Between March and May, I hauled out the dead V8, it was a long and drawn out process due to partly to the weather, stuck fastenings and the fact the gearbox bell housing had corroded to the engine making it almost impossible to split the two.
In the end the old lump finally broke free of the gearbox and was hauled out. I cleaned up the engine bay made sure everything was prepared and ready and then on one afternoon went from no engine to having the lump bolted in in ~1hr and the rest of it connected up and ready to run over the next 3 hrs.
The first start up was noisy due to no exhausts. Subsequent ones were quieter but it was a bit smokey. Since I had never seen or heard the donor engine I was a little worried.
However she went for MOT and passed without any issue of note. She stayed off the road till the end of June. But then was put back into service and now in late December has accrued 3800 miles.
The Focus was sold on to a friend, on the proviso that it was retuned for a 50% rebate as the car was fitted with my Wolfrace VooDoo wheels and a reasonable ST interriror. It also has a 1.8 Zetec that may be useful 😉
The focus was a fun little beast, it did everything asked of it.
The Jaguar is super, it does require a little fetteling due to rattles from the suspension. And a cold misfire. But it’s FAB.