PHLEX

New engine on its way home in the boot of my golf... At this point my build has out grown my single garage and I decided to rent a space in a friends workshop so I can spread out a bit and not worry about having to move it out of the garage every time my skyline needs something done. Fast forward to the old engine coming back out, engine bay being stripped and this is the aftermath of 5 nights 6pm-10 with thinners and a rag removing the UNDERSEAL they had used to paint the engine bay...this doesn't take into the account the time Kyle spent in there while I wasn't there, there was some serious hours in the prep of the engine bay thanks to some idiot with a can of underseal sometime in the past 48 years! And after a few more evenings of being sanded smooth, surface rust removed from under the leaking master cylinder and a spot prime Nice painted engine bay. Originally wanted white but as I haven't 100% decided on exterior colour yet black would go with everything After a couple of days to let the paint harden we had the brake lines back in and dropped the engine in with a fresh gasket kit and brand new clutch, filled it up with all the right fluids and had it running I won't go into details of the celebratory burnout that left me with a very blown diff...

Managed to find all the bushes I needed by researching the nolathane / superpro numbers myself and heading round a few shops to see what was available. Cost about $200 to do the whole front end including paint so that's not bad! Ripped the calipers off as one was dragging, master cylinder followed as that was weeping and sourced some seal kits and rear cylinders while I was there. Passed the calipers and master to a friend to rebuild as I haven't done anything that style before and I got busy re making steel brake lines as I noticed the old ones were a bit crusty. Got the brakes back and installed everything, bled it all up and was absolutely fine for about 2 weeks until the master started leaking again... More about that later! managed to track down some leaf springs from a guy locally and he just happened to have a spare 711M 1600 engine they had pulled out of his dad's escort van. After a bit of negotiating we agreed on a price and they gave me all the info about it. It was a standard bore and had bearings and rings a few years back and they had put a cam in it and a few other goodies to bring it up to GT spec. Perfect upgrade!

So fast forward a few weeks of mucking round, we managed to get the engine unseized and all back together with a $50 gasket kit and one late night with a crate of sleights on hand and with the help of my friend Chris who has little car knowledge but isn't afraid to get his hands dirty we managed to get it to fire up! Next morning I set off on the maiden voyage down to repco to grab some more supplies. It drove surprisingly well for a car that had been chucked back together with very minimal skill And back home safe after about a 10km round trip. Next drive was down to a workshop to let a mechanic have a look over it and let me know what would need doing for a warrant. In short: Brakes leaking, perished bushes, minor rust, number plate light to operate and missing 2 of the leaves in the rear. Nothing major at all! Suspension and steering arms out, bushes removed and painted in hammerite black

So I'm sitting at work one afternoon and get one of those generic "anyone keen to buy a..." text messages from a mate that come through from time to time and usually get ignored but today was different. His brother had picked up a 1968 cortina mk2 sedan a few years back and I had only ever seen it once and had completely forgotten he had it. Long story short he had gotten behind on some payments and needed some cash so they were trying to find a buyer for his cortina. The car was built in Lower Hutt in '68 the only history we know is it had a fair bit of work done in around 2008 about a year before he picked it up. It had all the rust removed, a full respray in white and most importantly a full interior re trim. Aside from a crude under seal engine bay paint job the running gear wasn't touched. The guy I got it off drove it daily for about 12 months until the generator stopped generating and it wouldn't run. It was towed to the kerb outside his mums place which is where it's at for over a year and some awesome individual kicked the drivers door in and smashed the mirrors off it. While it was sitting here not running the engine siezed from not being turned over. After a year of sitting in the weather it was moved to a dry storage unit where it was stripped down with the idea of giving everything a freshen up. He took 2 front doors and the boot down to bare steel, removed the interior, all trims, lights, wiring and pulled the head off the engine to start an engine rebuild. Due to lack of time and funds it sat in this state for another 12+ months until they decided it had to go. My initial reaction when I saw the car all stripped and 50% of it in cardboard boxes was to walk away but after sleeping on it I decided I really didn't have much to lose as I could always part it out to recoup cost if it was too far gone. Plan for the build was to keep it period and close to standard and make it so that anybody can hop in and drive it. I already have a race car and a couple of hot hatches so really just wanted something to cruise in. Plus I had never done a classic build but always admired them! Here it is the day we got it back to my place Ute tray load of parts Retrimmed interior - really the selling point for me