mk2marty

Oh man, what a mint example!

Looking forward to seeing how it progresses, there doesn't seem to be that many left in this condition. Chuck some Super Oscars on it and it'll be perfect...

A couple of weeks ago i got a new autochoke water housing and bi-metal spring from the the good people at Weber Specialties in Silverdale, to replace the one that someone had attempted to remove, snapped the bolt, and filled up with glue. Decided that before it got fitted the carb deserved a birthday and the mixture screw freeing up, cos the idle was pretty lean and shitty and thirty years of inactivity behind the tamper-proof plug had seized the screw. So the carburettor was removed, and while I had the rocker cover off (to get at the two annoying inner carb nuts), i thought i should take care of the valve stem seals, a common problem on Pintos. Dad provided some nifty tools to do them with the valves/head in place. The seals were pretty fried (and probably OEM fitted), but now with new ones it no longer blows clouds of oil smoke on cold start, and i didn't manage to lose any of the valve retainers. Win!

The valve spring compressor and air adapter made life easy. 

The carb got partially dismantled and flooded with CRC, and the passages blown through with compressed air. It had obviously been sitting for a while, judging by the corrosion stains in the float chamber and on some of the jets, so they got cleaned up and i checked the choke and float settings too. Discovered the vacuum choke pulldown diaphragm had disintegrated completely, so i raided the (thankfully intact) one from the parts carburettor, but otherwise everything seems to be in order, so it got reassembled and put back on the car.

It sort of exploded all over the bench

It's a lot smoother to drive now, and doesn't blow smoke under hard acceleration anymore. All it needs now is some fine tuning, particularly of the choke mixture, which will come with time.

Got me a window sticker too:

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

Have always had ideas about a 1uz powered Lotus 7 kitcar. 

Or a Mazda Roadpacer with bridgeported 12a, big IDA Weber, hotwires/eagers etc, or one of those rotary Parkway buses with mental turbo quad rotor thing.

Or maybe even a '40s beach racer replica using Rolls-Royce/Packard Merlin engine, complete with two-stage supercharger. 

Got most of the harder to find parts for mine from Sam at Ageing Auto Spares in Takanini. Might pay to give him a call.

Otherwise, if you find someone wrecking one let me know, cos there might be some stuff that i could use..

I have the same problem with the autochoke water housing on my Cortina, someone has attempted to remove it, snapped the bolt and Araldited the hole up.

Murray at Weber Specialties has them new, so he'd be the man to talk to. Although down in Christchurch, Palmside might be the crowd to see..?

Hmm..

Just reminds me of this:

but really, i agree with k-trips, something like a Commodore/Falcon flatdeck would probably work ok. Perhaps with angled ramps where the deck would have been, so only the rear wheels of a towed car would be in contact with the road, or use those dolly/tow cradle things.

In other words, buy an XF ute, cut the tray off, brace the chassis, put some ramps on it, a winch or a mini Hiab and the jobs a good 'un.   

Then use it until it falls in half.

Should be going, and might have convinced Dad to bring his Capri. 

Who do I see about getting OS stickers?

Bubble arches would probably look quite good given that it already has a semi Alan Mann red-over-gold paintjob. And +1 for big Super Oscars, with white covers. Awesome.

NZ new built in auck woop

 

Don't mean to be pedantic, but it would have been built in Lower Hutt. They only built Mk2 sedans in Auckland. 

As for the gearbox/diff angle issues, i found this, which may or may not be of some use: http://rsmotorsport.com.au/files/Type9toMk2.pdf

And while the front brakes are getting bigger, why not throw some 4 pot calipers off a Princess in? (although admittedly they could be a bit hard to find now)

And I kinda like Garfield and Odie on the side, probably cos i had a lot of Garfield videotapes when i was a kid  

I admit, I was inspired by top gear, but i made mine from a mk3 Cortina.. 

Mine aren't that flash tho 

Yeah, they only really get used for camping. But they're quite comfortable

Keen to see what you do with yours.

Cheers mate. Seems like everyone has a soft spot for these things.

Picked up some interesting stuff from the Real Groovy sale today. Worth a look i reckon. 

