mattj

Ok so it has been a little while since I last updated this, but there is good reason when I last posted I had to sort the driveshaft accelerator cable and rebuild the carbs. So I did the driveshaft and cable but had a real battle stripping the carbs down and when I finally did I found that the throttle spindle on one of them was twisted. So not a big deal to replace but it kind of killed my enthusiasm a bit so things slowed while I decided what I wanted to do. The plan had always been to put the rotary into this shell and I kept thinking why am I putting so much effort into this motor when it is just going to come out anyway? - I probably should have made this decision before buying all the bits for the crossflow and 5 speed but never mind. Plus it makes the title of this build-up a bit more relevant which is important...... So I decided to bring things forward and just do the motor swap now as well. So I have had a new tunnel folded up and have put in for a weeks leave in a couple of weeks time during which time I will just knuckle down and get the motor in there. I have been doing some other work as well though, one of the bigger jobs was to get the oil cooler mounted so I spent Sunday cutting and welding and made some space for it behind the grill. First up grill off and mark it out Cut a big hole Then add some steel back in to keep things nice and strong, I was in two minds about leaving the little crank handle hump thing but figured that you will never see it so it might as well stay Then a test fit of the oil cooler and with the grill back on So I just have to make up some brackets to bolt it in and it will be all sorted. And the last thing that I have been working on is the steering arms, the ones in it at the moment are mk2 Cortina which are longer then the Anglia ones so the lock isn't great. There is a crowd in the UK who fabricate custom steering arms for this application but I couldn't get a straight answer as to whether or not they would pass cert over here, in the end I decided I would buy some anyway and see how they go and unfortunately after talking to the local cert guy came to the conclusion that they wouldn't be any good, the arm is 12mm thick instead of the 16mm that the hot rod manual states and the way it is put together if one of the welds fails then things could go bad. So instead I am going to have some machined up. Something like this Anyway this is now with the TAC for approval and hopefully within the next couple of weeks it will be signed off and I can get them sorted.

Some more progress from the last few weeks got the tunnel all covered in I cot a short shift for the gearbox which has a straight stick which just clears the handbrake, only just though so I bent the handbrake mount over as well to push it over a little more The pedals are all in now and the brake lines all bent up And I mounted the reservoirs in the engine bay, they feed under the bulkhead then run through hoses to the master cylinders. Also made up a new clutch hose as there was no hose in the car previously, just a long length of bundy tube running to the slave cylinder that wasn't fixed to anything. The engine bay is now looking like this I had my carbs soda blasted, they didn't come up as nice as I was hoping but they are a massive improvement on how they looked before. I have a couple of rebuild kits for them and at the moment I am just waiting on some replacement spindle bearings before I strip and rebuild them. And the last bit of progress was finishing off the fuel pump mounting, I used the lever arm shock mount holes and made a bracket for the Holley pump, to the right of the pump you can see the surge tank that is feeding it, It is going to be a massive overkill on this engine I reckon but when the other motor goes in it should be about right. So the list of jobs is getting pretty short now, I have to connect the exhaust back up, get a new driveshaft made, make up a new accelerator cable, rebuild the carbs and bleed the brakes (plus all the little jobs that no doubt I have forgotten about) and then it should be all ready for cert.

Its not completely straight forward, I did this on my Anglia which has mk2 Cortina struts. The Escort stuff will fit but you do have to modify a few things, The mounting bolts on the Cortina calipers are an imperial size (7/16 UNF I think) and the escort ones are M12 so the mount holes on the escort calipers are a bit bigger I didn't like the fact that the caliper could move on the bolts so I turned up some sleeves for the calipers to get around this. (having said that I don't know if it would actually be an issue for cert etc. as you are only talking about a couple of mm) Also I think the discs are a slightly bigger diameter. It isn't much but enough to rub on the caliper. I had to turn the OD of the disc back to the same as the Cortina ones to get it to work. Funnily enough when I went to Capri vented rotors which is a common upgrade for the Escorts the rotors are smaller and everything works. And I also had to trim a little bit off the brake pads as they rubbed on the inside of the rotor but that was just taking to them with a grinder. There may be other pads that fit but I was given all the escort stuff so just made it work. here's a picture of the escort disc compared to the Cortina one

Progress from the weekend, got the type 9 sorted and sitting in place I had to re-drill the Anglia bellhousing to match up to the adaptor plate then assembled it with the motor, I had to change the clutch plate to a Hillman Avenger one which was kind of random but the plate is the same diameter as the Escort one but it has the same splines as the type 9 input shaft. I pulled the motor out so that I could finish off the repairs to the drip rail plus it made fitting everything a bit easier. Then I put the motor and box back in to see how much cutting was required So it isn't too much, I took the top of the tunnel off between the old shifter hole and the new one to see what I was doing and the main part of the gearbox fits, just, I have about 10mm clearance around the gearbox at its worst point and I wouldn't think it would move more than that would it? The other issue that I hadn't expected is that the gearstick kits the handbrake trying to go into 4th, so at the moment I have replaced a perfectly good 4 speed with a 5 speed that I can only use 4 of the gears in. the gearstick angles back by quite a bit so I will bend it so that it is straight and see how that works. I will make up some sheet metal bits this week and try to get it all covered in next weekend.

