browndog

I asked my signwriter dude about vinyl on the side windows on mine, wanted perforated vinyl in gold, to match the body colour. Turns out it is only available in white, which would suit yours! Looks good even with signwriting over the top of it, and cuts out most light. I don't think it looks as good as panelled over, as you say you will still see the rubbers, but way quicker and cheaper.

thanks for the offer, I will keep it in mind. Too many other projects/work to sort at the moment, but might get back to you on that when I am ready cheers Conrad

nice work on the panels, and thanks for sharing Time for me to hunt out a rotten van that I can cut the sides out of for mine! cheers Conrad

wheels looking good, but will be fun to mask up! Coffee table, TV on, beer or 2, rolls of masking tape, scalpel and of course wheels. And don't let gf/wife/mum catch you

Chopper Bloody Read - I thought you were dead you bastard! As well as being an all round bastard, you are quite right too! As an example those Escorts pictured above would have 3-4° positive castor from factory. By jacking the back up the way they have, that figure would be around zero, give or take. I don't know if any of you have ever driven a car with zero castor, but it is bloody awful, not to mention dangerous! At any sort of speed it is nearly impossible to keep straight, it will dart from side to side. Steering becomes very light, and when you turn it just wants to keep on turning in tighter. And self centering of the steering wheel disappears. If you are unfortunate enough to have negative castor, and let go of the steering wheel, it will generally shoot off to one side all by itself.

I don't even think he has a phone where he works! It is a small Skyline garage at the end of a block of buildings, go to end of Parity place, turn left at nine o'clock in the cul de sac, between the buildings, straight ahead until you can't go ahead any further, then right and he is around the back. Only works until 3 pm though. But worth the trip!

wheels are 13x7, a rare size for Tridens, I have never seen this size before, and I regard myself as a bit of a mag wheel trainspotter! Tyres are 215/60 rear and 205/60 front, BF Goodrich Radial T/A's, no longer available in 13" unfortunately . I like tall sidewalls, not a big fan of really low (50's) profile 13's, to my eyes they look a bit small on most cars, apart from Mini's.... Lowering blocks are either 1.5 or 2" according to the eyecrometer , I haven't measured properly yet. Front is quite high, will do that first. Not quite sure that I am ready for the jacked up rear look yet! Never seen airshocks before? Thats showing your age! I think they were invented for people towing caravans, so that their car did not sit its bum on the ground when towing. Custom car people started fitted them to their cars in the 1970's and 80's to jack up the rear.(instead of, or as well as extended rear spring shackles) This meant no guard rub on those fat feet (spelt "fat" not "phat" back then!) and anyway, jacked up rears were "the look" back then, just as slammed cars are now:) Just like these fine specimens that I found; check out the rake on these bad boys! Probably all handled like shit, just as most slammed cars do nowadays, but the all important "look" was far more important back than anything else back then, just as it seems to be now!

M3 is ready if you want to come and take suspension pics sometime. Taking it to Taupo in a week for a new M3 launch for BMW NZ. It will be there for a week, then back at mine. The Escort is a bit of fun, but not THAT special. Not yet anyway!

Hi Shane, Jack at Metro polishers did them for me, $60+gst per wheel, and that includes getting the kerb rash out of 2 of them He has polished a lot of wheels and other parts for me over the years, top bloke, very reliable, does a good job, and not expensive. Yours will probably be less, as it is just the rim edge? He is in Parity place, Glenfield. I can also give you the details of a painter who will do the centres, and is not expensive. Polish first, mask, then paint next.

Got the Cheviot Tridens back from polishing last week, painted the centres and wells, and had the tyres fitted on. Bolted a couple on to see how they would look. Rear arches need flaring, and front needs lowering an inch or so, but appears to be plenty of clearance. What do you think, slot mags with white letter tyres, doesn't get more 70's than that does it? Or does it? I guess I could remove the rear lowering blocks and jack the back right up with airshocks, and paint the diff yellow, THAT would be the 1970's look! Now where did I put that brown leather jacket and those flares?

oooh, the firevan is a beauty! Looks like you even had a shave and put on a clean T shirt for the photo shoot Driven plenty of American muscle cars. I can appreciate the appeal they have for some people, but they just don't do it for me sorry! Has the Moosestang arrived??

give me a yell when it turns up, keen to see it!

