The brakes on the Escape's are a poor design (Mazda). I'm on my 4th set of rotors on mine. They wear funny, and a groove gets created on the outer edge of the rotor.... and that is what causes the grinding noise (on mine). That said.... the little bugger has GREAT stopping ability though.

Luckily the rotors aren't very pricey.

 

Honestly it may have bent getting the bloody CV axle out but not sure. Had to take the intake manifold off to drop the alternator in. The tone ring had failed and had gotten it back on previously but couldn't get the ford reman alt around the axle mounting bracket. I'm starting to seriously hate the escape.

 

Bear, I love the pics of the aquarium! It looks like your grandson had a lot of fun. I know my kids enjoy ours that we have in SLC.

Kind of pisses me off though. It used to be in an old grocery store building and was 8 bucks to get in. They lobbied for tax money to build a brand new building, and got the funding. Now the damn thing is 20 bucks to get in. Big kick in the nuts I got for voting for the funding, right?

 

Yours must be the 3.0 then if you removed the intake. Mine (2.3 with the intake up by the radiator) doesn't look too bad. I might have to pull the CV axle as well - but I've got that job down to a science.

Did you do the back side spark plugs while you had the intake off?

 

Even 20$ isnt too bad- it was around 56$ for the three of us-but well worth it!-
They were having the Goetta fest on the riverwalk ( goetta is a food of some kind thats popular to Cincy and N. Ky.)- it was nice- couple of pics of Cincy from the aquarium and above the riverwalk

 

Looks like a lot of fun though.

I'd done the plugs about 6 months ago. Just wish the alt had failed about that time :/

 

The little beer can is here. Here's the whole fleet in one pic.

 

Nice brood, White!- man, look at the parking space you have!- man lm jelly!

 

Thank you Bear! That was one of my favorite parts about the house

I drove the little car around a bit yesterday. For only having 106hp, it doesn't do too bad. Of course, it only weighs about 2300 pounds. It has 121,000 miles on it - so it's got plenty of life left. The tires are newer Michelin's. I did a little research on the oil, and Toyota did a TSB on these, switching from 5W-30 to 5W-20. Deja Vu, eh?

 

You live in a used car lot?