mk2marty

Maaayte

(Its not a KE30, but you get the idea). 

Get some Turbos. Greatest wheels ever

Sorry, someone had to... 

If all else fails talk to Murray at Weber Specialties. He's a GC and knows what he's talking about. In fact he could probably sell you a carb to go with Rookie's manifold.

Type 9 5 speed?

Loving the colour scheme on this by the way

Some photomagraphs and stuff

So pleased someone else finally brought another Mk5 along 

Really just echoing the sentiments of everyone else here, but what a simply awesome day. 

Cheers to all involved, especially BDA780 for organising it and making it possible, met some cool people and saw some amazing things.

I was too busy walking around in awe of everything to take many photos, so here's one: 

So the rear axle overhaul I promised this thing more than six months ago has finally happened. 

The collapsible pinion spacer arrived from Palmside, so i really had no more excuses to procrastinate over it. 

Decided that the bearing noises had to go, so the best way to get rid of them was to replace all the bearings, so hopefully i'll never have to have it apart again (unless I win Lotto and decide it needs an LSD). So that meant getting axle bearings, diff side bearings, pinion bearings, a pinion seal, and the aforementioned spacer. It all came apart fairly easily, and for a couple of weeks while I waited for bearings to arrive it looked like this:

All bare and oily-like. Hmmm.

While waiting for some side bearings to turn up, it seemed like a good idea to take advantage of the axles being out of the car to replace the brake shoes, in an attempt to cure a slight rear brake imbalance that VTNZ reckoned was there. So now it has some nice new brake shoes (the wheel cylinders I replaced about 6 months ago), and not long after they were fitted a box of very expensive goodies turned up:

Dad pressed the bearings on, and with his help it started coming together. The pinion went in and got torqued up to set the bearing preload and crush the spacer, the pinion flange needing a bit of a squeeze with the vice to get the dirt deflector to stop fouling the pinion seal (which was a different design to the OEM Ford one). The crownwheel and diff carrier were next in:  

Shiny new bearings. Turns out that the crownwheel side bearing was probably the worst and probably caused most of the noise.

Did up the bearing caps and tested the backlash, which was within what Ford reckoned it should be. Just as well, cos otherwise it would have meant finding shims and running the risk of damaging the bearings pressing them on and off while we got the amount of shims right.

Note the special blank-face dial test indicator...

The diff hat also got in the way of some chrome paint. I actually kinda like it, it turned out better than I thought it would:

The axles went in, a gasket was cut for the hat, the diff got filled up with oil and all was well. Really impressed with the difference (ha, geddit?) it's made to the car, it is a lot quieter to drive, and I no longer have to worry that if I take it on long journeys the diff will implode. Win!

While all this was happening, the centric rings turned up and they got fitted too, which helped get rid of some of the vibration at motorway speeds, something the slotted wheels and shank nuts weren't that great at. All they need now are some centrecaps.

Scored another 4 channel AWA Clarion tapedeck from a wrecked Daihatsu Mira, which solves the in-car entertainment problem for the moment, until I get sick of the fact it won't actually play tapes and pull it out again. This one is a 450M, the little brother to the deck I had previously (a 650P), which as far as I can tell was only really fitted to high-spec mid-80s Mitsubishis.

Found a centre console with a clock as well, which it needed since I replaced the instrument cluster for one with a tacho (the clock having formerly resided in the centre of the cluster), and a lower console/gear lever surround as well, which tidies things up a bit.

And so to celebrate, I took it for a blast up the Kaipara Coast for labour weekend. It went like a train, aside from the exhaust getting hot and hitting the underbody in a couple of places. Achieved about 33 miles per gallon for the trip too, which was cool. Really pleased with how it handles the open road.  

Can't even tell it's been up a long gravel road in this one

Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/41622-mk2martys-83-cortina-estate/

It's looking brilliant so far, looks like just the right shade of Brigade Red too. 

Nice work man

Cheers mate, if i'm honest the mirrors don't really do a lot. It lives under a car cover, so they get bumped every time I take the cover off, so usually I get a close-up view of the ground. But yeah, i reckon they look better than the OEM ones haha.

Had this thing a year now. Scary.

So I got donated a Springalex steering wheel by my Grandad. According to advertising bumf from the 70s it's an SA100 wheel, if that means anything. It used to reside in his HA Viva, but since he sold it nearly twenty years ago it's been sitting in his garage. I had been looking at changing the steering wheel for a while so the Springalex was perfect, it's suitably retro, and it looks cool.   

