We’ve had not one, but two install days this year! Both have been for small items but we won’t complain about that; an install day is an install day. I’m going about the posting of them in the reverse order it should be noted however, as the parts in this post were installed a few days prior to Mustard’s brake deflectors, but I was waiting for a chance to grab some photos of the finished product and that came about this week.
On that note, the reason I’m slipping these photos in ahead of the start of the Auto Show coverage is that I had them all edited for Yolanda so that she could share them, and I figured that I might as well get their post up at the same time.
Anyway, recently Yolanda swung by my house to tackle a couple of installs for her ST. The first was to replace that annoying prop rod with some proper hood struts from Redline Tuning (we still can’t figure out why Ford insists on retaining these. Maybe the Mk4 will hold its own hood up?) which would not only be a nice ‘luxury’, but would make for nicer photos of the bay as there’d be no black rod photobombing every time.
We didn’t shoot that install, but if you’d like to see more I had published a post back when Mario and I installed dampers on Ketchup and Mustard (that install was slightly different but the basics are the same – more on that later). It’s a simple matter of fitting the upper bracket over the hood’s mounting studs, and undoing one bolt from each fender for the lower bracket. It’s easy to do alone should you choose to, but having a second set of hands is nice to assist with holding the hood when it’s undone.
The second install of the day was a sound symposer delete courtesy of Boomba. Ford’s inclusion of this is perhaps another head-scratcher, but at least it’s easy to remove. Doing so goes a long way to tidying things up, and with its intake and exhaust Yolanda’s ST provides enough noise for occupants without having to reply on a little symposer anyway.
Removing the factory symposer starts with undoing a few bolts that hold the various components in place and unplugging its one small connector. It’s snaked under the intake but doesn’t take long to pull out of the bay. In this shot the symposer was partially disconnected and still sitting in place; the reason the little red delete (on the intake manifold) was already installed was to keep the manifold sealed so that no dirt or debris could find their way inside should the wind pick up, for example.
It was a tight squeeze to reach between the intake arm and battery box (hence why I took off my watch), but the symposer came out with no real trouble, as they do. With it gone, the now unused connector on the engine loom was sealed up and zip-tied out of the way. Job done!
I’d make some comment about it being where it truly belongs, but it’s not in a garbage can in this photo. Haha.
With the symposer delete taken care of, that signaled the end of the quick install day and we could admire the notable improvement in how Yolanda’s bay presented. She happily made her way home and after taking these photos, got to fitting a couple of final parts from Boomba that she also had sitting around.
Fast forward to this week and a few of us met up for the season’s first Menace Meet. It was great to be able to enjoy a (relatively) nice evening, get the cars out, and see some familiar faces. It also provided me that chance to grab some shots of the ST’s engine bay following its ‘completion’, for now.
Since Mario and I had purchased our struts for Ketchup and Mustard back in 2013 (holy time flies), the set Yolanda purchased was slighty different as the design had been updated. As compared to the originals, these call for a bit more trimming of the wiper cowl – to clear the arms when the hood is down – and instead of replacing the fender bolt with a stud to which the arms attach, they now have a bracket which is held in place using that OE bolt.
The struts will definitely be used a lot this year as Yolanda has been working to dress up the engine bay, and the symposer delete was chosen to go along with the rest of Boomba’s offerings. You may have spied the oil cap, hood release, and dip stick handle in photos above (or remember them from older posts on the site) but the set had now been completed with two more items.
Those final pieces which Yolanda had thrown on once back home were the caps for the coolant tank and brake fluid reservoir, also in red of course. It’s worth noting that elsewhere, hidden down in the depths, is also the company’s BOV.
Now, not only is Yolanda’s bay sporting a full set of Boomba caps and some other items, but the hood can be held open the way it should have been from the factory – without a prop rod to get in the way of photos or working on the car. Like I said at the start these were quick installs but that doesn’t mean they were unimportant – quite the opposite really. Hood struts and a symposer delete are seen on plenty of STs and it’s for a good reason; they’re inexpensive, are easy to install, and make a big difference – and that’s a pretty good combination.
-Bill