PHLEX

So I got exactly 1 start out of my thrown together starter motor before my last living solenoid decided it was ready to retire. Pulled it back out and bench tested and its toast. Bummer!

I pulled my inertia starter apart and gave everything a good clean and its working fine on the bench. After a bit of online research I found that even tho both starters have a 10 tooth pinion and look identical size the inertia requires a 110 tooth ring gear rather than the 132 tooth I had offered it which is why it didn't engage when I tried it.  Ill add here my car is supposed to run the inertia starter, the pre engagement its currently using JUST fits but requires the solenoid to be installed separately which is very fiddly as it is extremely close to an engine mount. Most high torque aftermarket units state they do not fit Mk1 or Mk2 Cortinas for this reason.

Not wanting to muck around too much and my quick search for the correct flywheel coming up short I opted to order a new ring gear to fit to a spare flywheel. This means I will have both options moving forward and keeps the door open for an aftermarket unit in the future .  Hoping this shows up today and I will take some pics of the process. EDIT: Has shown up right now so there will be pics later. 

Had my new external starter solenoid show up yesterday so whipped the starter out to switch in the "period correct" unit. Typical old car problems, worked fine on the bench but once in place it is not spinning fast enough to engage the teeth onto the flywheel (yes the tooth count is right, have done that before!)  

So back out it came and I pulled out my box of spare newer starter parts and set about matching the best solenoid and starter. Worked perfectly on the bench but murphy's law once installed the solenoid doesn't want to kick. Toys thrown and went inside for the night. No pics as you all know what starter motors look like. 

Next on my agenda is improving the handbrake. I checked the shoes the other evening and theyre still in reasonably good health. I freed up the adjusters and tightened it right up. The cable running the length of the car is on max adjustment and looking tired / I suspect stretched so will try and find a NOS cable or have one made at a best guess length and I have found replacement plastic pulleys available on eBay. At least one is buggered so will inspect the others and get ordering.

Right so the only notable update between Feb 2020 and Feb 2021 was during covid lockdown a gent in Levin listed up a few old gearboxes for sale he had hoarded for 20 years or so, one was a Type 3 and a suitable replacement so the deal was done and as soon as we went to L2 I drove up and collected it. I got the noisy one out and noticed straight away there were some differences as the replacement was an earlier unit, most likely from a mk1 GT, the most annoying being the slave cylinder was different and the one supplied with the box was buggered. The bellhousings also couldn't be swapped over for some reason which I cant remember.  Anyway I managed to source another used slave and rig up a line to make it work. Took it for a drive, nice and quiet and a lot less vibration-y than the previous box so that was a win. One thing that I just couldn't get to work right was the clutch needed a couple of pumps to work which made it a pain to drive, so it sat for almost another year while my skyline got all the attention. 

Fast forward 9 months to Feb 2021, Trade me is doing free selling for vehicles.... Yes i'm going to be that prick and "test the waters" so I listed the car with a list of what i know it will need for a WOF, put a realistic price on it comparable with others in similar condition. The following day as British Car day again so i "transported" it down there and had several people come up to me telling me not to sell it (had been up for 20 hours by this point)  On my way out of British Car Day the diff started clunking so took it home to investigate and the pin had started walking out of the diff. Fortunately I caught it in time and managed to fix it (or so I thought).  After hanging out with a few other small fords I got motivated and decided to work my way through the list starting with getting the clutch sorted. After a bit of mucking around I found it was just massively mis-adjusted so was a relatively easy fix. By this time I had received a fair few serious offers for the car but none at my "absolute bottom dollar" and couldn't bring myself to sell it cheap. General consensus was it would sell easier with a WOF so I took it off the market and kept working through my list. 

Next job was to fix some rust in the boot floor and mount the tow bar I have had sitting around for about a year as it fouled on the exhaust so I never got round to fitting it.  Rust was fairly easy to sort, Bit of upside down welding to keep me on my toes. I jerry rigged the rear muffler mount with some cable ties ready to drive down to a friends workshop to replace the very rusty exhaust. I'm getting too old for long periods of time under the car so a hoist was a must for this. I'm fairly new to welding and this was only the second exhaust I had made from scratch so altho the welds are ugly i'm happy with my efforts. 

Few years between posts but I'm still here!

There's been a couple of big gaps between any sort of progress, mostly due to losing motivation not being able to find certain parts. Bit of an update ahead and I will try to backfill some photos where I can.

