are then fastened down again. Realistically this can be done by one person but we took the chance to install these together, so one could help hold the hood and realign it while the other tightened the nuts.

A small c-clip holds the bottom of the strut in place while the top snaps on. Because the fit is so tight with the hood closed, the bumpers on the sides of the hood are removed, and a small bit of clear film applied below where they sat. The final step was to remove the hood prop and put it away.

We had actually installed mine first but I started with the pictures of Mario’s since I had somewhat of an ‘in-progress’ shot of his install.

Next, some touchup paint will be applied to a few spots, such as around the ball-studs because their washers are smaller in diameter than those from the bolts they replace. I also plan to touch up the bolts on the hood to hide the marks from the socket.

I’m very happy with this purchase already and would put it as a must-have for these cars. Actually, any car.

Thanks (again) to Mario for ordering these and dropping them off!

[Twenty]

OH EM GEEZ! that looks good. got an overall farther away pic?

I'll get more/better photos once the reflectors are back in and it's sunny out.

I just noticed the Sonic decal in your rolecall.

<3

Sonic's Mk3 Crew, a group of owners on a Focus forum I'm a part of. Pretty special group if I do say so myself.