browndog

Oh Gordon, didn't realise it was you! How you going over there? We (or rather my dad) had one of these when I was a little boy, I really loved it! Was a pale green colour going off my memory of it which was about 45 years ago! Any mods planned? Coyote V8 perhaps?

cool! I saw this advertised on the interwebs last year! Kinda quirky, and not a Kombi, I like it! Will follow your thread.

for those wondering what became of the old Tranny.............. My brother bought it, and took it to Tauranga. He has fixed the brakes, and a few other bits and pieces, given it a good clean etc. and got it running and driving well. As I type it is now on its way to Avalon TV Studios in Wellington for its first job, starring in a NZ film about gang life in the 60's and 70's, as a Police van!

I bought one of these Mk8 Transit Alcoa wheels,in 16x6 and 6x180. Going to try and fit them to the van. The plan is to fit a disc braked Mk7 DRW rear axle, with a ratio in the 3's. I will make adaptors or completely new hubs for the front to match the stud pattern. Tyres will be around 205/60x16 to get the circumference about right. I have always like the look of these style of wheels, and I think they will look badass on the old bus As an added bonus, they are 4kgs lighter per wheel than the 14x5.5' currently fitted!

How you going with this van, any updates?

no room for a front mount, so it has to be a W2A But at least it means I could run an ice box if I wanted to!

I think I will go straight to the intercooler! Problem is, I will have to mount the rad under the van, and duct it. There is no space up front. And I do like the look of the Whipple kit made by Yella Terra!.............. thank you cheers, it is much fun at the Auckland motorway on ramp traffic light Grand Prix

Went to Meremere Dragway yesterday for Oldschool drags! Despite the non appearance of a couple of my fellow Transit owners, I still had a blast! It was my first time on a proper dragstrip, so had to learn quickly which amber light to take off on! Second one seemed to work best for me! Started at 15.7, went around straight to the back of the queue, and each consecutive run got 1-2 tenths slower, my fourth run netting a 16.2! (reaction times all similar) Decided to park up and have a think about it. Checked engine, and supercharger was quite hot, 65°C according to the infra red thermometer I found in my toolkit. Tipped my bottle of water over it, and that dropped it to 45°. A couple of trips to the hose and back with my water bottle and had it down to 25°. Let the engine cool some more, went out with temperature gauge not even registering and did a 15.2! So into the DYO, I dialled myself in at a 15.1. Was first to line up, and car in opposite lane dialled in at a 15.8. I led from the green, engine felt really strong and crossed the finish line a few car lengths in front. (I was told later my time showed at a 15.1) My happiness was short lived when on the return road one of the officials told me the computer malfunctioned, and we would have to run again! So got turned around straight away for another run (engine hot by now) Got quite a good start, but this time so did the guy in the other lane! I was closing in on him by the finish line, but he beat me by a bonnet length, I crossed the line at a 15.45 So that was me eliminated. Anyway, was a great day, and I learned plenty about the van. A decent intercooler, some more boost and I will be back next year chasing 14's! thanks to guywithaviators for the great pic And big thanks to all of the people who helped organise an awesome day

couple of pics I took yesterday. My friend has just bought this original ex works mk2 Escort, which arrived at work in a container. Loaded up and about to be delivered to him!

I got the van back together yesterday, and drove it around today dropping off some parts for work. A few minor issues to sort, but it runs really well! Anything more than half throttle from a standstill will turn 2 of the 4 rear tyres into tyre smoke! The power steering is fantastic, although a bit "pointy" now, I will fit another castor wedge in there to try and help with this. The new big bore stainless exhaust sounds so sweet, not too noisy when you are cruising, but has a nice deep bark when you put the slipper in! Still need to fit the evaporator into the heater box and connect up the air conditioning, but other than that it is basically finished. Super happy with it! A few pics of the finished product: The pulleys run really close to the radiator fans! I also fitted a smaller pulley to the blower to up the boost to 10 psi Roll on OS drags Mk5! Big thanks to Muncie for the loan of the blower pulley tool Mk3 power steering box, with hybrid Mk2/Mk5 steering column: I needed to make an extra auxiliary wiring loom for the engine, and fitted relays to the headlights, and horn while I was at it. That is 7 micro relays, 4 mini relays and 16 fuses! I tried to make it look as "factory" as possible, so moved the battery tray to the RH side, and fitted the original airbox (which I had to modify a little bit) to the LH side.

New blower pulley arrived today - smaller pulley = more boost! I removed all of the wiring, pipework, radiator etc and gave the engine bay a paint in Ford Diamond white

awesome, sounds like a good deal to me, I appreciate that! I will message you when I am ready for it.

awesome, more boost is the next thing on the list once I have sorted everything and settled it in! (will be needing that for the OS Mk5 drags in December!) What do you want for that to buy/hire off you?

I have been busy on the van, and finally got it running and driving today!! Very impressed with the way the new engine goes, considerably more power and torque than the old engine. The first bootful I gave it left two big black lines from the RH side wheels! Sounds great too with the new big bore stainless exhaust To give an idea, my daily driver is a Mondeo ST220, which is a reasonably quick car. The Transit has very similar acceleration to the Mondeo, and jumps harder off the line, thanks in part to the shorter diff ratio, auto trans and higher power output. Anyway, still a number of jobs to finish off on it, but really nice to have my first drive in just over a year. The power steering is fantastic too -so light compared to the heavy manual box it had fitted the new Lokar shifter- nice piece but what a mission to fit and get working properly! and just after the test drive this afternoon. Engine cover not fitted, and still some tidying up and finishing off to do.

The other job, was to mount the ARB's. I had a pair of 27mm bars custom made, and mounted the front bar to the front axle, using the U clamps and brackets supplied. I made my own top mounts, and welded these directly to the front subframe that the engine hang off. For the rear bar I drilled through the shock mount brackets, welded captive nuts inside, and bolted the clamps to these. I made my own chassis brackets, and welded these on. That should stop the rockin' and rollin'!

been busy last week on the van! As you all know, the old Transits did not have fuel injection, and the fuel tank is not set up for this. So I built an aluminium collector pot, which the high pressure pump sits inside. A Facet low pressure pump lifts fuel from the tank, via the original pickup, and feeds into the collector, with a breather/overflow going back to the tank. The high pressure pump feeds fuel to the engine via a high pressure filter, and the return from the engine feeds back into the collector pot.

A real life genuine "barn find" then!!! Points and condensor same as any Cortina etc with Motorcraft distributor. But they will probably ask for the rego of your Cortina! .......... (Oh, check it is Motorcraft distributor and not Lucas (crap) )

A brief appearance on "Westside" tonight, looks like the big chase scene is coming next week!

pretty much yes. But leave yourself a bit of suspension travel. Not enough room to flip the axles on top of the leaves, despite what some internet experts will tell you. If you want to go real low then it is a major job. The rear on these sit quite high, you can lose 50-80mm of ride height, depending on where it is sitting at the moment. There were several different springs fitted to these vans, depending on the weight rating. If yours has 5 or 6 leaves in the rear, you can remove one or two, and that will lower it a bit, and soften the back up at the same time. They are designed for carrying heavy loads, and drive quite crap empty, as they sit too high and too stiff in the springing dept. The front not so much. Measure between the axle and bumpstops at either end. Leave yourself at least 50mm of bump travel. You can check out the "lowered" height before doing any mods by loading it up with wheels, paddling pools full of water (yes I have done that!) or anything else heavy You got it running yet?

Fuel pump has two one way valves. Won't work without them! At least the tank had fuel in it, and not full of water and rusty!

fuel pump has non return valve in it, otherwise diaphragm would just pump fuel back to the tank. Fuel line from pump to tank just runs back to the tank, and into the sender unit, no check valves or anything. It has a metal tube which is soldered into the sender unit, which runs to bottom of the tank, with a filter pushed on the end. Try sucking on fuel hose from tank, you should get a mouthful of fuel (not nice!) Or, remove the filler cap, and blow into the tank, fuel should come out of the fuel hose. Check for rusty tank, or (worse) tank full of water. Usually if left sitting for a week or more the line to the tank drains back, and the fuel in the carb evaporates, so takes quite a bit of cranking to drag fuel back up. Sounds like you have other issues though.

Just got the engine crossmember built. I wanted to make a proper crossmember with engine mounts welded to it, rather than the original style setup where the engine mounts just hang off the side of the chassis rails. So I got some 63mm black pipe bent to shape, drew the engine mounts and had them laser cut and folded, and got our fabricator to trim them and weld them up. Really pleased with the result, ties the chassis rails together, and is very strong.

appeared on last nights TV programme "The Dance Exponents" as the band van:

appeared last night on "The Dance Exponents" TV programme as the UK gardeners van

I received an email from photobucket yesterday, saying 3rd party hosting on my account had been temporarily disabled. Basically they want me to pay $399 to restore this service- they can get f$#ked! Please bear with me while I reload the pictures in this thread. Bastards! Edit: pics uploaded to the OS website, normal service has resumed. photobucket go fuck yourself!