Saw this Valiant convertible thing today, which the internet tells me might actually be a Plymouth 

Haven't actually done anything useful with this as yet. Haven't pulled the diff out, haven't fixed the autochoke, and I haven't even got around to fitting the new rear brake shoes. And the drive belt seems to have broken in the tape deck, so I can no longer rock out to my Springsteen cassettes.

So rather than tackle those large and important problems, I've made small aesthetic improvements.

A good mate gave me the stainless roof rails from his VL Commodore, which I had to cut down to fit. Someone who owned the car in the past had removed the roof racks completely, and somehow the centre rails must have got lost or broken. So all it had were some screws sitting in the holes where the rails should have been, which looked naff, especially considering the paint was marked from where they were. 

It started like this

(Note my 'hold the camera above your head and shoot blindly' approach, rather than actually finding anything proper to stand on)

With some help from Mr Ryobi and a cutoff disc, a little while later they were shortened, and a little while after that they had holes drilled in them to mount them to the car. Still semi-amazed I managed to drill the holes the correct distance apart (and that the person who fitted them back in 1983 managed to drill all the holes in the car the same distance apart). Measure twice, cut once, or something...

It ended up like this

The only problem is the holes from where they were mounted on the VL are still there, and they are only filled temporarily with putty.

And I splashed out on some airhorns to stick in the front. Not entirely how sure how long they'll last, the 'stainless' they are made of looks a bit cheap... 

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

A couple of spottings from today:

An old guy spec Corona in Warkworth... 

...and a slightly blurry Hunter wagon on the way out of Silverdale. 

Might talk Dad into bringing his Escort along too, for extra goodness. Otherwise I should at least be there in the Cortina 

Fairly sure that's the same Pontiac that turns up in the Unitec carpark occasionally. These turned up there too:

Tidy 4 speed XD Falcon

And this Mk2 Escort. 

If the Cortina doesn't break down somewhere along the motorway I should be there. Dad might bring his Escort too, hopefully.

Cheers all. And i'll keep that in mind, cos decent parts for these (wagon specific stuff in particular) are getting a little hard to find without resorting to Trademe. 

And I do keep being regaled with tales at gas stations about how everyone used to have/learned to drive in/regret selling their Cortinas. Kinda nice really. 

Another pointless update really.

It's done around a thousand K's of daily duties without missing a beat, aside from a strange surging/hesitation when stone cold. In the near future i'm going to service the carb properly and attempt to find a new choke water housing, due to the aforementioned Araldite fix, and the fibre washer has started to leak. I'm hoping it should fix the surge then too. 

Been put on to a bearing place in New Lynn to try as well, to sort the diff/pinion/axle bearings, so sometime soon it might be getting a proper overhaul of the final drive. 

And in other news, it got a wheel alignment.

Discuss my thus unfulfilled promises of progress here: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/41622-mk2martys-83-cortina-estate/  

I took a photo of this a while ago and forgot to post it, but it was back again today.

A (presumably) NZ new 1964 Pontiac Laurentian in the Unitec carpark. Totally standard too, right down to the hubcaps.

Saw this Mk1 Cortina in the unitec carpark:

...and on the way home there was this neat ADO16 by a dairy. I had to stop and look.

My Grandad still motors around in his 1979 Accord hatch he bought new. He's in his eighties and it's still as mint as the day it left the factory. There's also been an old couple in a brown VJ Valiant pottering around Blockhouse Bay lately, although it looked like the old lady was struggling with the amount of arm work required to park it.

Speaking of old Mercs, this was over on Waiheke:

A neat HB Viva:

In Taumarunui, a little old lady in an Escort. Twas an auto too.

And an Ethel.

So a couple of things happened today.

Took it for a decent drive to some beaches out west. On the way home, a bolt that retains the timing belt cover decided that it didn't like it's current home and would much prefer to work its way out and become lodged in between the bottom of the cover and the crank pulley, creating a terrible grinding noise and those charming wear marks in the cambelt. What's more, is that the viscous coupling for the fan is obviously in league with that bolt and has decided that now is an ideal time to start growling and squealing. So I probably need to find another one. 

And the valve stem seals need doing at some point, because it's doing the usual Pinto smokey start thing.

Here is an enormous photo as evidence: