PHLEX

SO picked up a spare pair of axles, chucked them in this evening and re measured. Drivers side has gone from 0.50mm to 0.10mm and the passengers from 0.40mm to 0.10mm hopefully that's going to help. I was 5 beers deep at the time i finished so decided to test drive tomorrow. I will report back!

About to jump in the car and go to pick up a pair of good spare axles to rule those out. I will test drive and if it hasn't fixed it I'll swap the springs over back to the crappy old ones and if it's still no better then I'll disconnect the driveshaft and get towed down the motorway I only measured the very outer edge of the hub flange so will have a look at the inner before I pull them out so I have a reference point

Thanks ajg193 that makes some sense. Hoping to get some more time to diagnose tomorrow. If the vibration is still there I will focus my attention on the axles and bearings, if its gone ill pull the gearbox out and get it to somebody who can figure out what's going on.

Ok thanks for the info guys! Since its up in the air I might drain the box, take the driveshaft out and get somebody to tow me up to motorway speeds to see if it still does it without the gearbox attached to the spinny bits. Thinking about it now .5mm and .4mm doesn't seem like much compared to how buckled some wheels i've had in the past have been that haven't been nearly as bad! And as for being a mechanic I have seriously considered it. I've got enough tools and diagnostic gear to make most apprentices jealous

Ok managed to rig up a dial gauge and sure enough both hub faces are wobbly. Drivers side is definitely worse but both of them are out of whack Drivers is out by .5mm and passengers is out by .4mm is machining my best option now or are they too far out?

will do! Thanks!

Planning to remove the axles this evening and see how bad they are. Have been holding off making it un-drivable as my daily has a coolant leak i've been waiting on parts to fix and my race car is in pieces preparing for a new engine so that's slowed me down a bit as my 50cc scooter cant take me everywhere! Should have an update by the end of the week Thank you to all who have offered advice / suggestions / support so far!

Update: Spanner checked the entire underside of the car, found a couple of bellhousing bolts not as tight as I would usually do them so cranked those up, checked subframe, steering, balljoints, engine mounts (one was slightly loose other was tight) rear suspension was all tight. Thought for sure the slightly loose engine mount was the culprit but went for a drive and no change. Got the car parked back up on stands, took the rear wheels off and watched the brake drums whils the car was in gear, both were a bit wobbly but the passengers side was a lot worse than the drivers. I haven't gone as far as pulling the drum off to watch the hub flange by itself but plan to so that this evening. My question is, how likely is it that I have somehow bent the hub flanges? I did blow the diff doing a burnout around 18 months ago so the axles have been pulled out about 6 times now using a slide hammer. I cant remember how hard it was to get them out the very first time but the last few times when I swapped a spare diff in and back out they came out with a couple of quick bangs. Splines looked OK when I had them out the first time but I haven't had a thorough look as I was more focussed on replacing the diff I'm going to try and pull the axles out over the next couple of evenings to see if they are visually bent, if so does anybody locally have some spare mk2 axles kicking around they are willing to sell?

Shocks passed wof and cant see any signs of leaks but they have been in the car for quire a few years as they have overspray from 2 different paint colours... definitely on the list of parts to replace anyway, ive ordered bushes for the back half of the car just now so will check shocks for rebound while they are out Planning to do a full spanner check and chuck the old leaf springs back in this evening and go for a drive. If it still vibrates I will record the sound so we can analyse

Ive been looking at those trademe units for a while and that's definitely the cheapest ive seen, sure the last one was more like $300. Might be time to snap one up for the ford!

you all raise fine points... Front suspension bushes are all brand new nolathane / super pro done around 18 months ago when I first painted the engine bay. Rear springs have nolathane at one end and standard but good condition bushes at the other. Hanger bushes have never been done, looked OK when I changed the springs but didn't take heaps of notice. Will check all bushes and order replacements for anything that's soft urgently with the end goal to have replaced them all over the next few months anyway, just balancing funds between this, racecar and general living! Springs are definitely going to be the next thing I will swap out, I will also check one isn't in round the wrong way or anything stupid. I put the nolathane bushes to the front but didn't check they went randomly in different ends or anything. Makes sense to whip them out and put the old ones back in for a road test while i'm checking bushes anyway. I didn't even think about working out the speed of the vibrations, as crazy as that sounds it is definitely a good point. Surely there's an app for that sort of thing! Hoping to find some time tomorrow evening to test some more bits out - will keep reporting back!