yep, but at least the Escort is IN NZ, WOF'd and rego'd

Had a bit of a close call last weekend, driving around a two lane roundabout near Kumeu, in left hand lane, dad ,mum and kids in Rav4 in RH lane beside me, both of us taking same exit (two exit lanes off). Dad decides to switch lanes at the exit, only problem was I was there alongside him and muppet dad did not look or see me! I am hitting horn button while turning left to avoid him, and damn horn is not working! Anyway, I ended up with both LH wheels on the grass, and RH wheels climbing up the kerb before he sees me and moves back.I wound down the window and gave him a burst, he looked quite shocked, obviously in la la land and didn't see me there. Got home that night, repaired the horn only to discover it was a pathetic "beep beep" single tone horn that would'nt wake a spider sleeping inside it, so I found the LOUDEST airhorn I could find on TM and hit the "buy now" button. Stebel Nautilus Compact Truck Horn, 139DB at 300HZ of badness. Hooked it up to a battery, it is LOUD And picked up these today as well for a it of extra "added noise", a pair of RS2000 44 IDF's on original Ford manifold:) Conrad

No offence taken! I know the bubble arches aren't to eveyones taste, but I am okay with that:) And yes, they do look really good when done like the ones here, gives it a real "factory" look

I spoke to him about it before I bought it (I know him through our other strange obsession with old Transit vans which we share!) He purchased it from a guy in Hawkes Bay 5 or 6(?) years ago. It was painted all gold, with an airbrushed dragon on the bonnet. It ran on 17"s at the time, I remember it being for sale on Trademe, I didn't like it! . Jackson bought it, swapped the bonnet (he kept the dragon one) and painted the bonnet gold. The paint on the side of van was bubbling, through a preparation problem, so he decided to respray the sides in red, for the Alan Mann look.Swapped the 17's for a set of Minilite replicas, sorted the suspension and some other bits, then used it as a work vehicle for his plumbing business. Sold it to buy his Transit, to another friend of mine. I literally "tripped over" it a couple of weeks ago when I went to get a WOF on my Mk2 Cortina, and when told it was for sale bought it straight away. Conrad

nice fabrication/panelwork skills there

Jackson?? post some pics, I am interested to see how that goes. I have to panel in some side windows on a Transit van in a similar way too. Conrad

Hmmm, I better put in a remit at the next AGM!.............................

holy shitballs Batman, that is some serious rust repairs going on! Nice work!! The random side windows seemed to be a NZ thing, I am not sure if the dealers cut out the panel and fitted them, or if they were done at the assembly plant in Lower Hutt. The Transit vans that were built around the same time had exactly the same thing going on, nearly always had a window fitted in the side loading door on the LH side, and then randomly fitted side windows. A friend of mine has a Mk2 Tranny that had 2 windows on the LH side, and none on the right!!! Has since panelled over the LH side ones. Pretty sure the bubble windows were only factory fitted to the Sundowner. A few of those made it over here, I wonder how many survivied? Becoming quite sought after in OZ now. Fitted with 1.6 or 2.0 OHC, full headlining, high back bucket seats, plus those very boy-racer stripes!

can you pm me me details and price please? cheers sorry, read the club rules and constitution - full membership will only be granted to owners of COMPLETE vehicles in roadworthy condition. No crashed vehicles, trailers, or Vauxhall Viva's in drag will be accepted Forget about that dirty old Mustang and buy this instead, full membership to "the club" will be automatically granted http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=740757848

look forward to seeing it. Where do you plan to cut/weld the sides? I am thinking I might make the filler panels with a "joggled" step on the edge, cut the piece in between the windows out so it is like one big window hole, and glue the panel in with 3M panel bond (the stuff they glue new car panels on with) Should require minimum filler, and no distortion. Apparently stronger than spot welds if done correctly

Auckland, sounds like we might be able to start a "Mk2 Escort Van Owners Sub-section of OS":)

playing around on the computer, thought I would see what it would look like with side windows removed: with: sans: I quite like the "window delete" option, if only it were that cheap and easy to do in real life Conrad

OKay the rad is part fo the problem, the outlet is in the wrong place, and someone has bodgied the top hose. Here is a pic of my old RS2000, and shows what the top hose should look like. And a standard RS200 for comparison: It is possible your engine is mounted too far forward, or has the wrong rad fan. The engine does fit in there, but its tight!