mk2marty

Mine are easy - watch any episode of The Sweeney/The Professionals and both old Fords will be in the back of shot somewhere

ie.

Do I get bonus points for this 'cos Bodie and Doyle used it to chase baddies while carrying a desk on the roof?

Escort

The other two (both from Shortland St, weirdly)

yeah, it's a hatchback and not a Radisich. Near enough..

It's history (as far as I can tell) is all Far North, which would explain all the stone chips on the front, anyway.. 

First registered in Kaitaia according to the rego papers that came in the mail, and the service book has stamps from various places around Whangarei. It's got Pacific Motor Group plate surrounds too.

Although there's nothing to say it didn't spend some time in Wellington, there's about 10 years and 100000km between when the service history ends and how it is currently..

And it's funny you mention Amon Coronas. There was a time when I could have had a race with this one, but i'm pretty sure it no longer exists...

Cheers!

And not too sure on colours, some say that the majority of the first series came out in that purple/blue pearl, although red and white were available, and apparently Paul was given a burgundy-coloured one to use. I think by the second series they loosened the colour palette a little, mine just seems to be the standard dark blue that all Telstars were available in. Have seen a few green ones around as well.

Cams and headers are sounding quite tempting tbh, maybe once the wallet has recovered from the myriad of gaskets/seals/head recon/etc needed...

Yup, as far as i know they were the Peter Witehira designed never-go-flat batteries, which seemed to always go flat. 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=117699

Turbo sounds dangerous haha. Headers are a good idea though, maybe these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mazda-MX6-Ford-Probe-2-5L-DOHC-V6-Exhaust-Headers-Downpipe-Steel-Manifolds-/331886834817?fits=Make%3AMazda%7CModel%3AMX-6&hash=item4d45ff3481:g:f08AAMXQ71xRXxiF&vxp=mtr

Or maybe just delete a muffler or two...

And yeah, the gear knob grub screws work themselves loose occasionally. Apparently these were getting stolen in the '90s for the Momo wheel and knob, although whether that's true or not I don't know.

I run 13x6s and 185/70s on mine. Used to have to run 175s on the front with the last set of wheels or else they would rub on the inside on hard lock, but that was due to someone machining the inner mounting face down (ie. then moving the wheel inwards). Usually 7s are a maximum, mostly due to the width of the front suspension (in relation to the bodyywork), however anything is possible if you're into the whole flush fitment thing. Also depends how low you're going with it.

Mine certainly isn't that low, but on the flipside I have no wheel rub/clearance problems. And the guards aren't rolled, either. 

Personally i'm not into the massively-wide-wheel-tucked-under-the-guards look, but each to his own.

So yeah, depends on the style that you're after, really

Paul Radisich edition.

Jealous.

Cheers, it's surprisingly rapid for a 20 year old car. 

That's also kinda why I want to save the current wheel, foamer points for originality etc. 

Liking the leather polish idea though, may investigate that. Although not sure if it's actually leather, seems more like that imitation/plastic type stuff, which probably means it's poked. And/or that 20 years worth of dirt and skin oil will come out when I try and condition it (it was pretty rank after the Armor-All treatment tbh)

And more photos, for those with guilty pleasures. Here it is, in all it's '90s faux touring-car goodness

That's my brother's Radisich in front (and I don't know why mine is so Mexi-stanced in this shot)

I bought a Telstar recently. It's awesome in lots of ways, except the steering wheel is a bit tired. It's all dried up and sun faded, due probably to the fact the car spent a good deal of it's life in the Far North. Now usually Armor-All works pretty well at restoring plastics/rubber, even if continual coats are necessary to stop it drying out again, however I tried that and it seems to have skipped the restoration part and just dried the wheel out further.

Anyone have any ideas? Any magic potions available from Repco/Supercheap etc?

Or is it stuffed, and I need another..

I'm loathe to use anything silicone-based simply because it's a steering wheel and I do sorta need to be able to grip it easily

/yeah I know, not OS... yet

Keep the 1600 and sidedrafts. Slot a Pinto into it. Zetec conversion. 4AGE. Any of these will work well.

1600 - originality, period spec goodness, sidedraft doort factor. Fairly easily modified.

Pinto - easy power increase from larger capacity, same mods apply as per 1600. Easy conversion. Weighs as much as a small planet though.

Zetec - popular in the UK, so conversion stuff is easily available. Seems to yield decent results, with cams/computer tuning etc. 

Otherwise, Austin Princess 4-spot calliper conversion, 9 inch rear drums, decent wheels + tyres, as above really.

This coming from someone who dailies a bog standard 3ish-cylinder Mk2 1100 sedan, which spends most of it's life in traffic...

Was pretty good, until it rained and everyone left

Spot the various OS rides in this lot:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1011519688930798.1073741846.929870973762337&type=3

(not my photos btw)

Also keen. Cleaned the Cortina this afternoon, so it's all shiny again.

It's the same colour all over this year too, the number of barrys getting upset at the cream front guard last year was a bit comical/sad

A few potato camera spottings from recently:

This was pretty cool. Quarter bumpers, round headlights, Turbos etc

Random old man-spec 323 outside work

Had a bit of a yarn to the guy driving this, he said it was his first car and he'd owned it for the last 50 years.

