Punkoutnz's 1976 MKII Escort

[punkoutnz]

So I've been on the lookout for one for a while and this came up. Picked her up last night.

She's a 1976 MK2 GL Escort 4 door. Probably the uber base model but who cares!

 

Currently sporting a classy shade of Henderson Racing Grey, that will change to the original (or close to) Escort orange when my truck sells. Also sporting a set of Cheviot wheels which I quite like but some people don't seem to.

 

Anyway, pictures say a thousand words...

 

 

 

First things I want to sort is the miss that it has under light load, sort of goes away a bit when you put your foot down further but it's definitely still there. It's sluggish and doesn't seem to want to rev out. Idles smooth as though. Probably a blockage in the main jet or something a bit dishy on the timing but I've gotta get my head back around oldschool carby engines again (couldn't find a place to plug in my laptop on this one...).

 

Discussion thread HERE

[punkoutnz]

So I've done a few bits here and there, mostly minor cosmetic so far while I wait for the truck to sell so I can do the major part of the restoration.

 

Ditched the centre console and got a nice boot from an MG in there, and bought Scott's old wood grain steering wheel.

 

Have also started making my custom parcel tray, foundations are 6mm MDF, over the top will be foam to get the shape I want, then it'll have glass over the top of that. Will shape them up to fit the Kicker 6.5" speakers I bought for it. At the moment it's just the MDF with a layer of glass setting to hold it the way I want it to sit.

 

Next thing is to find a bracket/mount to hold a head deck all tidily below the dash and hide the wires and shizz. I've also got some brunox to attack a couple of rust spots that have popped up that I want to eliminate before it gets the paint job. Fun times had by all!

[punkoutnz]

Moar updates...

 

Parcel shelf is complete, pretty stoked with how it's come out actually and the speakers sound fantastic in it! There's a few wrinkles but for a first timer I think I've done alright on the vinyl job...

 

 

I was also getting a bit paranoid about supposed rust repairs on this car so decided to bite the bullet and dig around and see what I could find and pretty freaken glad I did because filling holes with silicone isn't rust repair... Welded a couple of patched in the back vents and one on the drivers door, but the big one was in the engine bay...

 

 

Bent up a new piece of steel and welded it in place...

 

 

Will get some pics later on when it's all finished up. Everything's been rust treated with Brunox before under coating so it's sealed up for good and hopefully wont rear it's head any time soon and I'm pretty sure I've managed to tackle all the rust that's going to cause any issues for now (at least as far as the paint job is concerned).

 

Have also bought a free standing stereo bracket that mounts below the dash which looks pretty lush with the new head deck in there...

[punkoutnz]

So the big weekend arrived and after a little over a week of pushing hard to have the car prepped it went into the paint shop.

 

 

There's a few little bumps and scrapes that I managed to miss (why does primer hide so much?!) but overall the car looks great, quite happy with the colour too.

 

Been slowly putting it back together this week...

 

 

 

Still got all the door handles and door windows to put back in and I want to replace the weather strips on the door windows as they were perished as. Will reuse the windscreen rubbers as they were fine but need some new chrome locking strips as the ones I have are old and manky.

 

Next step really is to lower it and decide what wheels I like as I don't think the tridents suit this paint. Thinking either some widened steelies, or some minilites, or possibly some revolution 4 spoke wheels. I guess I'll decide later when the money tree grows back from it's heavy pruning.

[punkoutnz]

Okay so a bit of work done this weekend. Fitted an electronic converted dizzy I bought off Shane, a few bits and bobs I bought from the escort at Zebra (some door handle surrounds, and scored a factory demister switch which I'm stoked as about!).

 

Last week I got the windows installed. The rear one shattered so I had to buy a replacement which happens to have the demister on it which will be a sweet feature, just going to have to wire that up.

 

 

As you can see I've put my plates on it now as well.

 

 

Engine bay definitely needs some sexying up, will pull the engine out at some stage and spray it all black. Just tidied up the plug leads and managed to score a bracket to hold the air filter properly now so things are finally sitting as they should. Have only started and idled the engine with the new electronic dizzy but it already runs a hell of a lot smoother over the old points system.

 

Ready to go for a WOF this week so hopefully I can drive it around. The only thing that's really left to do is buy and fit the new seals that sit at the base of each door window but the budget has been spread thin as it is at the moment so that will have to wait, just no wet weather driving for now.

 

Of course here's an obligatory window banner pic!

[punkoutnz]

So I got to take it out and about a couple of weeks ago, still waiting to be able to afford the seals below the windows on the doors but hopefully that'll happen next week unless something else attacks my pockets before then. I've also been undertaking the mammoth task of wet sanding and polishing the paint. Results so far are bloody awesome though I've only done the boot lid (which still needs a bit more) and the bonnet (which is looking epic). Those two panels alone took me 4 hours.

 

 

Electronic ignition rocks! Car runs so much smoother and more consistant with no more misfire.

Also picked up a ported head for $1 off trademe. Gave the guy $20 cos I felt like a dick and he chucked in some monroe rear shocks which I've now fitted (but are yet to drive on). Gotta be better than the 40 year old oil filled shocks that were on there.

 

The plan with the head is to find another 1300 bottom end to bolt that head onto, and find some variant of a larger than stock cam to put in there with some valve springs and have a go at making the combination work. Also got a 34dgv weber downdraft on it's way that I'm hoping to be able to tune for this setup. I want to swap the whole lot over cos it gives me a chance to paint the engine bay while it's all out.

