How do I do that?

Just do it     Easy    Moderate    Hard    Pay a Garage

How do I go about

Removing the Badges from the paintwork
Changing the Ford badge Colour
Modifying the Front Grill
Modify the Throttle body for more air flow
Add Gas Lift Struts to the Bonnet
Reprogram a Remote Key after changing the Battery
Change the Thermostat
Change the Temperature Gauge Sender

Removing the Badges from the paintwork

This job is surprisingly easy and only requires a little patience and a strong thumb. It also makes a lot of difference so is heartily recommended.

Difficulty:

Required Tools: Hair Dryer, Small blunt screwdriver (Swiss army knife works well), Cloth & T-Cut
Time Required:  1 hour

The secret here is to get the badges as hot as possible with the hair dryer, it makes them flexible and the adhesive as soft as possible

1. Get the badge as hot as possible with the hair dryer
2. Gently lever the badge with the blunt screw driver. You want to get between the badge and the adhesive tape, NOT between the tape and the paint.
3. Slowly prise up the badge all the way around leaving the adhesive tape behind
4. Now the fun part. Using a thumb and a nail (a LITTLE acetone helps) carefully rub, scrape, roll the adhesive away. Sometimes you can be lucky and get whole sections off at once. On other badges you are reduced to pure grunt work
5. T-Cut the area and clean up
6. Stand back and admire

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Changing the Ford Badge Colour

A very easy job to do once you have taken the badges off of your car. Subtle and one of the small details that marks out a special car

Difficulty:

Required Tools: 1 Hour
Time Required: Sandpaper & Emery, Blue Tack, Paint, T-Cut 

1. Stick a large blob of blue tack on the front of the badge
2. Lay a flat sheet of Sandpaper on the desk
3. Using the handle you just made rub the back of the badge on the flat sandpaper
4. When the Blue is gone, Move down to Emery cloth to smooth things down
5. Be careful you stop when the blue is gone. The idea is to leave the silver
6. Respray the back of the badge in the colour you want
7. Wait until the back is VERY dry
8. T-cut the front to remove over spray and smooth out those blemishes
9. Use Double sided tape to stick it back on the car
10. Drive round the block to pose

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Modifying the Front Grill

Again this job is not too hard and it does change the look of the Mark 1 Mondeo a lot. It is irreversible however unless you want to look for a replacement grill in a breakers yard.

Difficulty:

Required Tools: Torx Screwdriver, Dremel or similar, Sandpaper, Touch up paint, Fibreglass kit or filler, Vacuum Cleaner
Time Required: 4 hours
 

1. Pop the Bonnet and Undo the 2 Torx head screws at the top of the grill
2. Lift grill upwards to release
3. Measure gap between headlight glass and distance between bumper top and Torx screw holes
4. Lock up car and go indoors
5. After making sure other half is out, get the vacuum cleaner ready
6. Using the Dremel cut the 3 supporting bars for the centre brace
7. Sand them back to smooth the outline
8. Use touch up paint to make sure edges are correct colour
9. Hoover carpet to make sure other half doesn't find out
10. Use fibreglass kit or filler to reinforce the plastic around the 2 torx head screw mounts as this will now take the full weight of the grill
11. Cut the plastic mesh to be the exact width between the two glass headlamps and a height of 5 cm more than the bumper to screw gap
12. Go back outside and place mesh in place, the bottom edge is wedged into the bumper/supporting arm gaps to hold the base. The top should just cover the screw holes. You bend it in an arc over the support bar
13. Screw the grill back in place, so that the screws go back through the mesh to hold it in place
14. Drive behind another Mk1 Mondy and watch him try to figure out what's up with your car

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Modify the Throttle Body for more air flow

Fairy easy but scope for going seriously wrong if you are not sensible. The original throttle body was designed by someone to block as much air as possible and is probably all gummed up. This more will result in more air flow to the engine which can only help

Difficulty:

:
Required Tools: Dremel or lots of fine sandpaper and small files
Time Required: 2 Hours

1. Remove the plenum chamber from above the throttle body. Its held on by 10mm screws. I found that trimming some of the plastic away helps. The middle two bolts need to be undone and the top left (looking from the front). The left lower screw isn't used to hold the plenum on. The top left actually holds on a rubber plug to stop vibration. My plug was broken so I don't need to undo this
2. The throttle body is held on by the four Torx screws you can clearly see, undo these
3. Pull up the white plastic clip holding the cable on. By lifting up the circular arm you can get enough slack to remove the throttle cable. I flushed the cable with WD-40 for an easier throttle action
4. Clean what you can see of the intake manifold with carb cleaner and then take the throttle body indoors
5. Using a wire bush on the dremel clean all the carbon off, there will be a lot. I use carb cleaner on my TB regularly and was surprised to see the underside looking like this