Early 2019 I made a start on preparing the Cortina to be used as our wedding car. This was going to include its first drive further than 20km and with other people driving it so I needed to make sure it was going to be reliable. First issue I had was over about 80kph it felt really floaty and generally unstable. I took it down to get an alignment and was told lowering the front had caused the front wheels to shift too far back in the guards which was causing it to float around.  He suggested trying to get some castor adjustment to bring them back forward.  Unfortunately easier said than done as this is the swaybar and nobody seems to make adjustable units for the Mk2 that ship to NZ.  After speaking with a friend who has had the same issue with his Mk1, he gave me some instructions and we set about modifying the original item to move the wheels forward. Back on the alignment machine and came up significantly better. Can now do a bit over 100kph without issue.

Next annoyance was the vibration I had been trying to remedy, Eventually we diagnosed this as the pinion angles of the gearbox and diff which is why putting the saggy old springs in took the issue away. With the help of some diff alignment shims I managed to get this vibration to almost disappear other than a small wobble off throttle at about a 10kph window between 80 and 90kph which was livable. I also took the time to install some semi sealed lights on relays to take the load off the factory wiring. Major improvement over the old sealed units!

A friend helped me give it a really good cut and polish to make sure it was looking its best for the photos and it performed the duties well. The morning after the wedding we found a small but noticeable puddle of coolant under the radiator so it sat in my parents garage for a few weeks while a replacement alloy radiator made its way over from the UK so I could drive it the hour home.  I coupled the new radiator with an electric fan and thermo controller in case its ever needed in traffic.

February 2020 I decided to  blow the dust off and get it to British car day. I hadn't done any work on it for a while so decided to re wire everything forward of the firewall and wire tuck as much as possible. This stemmed from the quick job I did wiring in the brighter headlights  This went really well, i was super stoked with my work and the modern fuse box has plenty of spare spots for extra wires later down the track. The day before the event it was all legal and ready to go and i decided to pop out for a quick drive and I hadn't latched the bonnet properly which meant as soon as I got to about 30kph going down the street it flew up, fortunately stopping vertical before hitting the windscreen. Whoops!!!  Took it off and banged it back straight to get to British Car day. 

Morning of British car day I met up with a few other small fords and we had a bit of a cruise on the way to the event. It became very apparent the gearbox was in desperate need of some attention as the bearings got noisier and noisier during a run through the hills and the vibration got to the point of unbearable.  Fortunately the event was 5 mins from home so after parking up for the day it wasn't too far to limp home.

Murphy's law still haven't leaked with the old gasket and RTV! I am doing a full exhaust from headers back shortly as the current system has been hacked and modded too many times so we will be adding a bracket to either a bell housing bolt or further back if there's somewhere logical.

I once had a Sentra that a mate helped me block back and painted in the booth for a large bottle of jim beam. From memory the paint was around $360 of paint, $100 in other consumables and 3 of us spent an entire Saturday and half a Sunday on it.  Finish wasn't 100% but was significantly better than multi coloured fresh panel car I was driving round for months prior.

On my Cortina myself and a friend spent around 4 months of evenings and weekends on the prep removing rust straightening panels and fixing dents and blew a coat of 2k white over the bare shell and then the doors bonnet and boot separately. Only regret I have is not clearing it so at some point it will be blocked back, receive another coat of white and a good coat of clear to get more shine out of it. Jobs far from perfect but total cost of under $1000 to do all prep prime and paint. Car has been about 4 colours before and the previous coat of paint was a pro job but unfortunately the guy I bought it off had started his own bare metal respray.  Definitely worth giving it a crack if you aren't after a showroom finish and im glad I did. Next coat will be a closed door spray in a friends booth and a couple of coats of clear over top to give it more shine

Although the last couple of weeks have seemed like 2 steps forward one back I have achieved a little bit on the Cortina in between other jobs.

I have had major fuelling issues for a few weeks now, initially installing an electric pump to try and combat them which worked for a few days and then the same issue came back.  Thanks to the help of a few guys in the tech talk section I have now replaced my tank with a spare from a Mk1 so although the fuel gauge is now very inaccurate I have managed to stop all the leaks and now have constant fuel flow so at some stage over the next week or two I will re-remove the mechanical pump as the electric is now doing its job properly.

Back when I first got the Cortina I bought a set of imperial tools as I knew I was going to need a lot of different sized spanners and sockets which I don't normally use on my Nissans and Euros so I got a small 2 draw tool box which has usually lived in the boot of the Cortina. I had an idea a while back that we should make a bracket to hold this into the boot so it doesn't roll around (it already had once and dented the side of the car). We had a bit of downtime one evening so whipped up a bracket from 20mm angle iron that fits the base of the toolbox and bolted it to the car using 6x M6 bolts with the middle ones running through a short camlock tiedown to hold it down. Definitely worth the muck around because although the Cortina hasn't needed anything other than a timing adjustment, I have pulled the box out twice to help with somebody else's car where I normally wouldn't have been carrying tools!

