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Back in 2015 dad and I took a road trip to Gisborne to pick up a Mk2 escort estate after buying it for $450. Put it on a trailer behind the Accord and made a 12 hour road trip home. This is the next morning after giving it a decent water blast and getting rid of the cockroach infestation that was living in it. The car came with no motor, a gearbox hanging from the rear engine mount, a fart cannon exhaust, little to no interior bar the headlining and dash cluster, steering wheel, column and pedal boxes, full glass, escort steelies all round, plus some other crap in boxes in the tray area. The plan at this point was to put a 2l pinto in it and a type 9 box. I very optimistically (read: naively) hoped to have it running in time to drive it as a daily once I got my restricted (six months later). A couple of years earlier I was given a 205 block pinto of unknown history from an ex-workmate of my dad's with the intention at the time of putting it in a 1928 ford pickup projects that never really got off the ground. So instead it sat around on a pallet until that morning when we dropped it into the hole and bolted it up to the 4 speed that was already in the car to check clearances and see what would have to be done.You'll notice too the set of cheviot turbo mags wrapped in yu-long-dong brand 175/60/13s front and 185s rear (these will be changed to a decent set once it's on the road). The mags were given to me by another friend of my dad's as payment for him rebuilding a front cross member for his genuine Capri Perana. After dropping the motor in and standing back to have a look and fizzing about it, the door was shut and so ended day number one. Discussion here:

metal spray and grind like this? ling out

She's alive!! Got her started up on the weekend. Cheers for all the advice!!! Legends thank you!

So the bug made it into the pc mag. Cheers to @Snoozin for the great pics. Here are better pics with out the mag Again rolling shots are the tits You can really see how poo brown my interior is here. Go buy yourself a copy today.

Got most of the decking done on Sat.. and shifted the step/guard rail location Rain fucked me a bit on Sunday but once it cleared, I finished picture framing the deck.. realised I need to lift the steps up 33mm higher as the top step is 213mm instead of 180 (forgot about the decking) If the weather plays ball this weekend I'll get it done and hopefully move onto the facings/sills..

So.. about 4 years ago I brought this little banger off a kid in Cambridge. He didn't want it anymore as it wasn't as fast as all his friend's skylines and shit. I thought cool, I'll take it. This is pretty much how i brought it Nice standard and straight. Good little 1.3 that went hard for the first year i had it untill i managed to get hold of a 1.6 to chuck in. This is back in 2015. We put the 1.6 straight in, was a cunt of a job without the extractors being on a flange... many a curse word was yelled at me from my brother as he helped me out. The 1.6 went hard for about 6 months until christmas day 2015 where it decided to melt a piston going over the kaimais... So off i went on an adventure to melbourne to work and save money for this engine i wanted to get rebuilt. decided to stick with the 1.6 xflow over a pinto as i felt it suited it better than a pinto and also i wouldnt have to get a cert... 6 months past and i returned from melbourne and the rebuilt banger was ready to be picked up from Stick Automotives in Ohaupo. Fully rebuilt with all new internals. Bored out and honed, 1300 pistons, lumpy cam, 10-1 comp, Ported and Polished head.. blah blah the list goes on. Was made to have sidedrafts but they were not in the budget so it got the 28/36 dcd put back on it... Fast forward 7 months, the old twin throat just wasnt coping with the amount and gas i wanted to give it so managed to score me a set of twin 40 delorotos off trade me for next to nothing.. got them rebuilt and chucked on Another 6 months went by which to about feb this year. Moved back to tga from auckland, engine started running like a sack of shit so took it into dynopower to get it properly tuned and balanced... Boy what a difference that made. turns out the little banger is putting out 150hp..

Had to make another steering column tube since the first one was too long and the spline didn't stick out from the end. Also made the slot for the shifter longer so it has more gear selection. Laser cut a mount out of 12mm Ali for the steering column, needs a little bit ground out of the main mounting hole as it's a bit small and the triangles could also be polished more. Have also polished the shifter/indicator part of the column, looks heaps better than the silver paint. The steering columns going to be the flashest part of the whole truck haha. Done a bit more to the dash, has come out really well, very happy with it. Wasn't sure how well this would turn out, but so far it's turned out mint. Can't really see from the photos but I also fixed the left gauge surround, as it was terribly deformed, the front face was flared out a bit/not flat and out of round so the gauges didn't fit. It's pretty good now, just has a small rust hole that needs fixing. Not looking forward to welding it as there's so much!

