mk2marty
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Posts posted by mk2marty
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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...
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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)
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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
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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'.
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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.
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Never thought i'd get a chance to use this photo tbh.
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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
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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
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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...
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Seems to have been a lot of Aussie stuff around recently:
Spent a good 10 minutes pining over the XY wagon. 302 auto, bucket seats etc
I need one...
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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:
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Way too many photos in this thread..
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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
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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.
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Some Cortina spottings from recently, 'cos i'm a foamer
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This was awesome, still a bit gutted that i had to bail after the pizza barn but Speedway was calling..
Some average photos
Cheers people, especially Karl for organising it
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Man, that HK is sweeet.
/a couple of old Ford spottings from recently
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i'll probably get it painted to match the rest of the car once the panelshops reopen after new years.
Wow, that was nearly a year ago. Procrastination level x10
In fairness, I bought an Escort which kinda slowed things down a bit, but its back on track now..
I think the car got sick of waiting for me to do something, and took matters into it's own hands.
This appeared under the radiator cap. It's most likely the head gasket. I don't know what the previous owner did to the head (if anything) with the supposedly 'reconditioned' engine, so i'm happy it's lasted this long. And anyway, I can do it properly myself this time (and if it goes wrong, I can only blame myself). I procured another cylinder head from the last Cortina they had at Zebra (a 2.0 S), and it is at the reconditioners as we speak. They seem to think it's usable, so with any luck at the moment a Kent FR30 is on it's way here from England, and hopefully it makes an appreciable difference to the engine. It doesn't need anything too lairy, it still needs to be usable as semi-daily transport. Might try some basic Vizard-spec porting once the head comes back, although what good it will achieve and whether it will be at all noticeable is totally debatable...
I was going to get a Burton rocker cover to go with it, but it won't fit with the DGAV carburettor (it's missing the cutout for the autochoke water housing). Oh well.
My new rear axle bearings leak, which is annoying. They don't have the rubber seal around the outside like the OEM-spec ones did, but it also looks a little like the oil is coming through the bearing, rather than around it.. Will go and have another talk to the bearing people at some stage.
Bought some more wheels (apparently called Wildcat Cheetahs) which unlike the current ones are properly shiny, properly 4x108, and properly not covered in kerb rash. They are also currently on the Escort, but that's another thread update completely..
I kept noticing more and more rust appearing over the winter, and it was getting depressing. Mostly along the bottom of the windscreen - found out the sedan one doesn't fit, sadly - some more around the tailgate handle, the rear quarters, and the 'feature panel' was starting to irk me.
So the time came to bite the bullet and get some paint done
For the first time in a year it's all the same colour.
And this is what it looks like at the moment.
Still need to finish putting it back together, it's a good opportunity to spray rust inhibitor around and tidy up some of the things that didn't get done the first time around. The interior needs a massive clean too, it's covered in panelshop dust.
That intermittent wiper relay, the switchgear to match, and the glovebox light are all still waiting. One day...
Hoping it's all back together and the camshaft has arrived in time for the Waipu cruise. Failing that, there's always drag day
Will try and take some better photos once it's all together
I was well supervised throughout
discuss here: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/41622-mk2martys-83-cortina-estate/
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This sounds rad. I'm keen
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Fine choice of car btw. Got some photos?
Rust areas: sills, bottoms of doors, floors, tailgate, lower quarter panels behind rear wheel arches (particularly on later cars as Ford filled the void there with expanding foam, which holds moisture against the panel and rots it from the inside).
Take a look at the front subframe: from above, look at the four bolts that secure it to the body, they should be at right angles to the chassis. If not, it usually means either the subframe or chassis rail is bent as a result of hitting something. That subframe bends fairly easily and hangs quite low as standard, it's quite vulnerable to traffic islands and kerbs.Engine: it's a Pinto, it's fairly bulletproof. Check for top end ticks/rattles, usually a worn camshaft caused by a blocked oil spray bar. Smoky startups will usually be caused by worn valve stem seals, they are a doddle to change with the right tools. Check it comes off the autochoke easily, and the heater core isn't leaking. If it has fuel line with the original Ford equipment crimp clips, be sure to swap them for proper hoseclamps as soon as possible. Too many Escorts/Cortinas have been killed through engine bay fires when these pop off and the hose sprays fuel everywhere.
The drivetrain is pretty rugged, Estates had an Atlas axle with a 3.75 ratio final drive. Check for whines and bearing growls, same goes for the gearbox. Check the void bushes that locate the rear axle (particularly the upper links that attach to the body), when worn these could give the car a tendency to rear wheel steer on takeoff as the rear axle shifts around.
Look at the interior, being a Mk4 (with vinyl) it should probably be alright, it was only Mk5s that had the awful Betacloth trim that wore out within 18 months. Check the trim panels in the cargo bay, these can be hard to source if damaged/missing (believe me, i'm still looking for one for mine). Check for rotten carpets, a sure sign of water leaks (something most Mk4/5s suffered from).
The panel fit will be crap, they were like that from new.
Otherwise, a solid, dependable, very usable oldschool car (i'm biased, of course).
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One for DS foamers
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Manky Steering Wheel Restoration
in General Car Chat
Posted
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