On Friday I had a bit of free time waiting for a friend to turn up so I finally got round to installing the new oil pressure sensors I bought a while back. The previous owner had completely removed the factory oil light sensor and replaced it with a cheap mechanical gauge which I am sure is very inaccurate so I have now hooked up the factory oil light which works as it should and for good measure (and to retain gauge symmetry) I have made a start on installing an electronic pressure gauge which matches the temp gauge I installed a few weeks back.

Slack as I didn't update my post.

Test drive went flawless. I ran on just the mechanical pump down to the motorway, gave it death and then came back up my hill in 4th which I have never been able to do. All seems very well.

When I got back there were no leaks so blockage in the tank was definitely the cause.

Also didn't add above when I was draining the tank into a jerry can with a hose straight off the outlet of the pump it took over 40 mins to fill a 20L container so she was damn blocked.

Side note if anybody knows of a good Mk2 tank anywhere please let me know. Mine is rather dented and has holes in the bottom as well as the top so although we could fix it I feel a new tank would be a much safer idea

@peteretep a huge thanks goes to you for the cork suggestion. I grabbed a roll of 3.2mm as that’s all I could find and it has worked perfectly to seal the tank back up.  

I had to make an amendment to my fuel filler design as it was leaking but all seems well for now 

test drive will have to wait till after dinner 

Just picked up some 3.2mm cork gasket sheet to see if I can make a gasket from that to stop the leak. if that works ill be very happy and will celebrate by spending the rest of the evening fixing the next car on the list. Hoping its not too thick as that's all I could get today.

@Beaver I have had the ethanol blend cause injector leaks in an old RB20E so have been very weary of it since hence the draining of the tank and chucking it into the daily. I will grab some fresh fuel on the way home because the last thing I need is the mobil gas eating the carb seals. The 95 / 98 at mobil doesn't have ethanol as far as i'm aware so that's usually safe

Ok so here's where I am at:

Pulled the fuel line off the out side of the pump and ran 25L of fuel into a can through 2 inline filters and chucked this in the daily - long story short I accidentally picked up the 91 pump at mobil and chucked $20 in before realising it was ethanol blend and also 91. Saw light blue and assumed 98 (my bad)

Once the pump started to make noises indicating it was running low I pulled the tank out and the fuel remaining inside was bright orange. I filtered this through an old tshirt into the lawnmower can and even with one layer of cotton it was draining slowly. The residue left behind was an orange sediment

Had a look in the tank through the filler hole with a torch and the filter on the pickup tube is visibly blocked by this orange sediment

Bit of research tells me the sediment may have been caused by valvemaster which I stopped using a few months back after being told to use the moreys upper cyl lube instead

So I installed the Mk1 tank as a temporary fix and have already been inside that one and removed the filter off the end of the pickup since there's a filter between the tank and the pump now anyway. I chucked a few litres in from a clean jerry can and since the back was up in the air fuel started seeping past the seal for the pickup and float. I have ordered an Oring from aussie since I cant find one locally but have just seen @peteretep's post above and might pop to repco at lunch and see if I can get some cork to make a gasket and ill save the seal for the mk2 tank when I get a new one.

1 hour ago, ajg193 said:

Did you try driving with fuel cap off/loose?

I haven't yet but I went through my spares and found a filler tube that has a breather on it so when I install the Mk1 tank I will use that one with a tube running outside the car. Noticed another leak in the Mk2 tank yesterday in the seam this time so I will definitely be either buying a replacement or getting something fabricated

Small update. Went for a drive yesterday to test out the adjusted float bowl and was again flawless until I had gone a couple KM down the motorway and felt like it was running out of fuel again. I have located a spare tank from a Mk1 and made an adaptor to make a MK2 fuel filler work and will swap that in while I wait for a replacement mk2 tank to become available or get mine repaired. My fear is that if I remove the float and pickup assy I will need a new seal for it which seem like theyre all ex UK so I will order one of those before I open it

Planning to swap mk1 tank in tonight and will report back with my findings

No update yet sorry guys I will drain and drop the tank and see what I can find but have been preoccupied repairing an awkward water leak in my race car for Wallaceville hillclimb in a couple of weeks 

will post findings when I can get some hopefully later this week 

Wow I didn’t even know that filter was there! 