Twas a Super Minx. I pulled the door dent out enough for him so he could put his window up. Unusual, as I thought Mustangs usually crash into crowds.

Made some brackets to mount the valves. For some reason the holes ended up too far out so had to slot them a little. They're held in with countersunk screws so it's all still flush underneath (not that anyone will be able to see underneath anyway haha). Played around a bit with the location for a while and decided this was the best. Wasn't really enough room for the compressor to fit in between. Will mount a compressor on each side of the bed, just above the exhaust area. Back to fitting and fixing the rust in the dash now. Cut out the good/un-butchered section of the dash that some idiot tried fitting a commodore cluster in. Glad to finally throw this shit out! Pic for motivation

Ground back the welds and gave it a little bit of a polish with a skotch-brite on an orbital sander. You can see a pressing mark jut to the right of the fixing bolt from the straightening in this picture but I prefer black bumpers so it's nothing a skim of bog and paint won't fix. Finished them both up and offered it up to the car. I threw the spotties on there because they were lying around and I wanted to see how they looked. I'm not so keen on them so they'll be getting the old spanish archer for the final look.

So drinks Saturday night then?

Looking forward to see how far along this has come. Cool cars. Good shit.

Cool project and another Escy wagon saved.

go to SEACO and buy a gland packing remover. is like a cork screw. they make them in different DIAs for different gland packing thicknesses (all imperial because only the british would think rope to seal shit is a good idea) and you'll succeed at life.

Mustang drivers can't always get it right.

concur, amazing! keep it up etc.

Might look into hard chrome

Ow man, to have access to those tools you have, and be able to use them like you. dash is coming out sweet.

Chrome them to fill in the pits, then machine back

Not a chance my Hindo friend

is there a chance the track could bend?

Not really an update but thought id share a pic of what the levers look like on the bike. I think they makes the bars look alot cleaner, and now i just need new grips and some kind of mirror to finish them off

On Friday night my brother and his mate helped me get the engine removed and onto an engine stand. We pulled the sump off and 3 of the four big end bearings were damaged. So this week it's off to the engine reconditioners... In the mean time I'm getting stuck into the interior. During the couple of short drives before it finally died I noticed the truck had a lot of rattles and road noise. The carpets needed a shampoo so I started stripping the interior so I could line all the sheet metal with a sound deadening material and get the carpets cleaned. I've just finished the cargo area and it has made a huge difference already, it's noticeable just working on it. Previously when you tapped on the rear quarters they would ring like a steel drum, now there is just a solid thud. I can't wait to drive it again!

Some more paint work progress, Whole car is now in undercoat. This week i will be taking it in for its first Re-Vin inspection. Hopefully on Tuesday. After it is re registered ill be high filling the car and then working on getting it fully repainted in baby blue. Updates to come after its first inspection

Need some design input on my engine mounts for cert - 6mm plates bolted to engine with 3x 10mm bolts 6mm wall 50x50 box to be welded to plates 6mm wall tube welded to box to hold rubber mounts with crush tube inside 6mm 100x100 box cut and drilled for 10mm thru bolt for rubber mounts -these brackets bolt to factory engine mount locations on subframe with 2x10mm bolts (stock is 1x 10mm bolt + locating pin) tl/dr does this look shit or overkill- ignore tack welds -certed welder will be gluing for me

Parts pile continues to grow 4.22 LSD 2nd gen diff and spindles/brakes from the same truck. Spindles let me run vented risks and I have more scope to upgrade the brakes further, rear brakes should also be ever so slightly better which this truck really needs. No way was this thing towing anything heavy. Should also do a mean skid, but I mainly wanted it for the better handling and brakes........... Also got a auto shifter surround from a VP which IV hacked up and will fit to the centre console so it looks more finished

Old vs new. Plus some glam

The requirement from last year: Registration and WoF, or for non-roadworthy vehicles an NZDRA tech inspection or MSNZ logbook It's safe to assume that this will be the same this year too. The final word is with our scrutineer on the day. Gutting a WoF/Reg vehicle should not prevent you from running in the event however this will depend on how safe the car is on the day, again at the discretion of the scrutineer.