A little more progress this weekend, not as much as I would have liked but that's how it goes sometimes. I pulled the old 4 speed gearbox out of the car and got the bellhousing off so I can drill it to suit the type 9 adaptor that I bought. As part of the kit there is a template and all the drill bits etc that you need to do it. Here is a couple of pictures of the gearboxes side by side, looks like I will have to do a bit of cutting to get it to fit. there seems to be a few different opinions about exactly how much cutting there is to do so I won't start until I have it ready to go into the car then add clearance as required. The last few bits that I need will hopefully arrive this week. This is a mount for the reservoirs for my brakes and clutch, the idea is that it mounts under the dash and the turned bits poke through to the engine bay. The mounts for the reservoirs are to suit some wildwood reservoirs that have been sitting in the garage for a while. This one shows the reservoir mount where it is going to end up but the stainless plate will sit under the bulkhead. When I made this it was for the red car that I started with and I cut the holes in the bulkhead first so everything lined up nicely. It is going to be a bit harder this time I think but nothing a bit of time and the powerfile can't sort. And the last hing that I have working on is that years ago I got hold of a pair of weber 40 dcoes and a manifold so I figured that I might as well put them on. The carb that was on the car is a 38 dgas which is a bit big for the motor and it always ran rich and flooded a lot. It is good on song but rubbish for everything else, anyway the 40's should help get a bit more out of the motor and they look the part as well (which is important) They are pretty scabby though and I have no idea what condition they are in but I ordered a couple of rebuild kits so I will rebuild them and throw them on.

No they are pretty good, the seat brackets add some stiffness to them as well and by the time they are bolted to the floor they can't really go anywhere. I thought when I made them that I could add some gussets if need be but I don't think it will be necessary.

Cheers yeah there is actually a surprising amount of Anglia's round Nelson although I don't think they get out of the garage to often. I have been watching the build up of your 3 with interest, I had a coupe a few years back with a 13b turbo in it and wish now that I had never sold it

Yeah all the Anglia's I have had have had some rust there as well, that's old cars for you eh

Couple more pics New accelerator pedal And here is one of the other car when we left Chch loaded up on the transporter, it looked pretty sweet with the mismatched door and shitty body with the good wheels I thought. and how it is sitting now looking decidedly neglected.....

Bit more progress from the last couple of weeks I have put the Holley fuel pump and regulator that I got for the rotary in, I also made up some new 3/8" lines which were a complete nightmare. I had some braided hose to finish off to the regulator but with the crossflow exhaust on it got a bit close so I made up a new hard line to run down the firewall. A while back I also bought one of those 'one size fits all' driveshaft loops off trade-me only it didn't fit, so after chopping and changing almost every piece I ended up with this the plate that extends along the side is to protect the brake and fuel lines that run through the tunnel, anyway to get it to fit meant unbolting the exhaust from the head and I managed to snap off one of the bolts in the process. So that was a pretty good end to the day! on the bright side it isn't a blind hole so drilling it out shouldn't be too difficult. I think I will pull the motor out to do it though. I have finished up the mount for my pedal box now, I added some steel to it to tie in with the mount holes at the top of the firewall to give it a bit more strength and got some banjo fittings to get the hoses out, it all fits pretty good in the end. And the last job was fitting a new accelerator pedal which is done but I didn't get any pictures of it, I used a pedal assembly that I had lying around, I have no idea what it came off, a Toyota or something I think, I got it off trade-me thinking that it might be useful and with a bit of time spent bending it to get it sitting about right it looks like it will do the trick. The only real problem with getting it in was what I found when taking out the old one, I guess when the crossflow went in someone decided that smashing a hole in the firewall was the best way to get the cable through and this had let the water in and rusted out. initially I had hoped to get away with a small patch but the more I cut out the more rust I found so I have ended up replacing a bit of the drip rail as well. All the new steel is welded in now so a bit of grinding and it should be good as new. I will try and get some more pics after work today.

They fit pretty good, considering they were just some I found on trade-me, nope no steering issues at all. I did have to cut back the front of the guard but that is more to do with the mk2 Cortina suspension geometry. It's a pretty typical mod apparently.

Wow, can’t believe that it has been almost 2 years since I last updated this. Quite a lot has happened but unfortunately not much of it has to do with the car (well not this one anyway). So at the beginning of last year an opportunity to move to Nelson came up so we packed everything up and headed North, the car ended up in storage for a while so I used that as an excuse to get another Anglia. I figured I would post it in here as it is now sporting most of the bits off my other one and will probably end up with the motor in it as well eventually. Here are photos of when I got it. It has a 1600 escort motor in it that has been bored out and has 1300 pistons and a 234 cam in it, the rest of it is pretty much standard Anglia. So I cruised around in this for a while until the wof ran out and seeing as the motor wasn’t certified I figured that I would swap the suspension and brakes out of my other car and get this one certified. As things tend to go with my projects I also thought that it was a good opportunity to change a couple of things while I was at it. First up was the suspension, because the lower arms that I had made weren’t going to be able to be certified I decided to go with some new Mk2 Cortina ones, fitting Cortina struts to an Anglia results in a heap of positive camber which isn’t too cool but with some adjustments to the top hats it looks like I can get it back to where it should be. At the back I added some clearance around the rear leaf spring attachment point so that I could run a flipped top leaf, I had done this in my other car but don’t think I had any pictures of it. I also changed the shock absorbers to the stud type end and reinforced the wheel tub where the stud ran through, probably should have done this on the other car as it was a heap less work. Anyway with 1” lowering blocks in and my wheels on it ends up looking like this. I am pretty happy with this, it has a bit of negative rake with the back sitting lower than the front but I kind of like it that way, looks broken which is cool. I might look at some shorter springs for the front eventually but it is good as for now. Then I looked at the brakes, the front ones were ok (solid rotors and escort callipers) but I had intended to go for vented ones eventually anyway so I got some Capri ones and a spacer kit from Palmside to suit the M16 callipers and rebuilt them while I was at it. This is probably way more brakes than I need but eventually these will be stopping the rotary so I can justify the cost to myself. The back brakes stayed the same but while the diff was out I swapped the head from the 4.11 ratio Anglia one to a 3.9 ratio one that the new car came with. I would like to put a lsd in it but it is just a bit too expensive for me at the moment. So at this point I hit a couple of snags with the brakes, some of the brake lines that I had made up for the rotary unfortunately didn’t suit the 1600 as the exhaust is in a different place and they interfered, so after thinking about it for a while I decided to use this Wilwood pedal box that I bought ages ago for the other car but didn’t end up using. This may seem like a bit of an excessive way of dealing with a brake line interference and it probably is but what can I say, it makes more sense than having the pedal box sitting on the shelf. Anyway I made this mounting frame up which bolts through the master cylinder holes on the firewall and clamps to the steering column, here it is mounted up in my old car, which is really useful for this sort of thing at the moment, I will switch it out in the new car as soon as I figure out how I am going to deal with the accelerator pedal. I might try and tie it in with some of the other mount points as well, I’m not sure if it is ok to clamp to the steering column as it may not be considered structural but I haven’t found anything yet that says that I can’t do it. The only issue with this is that things get a little tight under the dash between where the reservoirs feed into the cylinders and a brace that comes out to support the dash but I think I can get around this with some banjo fittings, failing that I will just add some clearance to the brace. So I was also thinking that it may be a while before I get the rotary mounted and I was offered a 5 speed Type 9 gearbox from a guy in the Nelson Anglia club so this is the next mission, I have brought a fitting kit out of the UK to suit the Anglia, it came with an adaptor plate that bolts to the front of the type 9 box and a drilling jig to redrill the Anglia bellhousing and some measurements for modifying the thrust tower. Here is the adaptor plate fitted and thrust tower which I got modified at work (it needed the o.d. turned down and to be shortened a bit). Also while I was buying parts from the UK I got a new gearbox crossmember, this one has the bonus of already having an offset in it which means once the rotary goes in I won’t have to cut the floor and add new mount holes. I am still waiting on a thrust bearing spacer (also out of the UK) before I can fit the gearbox and that will be the last thing to do before the car goes for cert. There are some other things I have done as well, I added a bunch of gauges and the seats, mounted with bits of bent up flat bar. That's about it at the moment, as I said the plan is still to get the rotary in there, but first things first I want it back on the road. More pics to come soon.....