So far have removed and cleaned that filter and adjusted the float.

about to climb under to check for sock on the pickup 

Fuel level before: 

And after

Ok will add that to the list for this evening. Hadn't even considered that. Cap is a generic aftermarket locking type

No return on this setup. Carb has the provision for a return but its blocked off.

Dent in the tank is hard on one side (looks like previous owner drove over something when it was super low) pickup appears to be in the middle so shouldn't be affecting it and normally I can run the fuel level to the red and its cuttently sitting on about half a tank.

I will check float level and tank pickup this evening and report back with my findings

I haven't checked the tank pickup itself as I was trying to avoid pulling it apart as I don't have a replacement seal but I guess this is probably going to have to be done. Car sat for about 3 years before I got it with very little fuel in it and again for 6 months at a time in the few years I've had it so there has been some rust in the tank ive done my best to clean out. Unsure if there's a sock on the pickup inside the tank. Im on the hunt for a replacement tank as mine has quite a large dent in it and is a bit rough.

Carb floats haven't been checked but will idle it for a few mins and check where the fuel level has ended up when I'm home. I know next to nothing about carbs but assume I can just bend them up slightly if it isn't filling up enough?

Spent some hours on google last night and Im not coming up with anything so thought I would ask here

Long post but trying to give as much info and diagnosis as possible

Car: Mk2 Cortina. 711M (mk2 escort sport) 1.6L crossflow. Weber 32/36 DGAV carb with manual choke conversion

Car used to run absolutely fine all the time on the stock glass bowl type mechanical fuel pump. Noticed a month or so ago that when going uphill to home it starts surging about halfway up and pulling over for 20 seconds and going again usually sorts it out.  Also does it on the motorway very occasionally so I have to coast for a bit and its fine again.  

Suspected the 50 year old mechanical pump was wearing out so changed to an electric Fuelflo 015 which is rated at 2.5-4PSI max 1.5L per minute. identical pump that my brother in law uses on his worked 4K with twin carbs. Only difference is he's put his in the engine bay and I put mine under the car above the diff as the instructions suggested closer to the tank was best.  Initial test drive was flawless and had no issues whatsoever. Next day I went on the motorway and was having starvation issues again and had to pull over 3 times in 3KM to let the bowl refill. I tested the flow and was getting 750ml per minute so took the pump back and got a replacement. New one flows about the same amount so wondering if its just a crap design.

Frustrated at this point I put the stock mechanical pump back on and have been using the car with the mechanical pump pulling through the electric and when it tries to surge I flick the electric on for a few moments and that's been working fine. Even at motorway speeds I have only had to flick it on a couple of times, I always turn it on going up hill tho but it seems to be getting a bit worse. 

Tank was completely emptied a couple of days back as I has to fix a small leak. Fuel looked clean and didn't have any sediment in it.  Carb was opened around 6 weeks ago to give it a good clean and free up a stuck secondary butterfly after sitting over winter. Goes significantly better now.

Last night I got half way up the hill, flicked the electric on as always and it got another 500m fine and started dying again and I had to absolutely crawl home in first gear and when I got home on the flat it was normal again. Currently have half a tank of fuel so don't think its a pickup issue

Current configuration is the 6mm tank outlet to an 8mm hose to a universal filter to an 8mm hose which steps down to a 6mm hard line straight into the factory pump and an 8mm hose out of the pump into the carb. No leaks anywhere.

Looking for advice / has anybody had issues with those fuelflo pumps, is the 6mm factory hard line causing a restriction, is it likely the factory pump is just completely shagged? Is there something I haven't checked?  Fuel coming into the glass bowl is the cleanest its ever been

Ideal scenario would be to either get the electric working properly and blank the mechanical back off OR get an uprated mechanical and remove the electric pump

Thanks in advance. Looking forward to replies

Few courier deliveries over the past week saw the old girl get a little bit of attention over the long weekend. I finally have two working windscreen wipers again thanks to Rex at Classic Car Mirrors and Accessories who managed to find me some OEM replacements. I opted to modify these slightly by drilling holes in the end and riveting on adaptors to run standard Japanese type wiper blades, these being $6.25 each versus $75 for a pair of flimsy chrome classic type.

Last night I finally got round to installing the electronic ignition kit I got off eBay. This was not nearly as daunting as I thought it was going to be, simple removal of the points and condenser and install of a keyed ring onto the dizzy shaft and the pickup screws into existing holes once you figure out the orientation. Only tricky bit was I had to unscrew the base plate of the dizzy to allow enough room to pull the wires through.  Got it all wired up as per instructions and fired first pop. Noticable improvement straight away, seems to have a bit more pep as well so wondering if the points were starting to get tired.