 

So anybody got a 1300 crossflow bottom end sitting in their garage they wanna sell cheap?!

[punkoutnz]

So I've done a few bits over the last few months,

First thing I did was make a nice wooden dash panel to break up the blackness in there...

 

Second thing I did was spend a looooot of time wet sanding the paintwork, I've probably spent about 100 hours all up and I'm stoked as with the finish.

 

And the last few days I got bored, picked up a spare steering wheel from pick a part for $21 which needs recovering, I might do that at another point. So I followed cylinders thread on restoring his wooden steering wheel and got stuck into it. Sanded it all by hand so it took me in the region of 5 hours to do.

 

And after the first coat of varnish this is how it looks...

 

So as it stands the other day, this is how she looks.

 

 

So now I'm on the lookout for the factory chrome trims that attach to the sides. I have most of a set, am after both front guards and the drivers side door to complete it if anyone has some they've got lying around.

 

Also really need to lower it some, and do something about the slowness, but that will come later. Keen to pick up some spotlights one day, and tossing up with getting an oldschool roof rack to put on it to carry my bikes around from time to time. Will go well with my aviators and polo shirt.

[punkoutnz]

So some things have happened again. I installed a roofrack, some pin stripes, and this weekend just gone I finally installed the 32dgv carb I had in there. Was expecting it to be a real PITA to get it running right cos the guy I bought it from reckoned it didn't run on his 1300 but with a tweak of the main jet mixtures I've got it running pretty well. Slight hesitation at low rpm but it revs out bloody nice (use to run out of puff above 4000, now it'll happily rev to 5500ish). Also idles real nice, better than the old carb! I haven't found it a problem yet not having chokes fitted to it so will see if a bit of cold weather starts to make it a problem, haha.

 

 

Only thing I really need is a filter as I'm not a fan of running open carbs, anyone got an old one lying around they wanna sell?

 

I've also just recently done a bit of an overhaul of the steering, rebuilt both inner tie rods, still have a little bit of play but enough to pass a wof so will maybe look at getting rebuild kits for the inner rods at some stage, have also replaced both outer tie rod ends, steering coupling is now urethane as are the sway bar mounts and steering rack mounts. Has made a HUGE difference to the front end, it's so much more planted and confident on the road and has made driving it so much nicer.

 

Also wired up the rear demister and spent some time replacing wiring to the stereo and cig lighter with a new fused power feed straight from the battery, no more worrying about overloading factory wiring. She also has a tacho now which makes driving a bit easier as I know what she's doing.

 

Had a fantastic drive down to beach hop as well, was a bit nervous as it was my first long trip in her but she ran so well, didn't miss a beat the whole day!

 

 

I have a few big maintenance things I've gotta do to the daily before I sink more money into this, but once I'm back on track with that I'll be lowering it and starting to look out for a better engine, for now though I'm quite happy with how it's driving.

[punkoutnz]

So I picked up a bit of a "kit set engine" shall we call it. 711M block, A3 cam, (and a spare which is a bit bigger again but not sure what it is), some brand new 1300 pistons, still in the box and a GT head. Crank needs a grind which is no biggie but the block is already bored out to 90 thou and the pistons are 40 thou so it needs to be re sleeved. Looking at a fair few bob to do that so got some time to save.

 

Was planning to have it in the car by nats but with the price of re sleeving the block that may be a bit of an unrealistic goal. Still though, once it's built it should be a pretty sweet engine!

 

[punkoutnz]

So yeah I did a thing...

 

Stoked as with the ride height now. Drives a lot nicer, front is way firmer, rear is obviously no different so I might get some stiffer shocks for it, or maybe one day reset the leaves. Dunno yet.

 

I think as far as the new engine is concerned I've decided that I'm going to hang out until I can find a new block, paying a grand to have the block I have resleeved seems stupid when I can pick up another, and machine it out to +40 for far less. So if anyone has a kent 711m block that's of no use to them, and is either stock or less than 40 thou then hit me up.

[punkoutnz]

Let us update thee!

 

Ran flawlessly at the OS drags and managed to knock over a second off last years time, down to a 21.46 at 61mph. I've since installed the new 'ported' head which I also discovered is a 1600 head as the valves are both 2mm bigger than the valves from the removed head. There's a slight inprovement in mid range power but it still tops out at around 5000rpm which surprised me, I'm thinking upgrading the exhaust or at least the suzuki swift rear muffler will improve that situation.

 

Installed some new headlights which have vastly improved the night time driving situation.

 

Had a visit to zebra to help EURON8 a few weeks ago and we stumbled onto a cortina with the deep bosskit that my car has been lacking, a quick trip to mitre 10 and back and we had the tools needed to remove it. The steering wheel sits in a much better position and the car is so much nicer to drive!

 

Today's job was to install the MX5 seats kindly donated by mrjstar and I'm stoked with how they fit. Only a couple of new holes to drill on the factory rails and they snuck in nicely. Seating position is PERFECT and it's dropped about an inch and a half off the seating height.

 

Of course updates are useless without pics..

 

 

 

 

Sadly there's still no update on the engine. Just hanging out for a new block that hasn't been bored right out but that hasn't been a high priority cos I wanna make sure I have enough set aside to enjoy nats.

 

The head is extremely tappity though, and I don't seem to be able to adjust the noise out. The old head was pretty bad as well so I'm thinking the rockers themselves may be pitted or unevenly worn so if anyone has a set lying around please let me know.

 

Bring on nats!