It didn't fit the car however, so I needed to find a bosskit to suit it, and while eBay had listings for Escorts, there were none for Cortinas. But, thankfully Ford parts lego logic prevailed again, and it turns out that a Mk2 Escort has the same steering column shaft diameter and spline as a Cortina (only the column length differs due to the Cortina's collapsible section), and after trying the wheel from Dad's car to prove it, I decided an Escort bosskit would work. So about a week later, this arrived in the letterbox:

Unfortunately, due to the differences in column length, it needed a bit of modification. It wouldn't fit with the column shroud as the cylindrical bit on the back of the boss was too deep, and consequently the wheel sat too far forward to engage the splines on the shaft properly. This was easily rectified, however:

Cheers to Grandad for the use of his Myford, too.

Great success! It fits, and it looks pretty decent too. Makes twisty roads way more fun than with the factory wheel, which given that it's about two inches smaller isn't surprising. 

Very happy with it.

On another, slightly sadder note it seems the awesome Clarion tapedeck has passed on. Bereft of life, it rests in peace, so the Sanyo has stepped up to take it's place, and teamed with a junk equaliser it fulfills it's role as a means of playing cassettes. It'll do until I can find another proper 4-channel cassette deck at a wrecking yard, anyway.

I still haven't done anything about the rear axle noise, but at least it doesn't seem to be getting any worse. Seems like Palmside are the only place in this country that has listings for an Atlas axle collapsible pinion spacer, so with any luck there might be one finding it's way here soonish, so i can finally pull the back end apart and find some bearings for it. Really want to get them done before the Leadfoot cruise.

And, buoyed by the success of the eBay bosskit experience, i've found some hub-centering rings that might fit, and hopefully they'll be downloading themselves into my letterbox shortly.

Cheers to Gizahoon for ordering the parts.

Discuss it here: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/41622-mk2martys-83-cortina-estate/

Same thing, but for Fords - mostly Falcon based:

http://falconbuilder.net/

Yeah, I wasn't all that serious with the last one.

I knew the one at the front was up to something. It looked a bit shifty. Damn ducks.

And yeah, there's plenty of scope here. 

An amusingly named road/those modified bump signs/someone doing snakies next to a 'slippery when wet' sign etc...

Anything really

Righto.

How about a photo of your ride next to an amusing road sign? Has that been done already?

Thread dredge. 

A picture of my car and some ducks.

Next challenge?

This sounds brilliant. Shall be attending also, likely in a Cortina.

Should be along as usual in the Cortina. Hope the weather stays clear

BTW do we not get the $1 Spud fries anymore? Although a free drink sounds good..

Pretty sure this was the one that belonged to the guy who busked outside the New Lynn train station. Used to see it there quite often.

And those RS 4-spokes look good already..

The Hollywood Theatre in Avondale? (i think?). Sort of down the road from the main township?

Cheers. I think I have one coming from ebay, but i'll keep you in mind in case it doesn't turn up/doesn't fit..

The one I ordered is for a Mk2 Escort, so i'm hoping the shaft size/spline is the same as a Mk5 Cortina.

Cheers all. Hopefully there's one on it's way from ebay, but if not then it could be custom boss time..

Okay, so rather than rely on photos from the Internet (which are shite) here goes: (my apologies for the brown vinyl seats)

This is the wheel in question:

It has three holes, one per spoke, that it bolts to the boss with, and a large square section in the centre to locate it;

This is what the boss kit looks like: (this one has a horn contact ring)

If I can't get one, then i'll probably modify a factory boss, like you suggested. In any case, i'll probably have to adapt the cylindrical black piece of plastic that sits behind the wheel in order to keep the indicator self-cancelling working. But i'd like to try to find a proper boss kit, and I was wondering if there was anywhere in NZ that sold them. Unsure if a Mk2 Escort spline is the same, which may make life easier than trying to find listings for a Mk5 Cortina..

Does anyone know if there's a place in NZ that sells boss kits for Springalex wheels? They seem quite peculiar, in that they have a large square in the centre of the wheel and three bolts to hold the wheel to the boss, like this:

If all else fails I might have to get one from ebay, but I thought it was worth checking here first. The only listings I can find are for the usual 6 bolt mounting type (a la Mountney, Nardi etc).

Let us know what the letters/numbers are on the tag and it should make things clearer. If it was fitted with a 1600 originally then it should (as Shaneo said) have L3 for the engine number, which denotes high compression 1600 2V Kent. If it has a J3, it was originally a 1300 2V (and thus probably a 1300 Sport), but if it has a G it was originally an 1100. Another giveaway is that all 1600 Sports had a 3.54:1 ratio diff, denoted by an 'A' in the 'AXLE' box.

If it has both of those, chances are it started life as a 1600 Sport. 

That yellow Mk5 is so sweet..

A few spottings from recently:

The tidiest Scavenger i've seen in a while

...aand a Mitsuoka Viewt. So awesome, right down to the wire wheels with imitation knock-off hubs.

Some photos: