Mk2marty's 83 Cortina Estate

[mk2marty]

I think we'll call this Phase II of the evolution of the Cortina

The new camshaft and head came together nicely over the Christmas break, aside from a slight hiccup with the rocker ball studs supplied with the Kent kit. The threaded section is much longer than the standard ball studs, which would be fine except that some of the holes in the cylinder head have the thread tapped only halfway down (thanks Ford), meaning they fit the standard ones fine, but not the longer Kent ones.

Thankfully my Grandad came to the rescue and lent me the necessary 14mm thread tap. So cheers, Grandad.

Taylor Automotive reconditioned the head, and did an excellent job, and i fitted the new valve springs, stem seals, spray bar, ball studs and followers supplied with the kit. 

I decided against trying my hand at porting it. Might practice on a scrap head first, rather than running the risk of ruining this one.

Can always pull it off the car again...

 

Cam, pulley, and spraybar fitted, and valve clearances set. 

The swap commenced. While I was there I decided to replace the water pump, cambelt, thermostat, alternator belt, HT leads, thermostat housing etc. Mostly for my own peace of mind, most of those parts were allegedly done by the previous owner but I thought i'd do them again anyway.

It runs! The valve clearances had tightened up a thou, but i'll put that down to the valves bedding in. .

To be brutally honest I haven't noticed any difference with the new cam versus the old, aside from the idle is worse and the tappets are noisier... 

But I haven't really played with it yet. If all else fails I may invest in a vernier cam pulley, which was what Kent seemed to think was necessary.

I'm pleased that the bores don't seem to be lipped, it doesn't look to have been bored oversize, and the hone marks are still visible from the freshen-up it had before I bought it. However the next step may be getting the radiator re-cored, I didn't realise how worn the core was until I pulled the radiator out.

 

And I did promise some photos of the car looking all shiny with it's blingin' new wheels and paint, so here it is looking all photogenic:

 

[mk2marty]

Had this three years now.

Scary.

Still going fine, had a few small niggles, found it leaks water into the back in heavy rain (which we've had lots of lately). Looks like it's coming in past the left rear window rubber, which probably means there's a rust hole under the rubber. Yay.

It's another excuse to only use it on dry days...

It was leaking fuel for a bit too, which wasn't fun. There must have been a small hole in the fuel line that goes across the front crossmember, because it was making small puddles every time I parked it. Swapped the fuel line with a different one, and it doesn't do it anymore. So yay again.

In other news, I ransacked the Mk4 wagon at Zebra, so i've got a full set of glass, a spare set of tailgate hinges/torsion bars, and some other small trim bits that only wagons had. 

It had the piece of grill that goes below the front bumper, which i've wanted for aaaages, so that made me quite happy.

Trying to make it look like it's in 1986, not 2016.

 

And more of it being photogenic

 

/discuss here etc

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[mk2marty]

Yeah, I still own this. One day I'll fix all the photos in this thread, but for now here's a slice of the 1980s on my front lawn.

Nothing else has happened really, apart from that the WOF man decided he didn't like the Recaros, so I'll have to swap the original front seats into it, and it needs a driveshaft hanger support and rear gearbox seal replacing. Maybe once the Escort is out of the garage I'll give it a bit of a freshen up, it probably deserves it by now.