mk2marty

So I did a silly thing the other day and bought a motorcycle. I am a complete newbie to the world of bikes, so this is all a bit of a learning curve. It's a 1985 model (Japanese assembled) Suzuki GN250, with flat handlebars and not much of an exhaust. It has got spoked wheels and a retro looking striped tank though. I'll probably end up finishing off the cafe racer mods the previous owner started. Yeah, I know, how original... Any tips/tricks/advice/sharns are greatly appreciated, and if there is any possible way to hot up a GN motor let me know! Still amazed at the quantity of stuff on Aliexpress available for these, some of which is already on it's way here from China

Cheers, i'm going to need it! Thankfully there's plenty of knowledge around OS and beyond, so the trepidation level isn't too bad at the moment. But then, I haven't actually uncovered all the rust yet...

Oh hey, this thread has photos again! Unfortunately, this post doesn't bear a whole lot of good news. The venerable Escort has been doing daily duties for a year, the new engine is sweet, and goes as well as can be expected from a 1300 Kent. But... Sadly, it failed it's WOF last month on rust in the L/H A and C pillars. So after being inspired by @Hurmeez efforts in rust repair on his Mk2 i figured it was time to start digging at the rust. Over the long weekend, I watched more and more of my Escort disappear into dusty piles on the floor... It started off so nice. After removing layers of bathroom sealant from behind the dash, I found a small hole in the inner guard, by the firewall seam. Figuring this was the rust the WOF man was talking about, I decided it would be fairly easy to patch with the front guard removed. After drilling out the spot welds along the upper guard seam and watching most of the headlight surrounds disappear into thin air, I found the centimetres of bog in the front valance, and after the guard came off, the dodgy looking bits at the top and bottom of the A pillar. At this point there was no going back, so out came the poky screwdriver (with results illustrated below): This is the bottom of the passenger's A pillar. The driver's side isn't as bad, it only has a hole in the pillar, the sill on that side looks intact (at the moment, anyway) After finding the fist-sized hole in the floor, I threw caution into the winds and attacked any other dodgy-looking bit of the car I could find. This is the rear wheel arch, which looks like it's had a repair in the past and has continued rusting. There are a couple of small holes in the driver's A pillar section, and the guard seam is pretty sad. The heater bubble has yet to come off, but there is serious work there too judging by the holes around the base of it... This was Dad's contribution: leaving Psychedelic Furs lyrics on my car while my back was turned... So yeah. I've never tackled any kind of rust or metal forming on this level before, so any tips and advice are greatly appreciated! Discuss/offer advice/sharns/tell me it's fucked here:

Sweet! Assembly is the easy bit haha, keen to see it once it's all done though! Haven't really got much planned for the Cortina, a while ago I converted it to a Mk4 clutch pedal setup because the self-adjusting bit broke, but that's about it haha. Might still do a thread update...

Cheers man! How's yours going? Are you still going to run slide throttles?

Oh right, so you wanted the rest of the story too? Sorry, here goes.. Repower, pt.3 So I took a Friday off work, parked the car in the garage and started stripping stuff out of the engine bay. A surprisingly short amount of time later, all the mechanical bits started falling out. Oily, broken 1100 begone! Sorry, I didn't get any air guitar shots, it was too hard to take selfies while lifting the motor out... And it's in! After fitting the ancillaries, filling it with fluids, fitting the manifolds, timing it and winding it over to get oil pressure, the moment of truth arrived. It fired up and ran sweetly, so I had to take it for a cheeky test run sans bonnet. Excite! The valve clearances had closed up a bit, but after adjusting them and checking the head bolt torques, it's been fine. I also replaced the starter solenoid, because one of the terminals broke off. And the Hitachi carb works alright too, I might still play with jet sizes if I can find some others to experiment with. The difference between the engines is night and day though, like it actually goes up hills now. The transmission is smooth, and all the fluids seem to be staying in their respective places, so i'll call it a win. Since then, it's continued to provide effective, reliable daily transport. I gave it a polish and it came up pretty nicely, considering it's actually six different shades of orange And I took it camping at Whatipu over the New Years period. Had to stop on the way home for an obligatory gravel road shot: discuss/tell me to put a rota in it: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/48306-mk2martys-1976-escort-moredoor-discussion/

Keen! Last time was pretty good

Took some photos on Saturday the rest are here:

I thought they did too, but they don't. I tried getting needle rollers off them, and they could only supply 25 of the 42 needle rollers required. And it took a few months of emails to establish this. Don't get me wrong though, it was good that they gave me some because I had enough decent ones left to make up the shortfall. Might order some more stuff from there in the near future though, while the Pound is weak. They did send me a catalogue the other day...