Still a few things I'm wanting to do over the next few months but pretty happy with the progress and its perfectly drivable. I have bought some shallow mount component speakers to install into the front doors and a mechless shallow mount stereo but I am still torn between cutting a hole in the dash or making a bracket to sit it under the dash so am holding off for now while I decide because there's no turning back once I cut a hole through the dash!

Murphys law,  chucked some red RTV in to seal them back up a couple of weeks ago expecting the repair to last a few days at most and it hasn't started leaking again yet, I have a new gasket and maniseal ready to go as well!

Thanks for the advice guys, if its gonna blow every 2 months ill get it planed and see how I get on there  

Another Monday update.  Managed to get hold of a replacement pump on tuesday which flows slightly better than the original but still nowhere near the "1.5 litres per minute" freeflow maximum that it advertises on the fuelflo website, wondering if its old stock and has since been improved but the same part number? Anyway I fit the new pump with a new filter to be safe, went for a test drive and same issue again, not filling the carb up fast enough for wide open throttle usage or uphill journeys - my house being at the top of a hill with only motorway access so a bit useless!

Chucked the car back in the garage and left it for a few days, unsure what to do as I know of 2 others who use this same pump on similar sized engines, one even has twin carbs.  I went back out on Friday and used a multi meter to check for voltage drop, nothing found so its definitely the pump causing the slow flow. Got to work reinstalling the original pump, at least that makes the car drivable.

Had a brainwave as well since the flow on the electric pump seems to be 1psi maximum at around 750ml per min I left it in line and flicked it on before starting the car with a dry mechanical pump which almost instantly primed it for me (saved about a minute of cranking), I went for a drive down to the motorway with the electric pump turned off and it drove fine, did a bit of 100kph driving as normal and no issues, made it about halfway up the hill and it started bogging, flicked the switch for the electric pump and got power back instantly. That basically solves the issue I had in the first place anyway. I drove all the way to work this morning with only the mechanical pump and have been out at lunchtime with no issues so I think ill leave it inline for when it needs a bit of a helping hand.

Also received my new solid core choke cable which has a bit more oomph to push the choke back open about 90% of the time. Im going to whip up some sort of spring to help it open 100% of the time so I'm not wasting fuel

Finally my electronic distributor parts arrived at work over the weekend so I'm going to get those installed over the next couple of days, the instructions are a little vague but im sure there's info sheets online

Ran into some issues yesterday heading down the hutt motorway towards my lockup where I found as soon as I got into 4th the car felt like it was running out of fuel, changed back down to 3rd, same issue, 2nd, same issue so pulled over expecting the engine to die but it kept idling away happily. Sat for a couple minutes, cant see any faults so took off again, once again found it dying after not long after getting up to speed, pulled over again, this time drove down the gravel onto the riverbank and got out, checked under the bonnet, checked for leaks all along the car, pumps happily chugging away. Another few minutes of idling and took off again, got to 100, same thing happens. Super frustrating!

Managed to limp to my lockup by pulling over every so often where it was safe to do so and was absolutely fine when I got back to the 50k roads.

Got to the lockup, found absolutely nothing wrong, checked the pump wiring and all connections thoroughly, cant find an issue so set on my way back home and seems to be ok through the 50, then the 80 and at this stage i'm thinking maybe there was just some air in the system, get to 100 and bam back to dying. I pull over half way home and chuck some more petrol in which I have been carrying even tho I have half a tank, take off again and seems ok but same issue again a couple k's later. I managed to get it back home by staying under half throttle.

Pulled the fuel line off the carb and point it into a petrol can and turn the pump on and I'm getting constant flow without any spitting or anything nasty so think for sure its the carb but realised it seemed to be taking a very long time to fill up the 5L can as its rated to 1.5L per minute at 4PSI max so I went and got a litre jug and timed it filling that. With good charge in the battery although engine not running it took 1:16 to fill the 1L jug which I worked out at 52% of its rated efficiency. I also chucked on a fuel pressure regulator with a gauge and it wasn't even registering 1psi with the other end blocked off.

Highlight from this is that I was able to use the pump to drain 20L of fuel back out of the tank (so I don't get sprayed when I take the pump out) and my gauge reads correctly and it goes past the E without starvation which is awesome as i've never really known.

Anyway, off to Repco to try and sort this pump out. Will make sure I bench test the replacement before I install it as i'm sure this isn't good for the engine!