Car is a S14, has a S13 SR20DET fitted (don't ask me why, I guess someone cheaped out fitting a turbo motor) it has a K&N pod filter on it so I wouldn't have thought it would be that restrictive. A lot of the stuff I read seemed to point at the AFM perhaps being faulty but the fact that it runs fine with the filter on makes me think that it is something to do with the airflow like what thegreatestben posted. However it really wouldn't surprise me if there were that many things wrong with the car that they had somehow combined together to make it run fine. Anyway it isn't causing a problem or anything, it just seemed strange to me, and hearing that your s13 SR20DE runs without a filter confuses things some more. Unless it has something to do with the turbo......

Just a random question here that someone may know the answer to, I have a SR20 motor and I took the air filter off to clean it then tried starting the motor with no filter on and it started up fine but wouldn't idle, it just stalled out. When I put the filter back on it runs fine. I am assuming this is all to do with the air flow meter but wouldn't have thought it was smart enough to know that there was no filter in place. Anyway it isn't a problem or anything I just wondered if anyone had this problem before or knew why Cheers

A few more pics, Because the engine bay is so short and because of where I mounted the motor the oil filter hit the firewall so I had this made to relocate it I also needed a remote reservoir for my clutch master cylinder so made up a mount to suit a Wilwood reservoir and here is a shot of how it sits, the master cylinder is quite close to the inlet manifold but once again clear is clear Engine bay as it sits now So I finally have the engine bay plumbed, all of the brake lines, fuel lines, oil lines etc have been finished. No wait I tell a lie I still have to mount the coils, still its getting closer......

Cheers for the comments guys, Did a tig course at polytech a couple of years ago and then just been using it when I can, I would like to get a tig welder for home but my mig does everything I need for now plus most of the stuff I have to do is small stuff so can just take it into work. If you are serious about learning I would recommend doing a course, the one I did was something like 13 or 14 weeks for 3 hours on a Monday night and only cost about $300, money well spent.......

Been really slack at taking pictures of what I have been doing but heres a couple of small things Needed to convert the accelerator to a cable type as the anglia one is a bar that attached directly to the carb so after a bit of measuring etc I made this up, added some holes too it to try and make it look a bit cooler then the lump of flat bar that it is. Here it is sitting under the dash Then got part of a motorcycle clutch cable (I think) to bring the cable out The other small job I did was to the gearbox crossmember, as it happened the Anglia gearbox mount almost bolted straight up to the rx7 gearbox, I only had to slot the hole by about 1mm so I used the Anglia crossmember and managed to pick up on 2 of the original mounting holes as well. the front holes of the crossmember are attached to the rear holes in the body. I needed to add a couple of mounts so I cut some holes in the floor and added these bits inside the chassis rails. shown in place Then welded some patches in the floor and its all good

Its getting there, I have done the driveshaft loop and got the front intake and oil cooler finished and welded on. Repaired all the rust in the front of it which was an absolute ass so it is now just a matter of sorting the rust in the back. Unfortunately work has gotten busy so progress has slowed a little but next week I am going to spend some more time on it. I will try and get off my ass and post some pics

This year mate, I know I have been saying that for about the last 4 years, but this time it will happen, finished is a loose term though, I want to have it running and legal, the paint can come later.....

ha ha yeah, the Milton ones may have had an influence, it was about the easiest way that I could see to mount them. The list is still pretty long, This week I want to get my throttle cable and pedal sorted, I have to add an extension to the Anglia pedal which I made up today and will weld onto the pedal tomorrow. After that it is all the brake and clutch lines which I need to remake. Getting there though...... How's yours going? any progress?

Cheers, I am keen to have a look at your car as well, maybe check out that Milton 4 link and take some measurements.......

All sorted now, thanks guys. Rang Diggers, he reckoned that my best bet was to go to a motorbike wreckers and find something secondhand, got hold of KG Motorcycles and he hooked me up, just need to weld a bracket to my pedal and it will be another job off the list.....

Some more progress, bought some hose and fittings off Summit Racing in the US and got the oil cooler and thermostat plumbed in. Felixx was after some pics of a rear telescopic shock conversion, so here is mine, first pic shows the bracket on the diff, second is how the shock mounts at the top. Shocks are mk1 Escort, you can also wee how crowded the diff is with the brakes, shocks etc. If I was doing it again I would have put the calipers on the front of the diff And I dug the new driveshaft out of a corner of the garage, made for me by Circle Track Engineering, put it next to the factory Anglia one as a comparison

That would be good mate, The only thing I am unsure of with the bike ones is how I would mount it, a threaded end would be better.......

Yeah that is more like what I am after, I will cruise past a bike shop and have a look Cheers