Cheers man, that'd be awesome! I thought i'd pretty much canvassed the internet looking for them, but maybe not haha. Will definitely get some in case the 'box needs to come out again in the future, I just used the 'turn the layshaft upside down, so the worn bit isn't under load' method. It'll make me feel better knowing there's new stuff in there. That's a better idea than the one I used tbh. The way i did it was to pack the rollers into the gear cluster with lots of grease and lower it into the box with a bit of rope, then slot the shaft in. It took a bit of swearing to make it work haha. Cheers for the offer though, I might just cut down the worn layshaft that was left over from the rebuild, it probably isn't good for much else

Keen for shed touring. I don't have a shed to show off though, my cars are still marooned on the 'rents driveway. Sadface.

Upon dismantling the gearbox, a few things became obvious. Mostly, that the rear bearing was stuffed, and the cause of most of the noises. However, the countershaft and associated needle rollers seemed to have had a pretty hard time too, and the shaft and several rollers had worn through their hardening and were seriously pitted. So the hunt was on for bits, but there didn't seem to be anyone locally who could supply needle rollers. Ford, in their infinite wisdom made them a 2.75mm diameter, when the standard (and readily available) sizes are 2.5 and 3mm. Burton Power had some listed, but after an eternity of waiting it seemed even they couldn't supply a full set. So after a lot of scrounging I found enough to make up a complete set, and found another (better) countershaft (cheers to Dad again!). Burtons also sent front and rear bearings and a seal kit. And after that, the kerosene bath came out again, and removed forty years worth of oily buildup from the gear assemblies and housing.. All the synchros looked OK, as did the gear teeth, so after pressing the bearings on and fitting the seals I put it back together. All that was left was to mate them together and put them in the car...

Oh yeah, so this happened. In truth it happened back in August, but we'll overlook that. A broken Telstar and other stuff got in the way, so the promised rebuild kept getting put off. But eventually it happened, so sit down and i'll tell y'all a tale In the last update there was a melted Kent that looked like not a lot more than some gunk-encrusted, blue-painted scrap. I didn't have high hopes for it initially, but upon further investigation, some not-so-bad bits started to appear. Once I pressure washed all the oily crap out of it, it was actually beginning to look useable. The thing that saved it, though, was when Dad found a set of NOS pistons in a box in the basement, that he'd had since the '70s. He says he'll never own another 1300, so they were mine. Cheers Dad! The bores, surprisingly, were standard size, so i guess it was made to be. Otherwise, aside from the lipped bits at the top of No.3, the rest of the engine was serviceable, I made sure the bearing clearances were within spec and inspected everything visually and it all looked OK. Sure, if I wanted to do it properly I would have rebored it, ground the crank and thrown some bearings at it, but that can wait until I do the original and matching-numbers block (which in all truth will probably end up with a 1300 crank and rods anyway. Who can tell from the outside?). So with a bit of a hone and some new rings and gaskets, I put the engine back together. Thankfully all the melted alloy came off pretty easily, unfortunately the lack of a flexi-hone meant that the straight hone I used makes the lipped bores seem worse than they actually are. Oh well. While i was there, I fitted a new water pump, timing chain kit and associated ancillaries too. There was a slight hiccup with the new timing chain and sprocket, it turns out that some bright spark at the factory put the timing mark about ninety degrees out. However, after a little thought, it's pretty easy to tell where it should be in relation to the dowel. So after some comparison with the old sprocket I made a new mark, and all was well. I cleaned the head up, checked the mating face with a straight edge, and cleaned and lapped the valves in. And after many, many kerosene baths to get all the encrusted grime off, I put the valve gear on. As an aside, thanks to a donated manifold from Dad i've decided to run a Hitachi 2-barrel carb (found as standard equipment on a myriad of '80s Japanese classics), removed from a Mk1 facelift Laser 1500. It has a manual choke and a vacuum secondary, and is mounted on a modified Kent manifold. Two venturis must be better than one, right? I torqued the head and set the valve clearances, attached the inlet manifold and hoped like hell that it would run without any nasty noises. If it was going in anything more than just my daily transport i'd have thrown more time and parts at it, but as it is it should last for a while. Up next, the gearbox...

I run an 82 degree thermostat in my Kent, only 'cos the radiator is a bit sad and it spends a bit of time in traffic. It doesn't seem to mind though

Had this three years now. Scary. Still going fine, had a few small niggles, found it leaks water into the back in heavy rain (which we've had lots of lately). Looks like it's coming in past the left rear window rubber, which probably means there's a rust hole under the rubber. Yay. It's another excuse to only use it on dry days... It was leaking fuel for a bit too, which wasn't fun. There must have been a small hole in the fuel line that goes across the front crossmember, because it was making small puddles every time I parked it. Swapped the fuel line with a different one, and it doesn't do it anymore. So yay again. In other news, I ransacked the Mk4 wagon at Zebra, so i've got a full set of glass, a spare set of tailgate hinges/torsion bars, and some other small trim bits that only wagons had. It had the piece of grill that goes below the front bumper, which i've wanted for aaaages, so that made me quite happy. Trying to make it look like it's in 1986, not 2016. And more of it being photogenic /discuss here etc //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/41622-mk2martys-83-cortina-estate/