Lever set arrived! They came faster than i thought they would so im stoked with that and they look great so not complaining at all Cheers guys!

Got the floor back to bare steel, no holes to note which was pretty sweet Started to attack the front guards as they were starting to get quite a bit of acne. Hit some pretty intense bog on the right side of the grill... guessing its been in an accident. all the repairs that had been done have all started to fall away so it will all get cut out and done properly.. underside of bonnet was looking like a bag of dicks so sanded that back as well.. So thats up to date as of the 21st of june. Please note that im not a pro mechanic or panel beater... so any tips or anything would be helpful. Ive brought a big tin of 440 industrial primer, (along with a tin of wax and grease remover, a roll of 80 grit) which im going to chuck all over everything so its no longer bare metal.. Sorry for sideways pics, also any tips chuck them at me!

Progression?

Finshed mounting the rear guard and indicators and also cut the exhaust up and put that back on. Ordered some things last night, I have a reproduction short front gaurd as well as a sweet lever set, as the ones on there at the moment dont match and look too bulky in my opinion. So hopefully they wont take too long. In any case. Id say its 75% there, it will be rideable once i have a new battery, and check everything is wired correctly. Still planning on possibly getting different bars, new controls, and i also want to look into how to lower it a little as it looks abit odd being so high. Cheers guys! (Edit - changed photo)

Haven't done much more to the dash apart from fit it into the cab, as I am undecided how to approach the rusty holes under the gauges yet, a bit too many complex shapes! My Dad had a 55 Chevy steering column laying around, so we started to mock it up. The shaft out of that column had been welded in multiple places so we found another column that had a mint shaft and it was also longer so didn't need an extra universal joint added. The outer tube of the column was pretty average, had lots of extra holes, cutouts and had been shortened, so drew a new one up in Solidworks and got it put through the Tube laser at work. It's now made from 2 inch stainless tube.

For hype, here some photos of Aw11 drag cars from 1991 when drag racing started taking off in jap, and most popular chassis for it was a 240z under the miffker those are duel waste gates

I had to put the nuts back on the ends of some bolts witch were under the guard and I could only just get one finger in there with the nut and washer balancing on one finger but I would all ways drop it, but I found if I super glued the washer to the nut then super glued the nut to my finger it took 2 seconds do do the whole job. the glue doesn't bond permanently to your finger if they are dirty.

Interesting You can see a similar thing in motorcycle racing though not very common, a tank slapper can knock the caliper pistons back requiring a couple pumps of the brake to get pressure back but usually by then they have missed their braking marker and it's brown trouser time.

It is a winner.

as was mentioned but kinda glossed over 50/50 mix of acetone and ATF. the acetone things out the atf and lets it get in all the gaps before evaporating off and leaving the oil behind, used this method over a few days on my frozen up 18rgeu. freed up real nice and now runs mint with great compression. used a breaker bar to unstick it. the starter motor will burn out if you crank it but the motor cant turn. also with the bar you can feel how the engine feels as you slowly rotate it.

fuck if engines were seizing after a year of garage life I would be fucked.

Barry wont have any metric though

Go find an old Barry's garage/estate sale and buy all his drill bits and files. I did that a few times now have few hundred kilos of old tools lol. Far better than todays shite

put the remaining nuts back like nothing happened and drop off for a new super cat?

Done the floor patch, just need to do the bit up the side and then there's a few little patches of rust, where the top of the guards bolt to the cab on both sides and a pin hole in the rear cab corner. That'll hopefully be all the rust in the cab done, then I can start on the transmission tunnel.

Fuck yeah!!!!

Do you want to build a snowman race car? Also a while back I also had an exhaust leak where the manifold met the exhaust, leaky seal. It was a bitch to get off and even more off a bitch to get back on, with me using a seal that doesn't actually belong on the car.

Hes got this Down hill test driving

Hey Dave, finish the story already. Thankyou please come again