Thanks 8Ball that's an awesome list to work from! I have managed to hit about 75 in 3rd and the vibration was still there although not as bad as it gets much worse at 80/90/100/110. I have also run up to 100, taken it out of gear, put my foot on the clutch and turned the engine off and it shook itself down to 70 odd and then smoothed out so had ruled out the engine / flyhwheel. Shake doesn't change if I put my foot on the brakes lightly. I have tried a known good driveshaft and absolutely no change (Could somebody please explain phase in the universal joints?) Thinking I might take the driveshaft out and get somebody to tow me up to 90k so I can rule out the engine/box/driveshaft completely. I haven't tried changing back to the old springs I pulled out yet as they were pretty saggy so was hoping that wasn't the cause. I was also considering getting another wheel alignment and getting the wheels re balanced (although already tried a different set with no change) I did briefly run it up on stands but not to anywhere near fast enough to make it shake and did notice the back wheels danced round a little bit so switched to another set and no different. Axles have been pulled out a couple of times to change the diff, is it likely using a slide hammer on them could bend the mounting face enough to cause a problem?

installed the new mount, perfect fit and much tighter but hasn't fixed it

New mount has arrived today so will be chucking that in after work and going for a drive. Hopefully that's the end of it!!

The minor touch ups here and there have continued when I find the time. I had replaced the dented Mk2 tank with a tidy Mk1 tank temporarally while I kept an eye out for a Mk2 tank in better condition, it fits the hole but you cant connect up the filler properly as its on the wrong angle and also a different size so I left a mk1 filler attached but just had it in the boot for now. First time I filled it up I found pretty quickly it had a hole in the top, fixed that with some knead it only to find fuel slop every time I moved the car, eventually getting frustrated and removing it to find 3 more holes on the very edge of the tank so the Mk2 tank is now back in and ill put up with the dent until I find a good condition one! Got the "F" and "O" installed on the boot, didn't have any of the clips so wrapped a bit of electrical tape around the pins and used some foam tape to hold them in place. You'd never know!

Ok I've dragged the chain long enough! Monday evening after work I jumped in the Cortina and went for a drive round the block. brakes felt significantly better than before but I still wasn't happy. I got all 4 corners back up in the air and gave them another thorough bleed and it was night and day difference on the next test drive. I drove to the bottom of the hill, turned around and came back up and had no issues. Absolute relief! I was lucky to get booked in for a wof just before 5 on Tuesday so I snuck out of work early and took the car there, it drove without fault other than the very rotten front tyres but the replacements were sitting in the boot waiting to be fitted. Once on the hoist it came back with only a few minor issues, one bulb out in the rear, bit of play in a bottom ball joint and one inner tie rod needing urgent replacement. Got the tyres fitted and went home to sort out the repairs and was back on Wednesday lunchtime for a recheck and all passed. Chucked on some rego online and headed home. At this point I hadn't taken the Cortina on the motorway as its 50/70 the whole way from home to the workshop who did the wof so it was on the way home with a fresh wof I noticed a bit of a vibration at anything above 75ish km that gets worse and worse as you get closer to 100k... That's a totally different subject tho, back to the build.. I placed an order with an Australian company for some window rubbers so I could continue with the restoration. I have used this company twice before and their stuff seems quite good. ordered front and rear quarter window seals and also a set of channel seals for the winding windows. Once they arrived I got stuck into pulling the windows out one by one, tinting them and reinstalling with new rubbers, LR went well but then got to the LF to find they had sent me coupe front seals instead of sedan so I sent them an email (Australia day by this point so wasn't expecting a reply) and moved onto the RR door since I had parts for that. I now notice they have only sent me enough of the channel rubber to do 2 doors, not the 4 I had asked for. Another email and finished what I was doing and then back into the garage as I was trying to avoid putting the LF door back together with the old seals. 3 unanswered emails later I get a response from the Australian company saying "Yea we don't stock them for 4 doors. send them back for a refund" which completely ignored the issue about the $60 freight I paid to send the wrong parts, the fact I was short changed 2 channel seals and the worse bit was that I bought the Rear quarter seals and asked them to do me a combo of the fronts and channel seals for my "4 door Mk2 Cortina" so it was totally their balls up! After another week of not being replied to I did some googling and found another place based in Blenheim that was able to do the bailey channel rubbers by the meter so I put in an order for some of that and some external weather strips to finish the job but unfortunately had to re use the old front seals, fortunately both still in OK condition.