Pretty sweet really

This was driven by an old dude with long grey hair. The plate says 'D8 ME'.

I tried to drive the Cortina into the show.

I got down the hill and some old Rotarian shouted at me about how I wasn't registered and made me park on the street.

Would not trade again.

/and yeah, it did seem quieter than previous years, guessing the clash with Leadfoot and other stuff happening at Hampton didn't help.

Swoon. Have wanted an XY Fairmont since I was a kid. Mainly 'cos a family friend had (and still has) one, a Copper Bronze, factory 302 T-bar auto, which he's owned since 1975.

Unfortunately with prices the way they are, it's looking like less and less of a reality of me actually getting to own one...

Yours looks like a really nice example though, keen to to see what happens with the engine

Well, in this update there is a Kent in pieces

Many pieces...

Pulled the free (and allegedly running) engine apart on Sunday.

It wasn't good. But it was free, so i'm certainly not complaining.

Almost worthy of Hemi's Mechanical Fails thread.

It's picked up no.3 and there's some melted spaffage and reasonable sized lips on that bore. However it may be saveable..

I think that no.4 has got wet at some point when the engine was out of the car/in storage, it should clean up OK. The rest of the engine seems alright, aside from large amounts of oily gunge everywhere, I don't think an oil change was something it saw often. Ah well.

Will consider where to go from here and update accordingly

Try this: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/transact/docs/mr31-pia-form.pdf

Comes under the Official Information Act though, so they may take your $15 and say no... 

I think we'll call this Phase II of the evolution of the Cortina

The new camshaft and head came together nicely over the Christmas break, aside from a slight hiccup with the rocker ball studs supplied with the Kent kit. The threaded section is much longer than the standard ball studs, which would be fine except that some of the holes in the cylinder head have the thread tapped only halfway down (thanks Ford), meaning they fit the standard ones fine, but not the longer Kent ones.

Thankfully my Grandad came to the rescue and lent me the necessary 14mm thread tap. So cheers, Grandad.

Taylor Automotive reconditioned the head, and did an excellent job, and i fitted the new valve springs, stem seals, spray bar, ball studs and followers supplied with the kit. 

I decided against trying my hand at porting it. Might practice on a scrap head first, rather than running the risk of ruining this one.

Can always pull it off the car again...

Cam, pulley, and spraybar fitted, and valve clearances set. 

The swap commenced. While I was there I decided to replace the water pump, cambelt, thermostat, alternator belt, HT leads, thermostat housing etc. Mostly for my own peace of mind, most of those parts were allegedly done by the previous owner but I thought i'd do them again anyway.

It runs! The valve clearances had tightened up a thou, but i'll put that down to the valves bedding in. .

To be brutally honest I haven't noticed any difference with the new cam versus the old, aside from the idle is worse and the tappets are noisier... 

But I haven't really played with it yet. If all else fails I may invest in a vernier cam pulley, which was what Kent seemed to think was necessary.

I'm pleased that the bores don't seem to be lipped, it doesn't look to have been bored oversize, and the hone marks are still visible from the freshen-up it had before I bought it. However the next step may be getting the radiator re-cored, I didn't realise how worn the core was until I pulled the radiator out.

And I did promise some photos of the car looking all shiny with it's blingin' new wheels and paint, so here it is looking all photogenic:

please

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New

Way too many photos in this thread..

Not much happened in the last five months.

It passed the WOF in August, so it's still on daily driver duties. Really quite surprised the clutch has lasted this long, it was basically on the rivets when we swapped the gearbox way back in May (or a couple of posts ago). Figured i'd drive it 'till it died, which would then force me to do the gearbox bearings (thinking it would be a few weeks at most), but hey, it's December and the raging 1100 hasn't killed it yet. 

So hence I haven't touched the gearbox. 

Figured out why it sounds a bit 3-cylinder-ish, a compression test revealed it's down on compression pretty badly on the no.3 cylinder. However a squirt of oil down the plughole brought it up, so me suspects a broken ring or two. Ah well.

Found a way of fixing it though:

Got given this by a mate, who works at a scrap dealer. This one seems to be of the 1300 persuasion, judging by the AA in the block and the J2 cast into the head. 

May as well freshen it up along with the gearbox and swap them in together...

Most of the paint came up quite nice with a polish. Found a non-rusty drivers door, which needs painting orange and a crack welded up around the latch, then I can get rid of the awful looking, bog-ridden thing currently attached to the car.

It got to try out the shiny Wildcats while the Cortina was in the panelshop. It looked proper Seventies.

It also ended up with the other ratty Wildcats off the Cortina for a while because I couldn't bring myself to put the rusty 4.5" steels back on it, they looked hideous.

But the ratty Wildcats don't fit properly, someone has machined their mounting faces down so they need spacers to get the wheelnuts to hold the wheels on properly. (or some shorter shank nuts, which i don't have)

So today I painted the standard steels and it's back sitting on them for the time being.

Hopefully in the next update there will be a Kent in pieces and a gearbox getting some bearings.

Going by the past thread updates there probably won't be though 

An expensive (and belated) 21st present to myself turned up yesterday

In time for Christmas, though

Will assemble the head and swap it over Christmas, all going well.

And in other news, the car is all back together and on the road. Did the Waipu cruise, which was fun.

Also got Drive Inn to put a new centre bearing on the driveshaft.