6. Now its clean you can see that the screws holding the butterfly onto the spindle are a lot longer than needed. Use the dremel to trim them flush. Other folks have replaced them altogether with countersunk screws. I just rounded and tidied up the heads a bit.
7. Now look at that spindle bar, its very thick, you can flatten it out either side. Basically at wide open throttle you want the minimum of obstruction to the flow
8. I also rounded out the throat on both sides 

Some Caveats:

• Do not weaken that central spindle
• Make sure the screws are thread locked permanently in (I stamped the remaining thread with a punch to make it too thick to come out)
• Do not remove material from the sealing edges of the butterfly or the body where the butterfly seals or you will never idle again
• Basically make sure that nothing is going to break or come out, cos if it does it's going straight into a piston chamber to do some serious damage
• Make sure the plastic gasket that seals the throttle body is OK or replace it

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Adding Gas Lift Struts to the Bonnet

This job is very easy and anyone can do it. Makes the engine bay a lot nicer place to work

Difficulty:

Required Tools: 10mm open ended spanner
Time Required: 20 mins
Supplier: Performance Solutions , tel 01604 232003
 

1. Pop the bonnet and tighten the bottom two alignment bolts on the hinges
2. Remove the top two bolts on the hinges (that's why we tightened the bottom ones, so the setting cant change)
3. Screw into these holes the two strut ends that have the threaded bolt (not the self taping end), tighten with the spanner. Don't forget to use a washer
4. Undo the middle of the three wing retaining screws (level with the coolant reservoir)
5. Screw the two self tapping end into these holes again using a washer (watch out for wires underneath)
6. Screw the thin end of the gas strut into the top fitting
7. Screw the bottom end of the gas strut into the bottom fitting (lift the bonnet higher to do this) making sure the top is held and doesn't unscrew
8. Give em a good coat of wax or WD-40 as the alloy can rust easily
9. Stand back and admire

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Reprogram a Remote Key after changing the Battery

Difficulty:

Required Tools: None
Time Required: 5 mins

Here is another set of instructions that may work, as there seems to be several different mechanisms depending on your model

• Put the remote key in the ignition and switch on and wait for the led to go out.
• Then switch from positions 3 to 2, 3 to 2, 3 to 2, 3 to 2. This must be done quite fast you may need to experiment at the speed and is done 4 times.
• At this stage the alarm LED will Stay on. As soon as the Led is on press and hold down the UNLOCK button on the remote for about 4 or 5 seconds.
• The LED will then flash 4 times to say the code is accepted.
• Remove key. wait a few seconds and test.

Here is a set of instructions from the Ford TSI CD

• Unlock the vehicle.
• Turn the ignition key from position '0' to position 'I' (accessory position), then wait in position 'I' until the LED in the clock lights up after approximately 10 seconds.
• Turn the ignition key to position '0' again while the LED in the clock is lit. Remove the key, the LED remains lit.
• Hold the remote control key in front of the external receiver (in external door handle) of one of the front doors and press, and hold down, one of the two transmitting buttons. After approximately one second the LED on the key will flash once.
• Continue holding down the button on the key after the LED on the key flashes once and with the other hand press the other button three times. Then release both the buttons.
  

NOTE:
Hold the key in front of the receiver until the LEDs have flashed five times.

• The LED on the key and the LED in the clock should flash five times.
• To programme other remote control keys, repeat sub-operations 11 to 13 before the LED in the clock goes out (after approximately 20 seconds).
• After programming the remote control key, briefly switch the ignition on and off. The LED in the clock should go out.

From Franky De Caluwe

If you have a Mondeo 2001 (mk3) with a remote control for the central locking you can change the strategy of opening the doors.

The normal mode is: push on the unlock-button once and all doors open.

Second mode is: push on the unlock-button once and only the drivers door will unlock. Push a second time on the unlock-button and the other doors will open. Push on the lock button and all the doors will be locked.

 

You can switch between this two strategies: hold the lock and unlock button on the remote control at  the same time and wait until the turning lights on the car go on and off. 

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