Matt's Other Anglia

mattj · July 24, 2016

So with my other car in the final stages of certification and finding that I don't have a lot to do on it I started thinking about getting another project, I mean I have to have something to tinker with right?

I was wanting to get a ute and was really keen on either a Datsun 1200 or early Mazda one and I looked at a couple of projects but the problem was that they are starting to get expensive even for something that needs a lot of work, plus to be honest the other car ended up costing me a fair bit so forking out more dollars for another project just wasn't really an option. This combined with my wife telling me that the other Anglia might as well be a motorbike given that it only has 2 seats and is loud and not the most pleasant of vehicles to cruise in or generally be in etc etc. got me thinking that a better choice would be something with more seats and more of a cruiser. So what I do have is a spare Anglia body and a buttload of parts both left over from the other build along with other parts that I have bought along the way just because they were cheap and I thought that they could be useful one day.

The good thing about the body shell is that it has live reg and while there are a few rust holes in it it is essentially pretty straight, I thought about selling it as the plates and tags would be worth something but as I have already started chopping it up to fit the rotary the shell probably isn't, but it is far to good to throw away so with that said the decision was made.
So what to do with a body shell that has already been chopped? Well the logical choice is to chop it more and fit something bigger in there.

So amongst the acquired parts I had this

3.9L Rover V8 out of a Discovery, pretty much complete except for the alternator and some parts out of the distributor – incidentally if anyone has any of these bits then hit me up as I need them!
And thanks to a helpful Oldschool member I also have this

Auto trans from a SD1, maybe not so much of a performance trans but for what I want it should do the trick. The motor was auto so I also figure this will be the cheapest way to get it moving.

So here is the car and yes that is a big hole in the guard but I have already repaired the steel underneath it so it looks worse that it is

And from the other side

Engine bay is empty but kind of small, still the grinder can fix that easy enough, that steering box is going to be an issue, luckily I have this

Mk2 escort front suspension, I have read heaps about how this isn’t the best to use but I can’t see why not, I mean look at how close it is to fitting.

As I see it all I need to do is remake the mounts to sit the crossmember in the right position relative to the strut tops to ensure the castor is right then make some new sway bar mounts for the front, seems easy enough to me, looking at the front track dimensions between an escort and an Anglia they are only 89mm different so only 44.5mm per side which isn’t much really. This is also something that I have wanted to do for ages and even thought about scrapping the mk2 Cortina setup in the other car and going this way so should be interesting.

So that is the plan, first get the front suspension in (probably without springs for now) then get the motor and trans bolted up, drop it in the hole, cut and weld as required and see where it leads. I am also thinking of doing a 4 link in the rear (also something I was thinking of for the other car) to get it sitting nice and low but that will come later.

Oh yeah and I got a set of these really cheap so they will more than likely go on it.