all posts relevant to ‘focus’

we got hit again overnight friday to saturday. after i got done shoveling saturday afternoon, i thought i’d take a few pictures.

first, from across the street. you may not quite get the scale of it:

until you realize that hiding behind the pile is a mid-size SUV:

i wonder where i’m putting the snow from the next storm.

found these michelin X-ice tires/stock 1999 cougar wheels on craigslist.

another 2-4″ predicted for tonight, so these should do better than my (summer only) hankook K106 tires i just took off.

i haven’t posted a pic recently, so here we go. appearance-wise, i think my car is done.

no, the house is fine. this is the housing — the thermostat housing. my car is currently off the road for a bit while i make repairs.

a slight amount of coolant has been leaking from my car for a while. i decided to order up a new thermostat housing, thermostat, and all associated gaskets (this is a common problem with the focus, apparently). while i was in there to replace the housing, i noticed nearly all of my coolant hoses were swelling on the ends — a sign of age/wear.

eventually this would lead to a hose that was “soaked” — that is, the inner layers of rubber have broken down and allowed coolant to seep into them. this would ultimately end in a burst hose — and LOTS of coolant leaking in a big hurry.

so i made the decision to keep my car up on jackstands for a while longer, and i ordered all new silicone hoses. pricier than OEM rubber hoses, but they’re last pretty much forever.

so, it’s been a long time since i’ve done an exhaustive post about my car. and, for good reason — it’s been a long time since i’ve done significant work on my car. well, wait no longer.

i’ve purchased a set of headlights that come from the factory on the Ford Focus ST170 model in europe. they have a separate low/high beam, an integrated turn signal, and a black colored housing. i’ll get into some detail about the process, but for the impatient — here’s the before/after:

all corner shots of the various light combinations