Stripping the sierra
 

Hi everybody,
I'm about to buy the Sierra and strip it. Two questions :
- A few months ago I saw in an international press shop, a number of the UK Kit Car Magazine where they published a guide about how to strip an MX-5 donor step by step. I would be very interested in the same guidelines for a Sierra, and I reckon that some years ago, they might have published the same kind of articles about how to strip a Sierra. If anybody has had a subscription for years and can tell we which numbers of the magazine I'll try to order them. Any other guide or tips about that is welcome. Thanks.
- I plan to strip the car in my small garage, as here, winter is not over yet (will it be one day ?). But I'm very concerned about how to put a car body with no wheels out of the garage after having stripped the car? It might not look like, but it is actually a very serious question :)
Thank you very much by advance for your answers and tips.
Sylvain

The Sierra is as simple as a bicycle. The interior comes apart almost only with a single PZ2 screwdriver (apart for the seat bolts and Torx50 for seatbelt bolts). No hidden tabs, no things tricky to take apart. The powertrain is held to the body on about 8 bolts (4 for the front subframe, 4 for the rear)

One thing not to forget is to slacken the rear hub/driveshaft nuts while the Sierra is on its wheels. It's a 42 mm hex if I recall correctly. Keep in mind that one of them is a left-handed thread. It's marked with the notches.

Another top tip is to cut out the engine bay front cross member for better access. Then you can drop the engine on the floor and pull it out without even bothering hiring an engine crane.


Don't loose the propshaft-to-diff bolts, they're some funny fine thread. (I almost lost one, found it when the snow melted).

Finally, have fun! It's immense fun taking apart something you're not going to have to put together again.

Regarding the second part of your question, I broke my Sierra outside on four blocks of wood:

It was a cold winter, but the stubborn chassis bolts kept me warm. When it was time to get rid of a shell, I hired an evacuator truck that winched the shell up using the hood as a sled. The shell with all doors and glasses weighs around 550 kg, so it's possible to carry it out of the garage if you can get 4 or 5 strong friends to help ;-)

One thing I would add is any wires or pipes etc that connect onto the engine etc, wrap the connection in masking tap on either side and then use a black PERMANENT marker to write the same number on both sides so to speak so when you come to connect the loom back up it's much easier to work out what you need and where things go! Don't foolishly think a ball point pen is good enough as it'll end up fading...

Thank you very much Alga. How brave you have been to strip the car in the snow! Might be because of my southern French origins, but I will never have the courage to do so ;) Anyways, thank you so much for the tips, as well as to Brainbug. Very helpful:)
To answer to my own question (it can be useful to somebody else), I've been in touch with Kit Car Magazine, and they sent me the list of their archive numbers (back issues ?), with all the topics! The issues talking about stripping a Sierra are : October 2010 ("Sierra Stripdown Pt1") and November 2012 ("Sierra Stripdown Pt2").
Bye.
Sylvain