New mount has been ordered so hopefully that's here early next week and I can see if that fixes the issue. Will report back!

JoKer I mean the diff is cast into the rear axle on a very slight offset. Checked left to right diff mounting into the body and looks nice and even

Ok so had a roll around under the cortina with a tape measure. Distance between front and rear wheels is identical. Distance between front of back wheel and the sill is identical on both sides so that tells me the back axle is straight. Gearbox is within mm of exactly centered between the chassis rails. Diff is offset about 40mm but cant do much about that. Driveshaft yolk has a slight angle down when it comes out of box and slightly up when it goes into diff but the angles look about even between the diff and box, hard to tell exactly but theres not an excessive angle on either. Noticed the gearbox mount has turned to an oily jelly. Is this likely to be the cause? Both engine mounts are dry and good condition and the engine is centered in the engine bay. Im going to order a new gearbox mount just in case but some insight would be good so I know if thats likely the issue or if im still looking! Thanks everyone!

Thanks! I will check the mounts this evening also. Makes sense they could cause an issue, ill be checking the engine is centered in the bay this evening and also angles and if everything looks straight I will put my old springs back in and go for a drive

front tyres were balanced when they were put in a couple of weeks ago and balanced up fine. Rear tyres have never been balanced in my ownership but put a spare pair of tyres on off a mates mk1 with the exact same symptom. I had wondered about bearings, one of the fronts felt a little loose so I adjusted it and that's taken away the phantom knock I could hear occasionally but unfortunately wasn't the cause of the vibration. Putting my foot on the brakes doesn't change anything either so had ruled out brake wobble

Thanks for the suggestions there team! I will do some measuring this evening and see what I come up with. As it is a 711M engine one mount had to be changed to a shorter one to allow for the engine to sit in the hole properly as it is 10-12mm winder than the original xflow. I definitely had it up to 100kph when I first put that engine in without fault but it has been sitting around 18 months since then. I never checked the pilot bearing but that is definitely possible as the engine was out of a mk2 Cortina and had been mated to a different gearbox so if I don't get any results from measuring and checking diff and gearbox angles I will certainly look at that. Diffhead has been ruled out Driveshaft has been ruled out (now sporting brand new UJs just out of maintenance All tyres have been swapped for known good ones with no change Rotating assy has been ruled out as far back as the clutch by turning the engine off at 100kph and holding the clutch pedal in Ill get the tape measure out and see what I can find out. If all looks well I will put my old saggy springs back in and see if that changes anything, otherwise next step will be to get all the wheels re balanced and an alignment to rule that all out

Still on a stock crossmember but has a couple of steel spacers between the x member and body which I always thought were aftermarket but can't be sure as it's my first Ford. 4 speed box, mate thinks it's from an anglia

Stock cortina driveshaft, converted from column shift to floor shift, standard ride height and the driveshaft angle is almost perfectly straight. Driveshaft is far enough into the gearbox to rule out yolk wobble. There is some movement up and down on the output shaft in the box but it doesn't make any noises to suggest its blown On a side note the only other thing I have changed since I drove it without fault (over a year ago) was I pulled out some modified rear springs (top leaf was standard and lower two were from an escort sport) out and put some stock units in, one end had new bushes the other had standards, could that make a difference? Picked up a UJ to check for correct size and will order another tomorrow if its the correct one. Might as well do them to rule them out Tempted to take it for a rope tow down the motorway without a driveshaft in to rule that out completely

Update: Pulled driveshaft out, found a very small amount of side to side play in the front UJ. put in a friend's known good (but off the road for 2+ years also) driveshaft with no play and the vibration is still there. Also found minor up and down play in the FR wheel bearing which I adjusted but no difference there. Yolk is 1/2-2/3 of the way in the gearbox at the current ride height and will obviously push in a bit more when its lowered so I don't think that's a factor although there is very slight up and down movement which I put down to the shaft moving slightly. I am going to replace both universals in my original driveshaft just to be 100% sure that there wont be any future issues. Does anybody have any other ideas of what it might be? I do have a 1100cc flywheel on it as its lighter but I wouldn't have thought that would give me a speed related vibration. I do have the standard flywheel I can put back on if I cant work it out