mr.mk1's 1969 Escort Mk1 Coupe

[Mr.Mk1]

Painting in the garage means cleaning outside.

falcon diff for escort and H165 for 1200.

[Mr.Mk1]

Welds aren’t pretty but they are proper stuck. Gave them a quick grind and zinc sprayed. Stoked!

again, one side had a bit of a gap from the side to the tub and was gay to weld but got there eventually.. was more important the other 3 edges lined up honestly

[Mr.Mk1]

Cool, done! 

Just waiting for x member and some 2pot calipers from an NA 4 stud stagea, skyline etc to start mounting, mod tunnel and front panel, maybe area above diff.

[Mr.Mk1]

the PV skyline ones are big compared eh.

unfortunately I found another car on Facebook that’s very similar in colour to what I had in mind for all these years. Essentially, I’ll have more stripes and gold pearl.. so will press on with plan, lol. 

[Mr.Mk1]

Still chipping away in the very, very background.

Between the last post & now, it’s been decided this car won’t see the road again in my ownership. I haven’t even found a good set of black plates and tags in the 15 odd years I’ve had it!

Im just going to build what I want and take it to hillclimbs, track days and car shows, take it to work once in a while. It can just be a LifeSize model that’s fully functional. 

The money I’d have to spend to get back on the road legally is equal to what I need to finish it. This way I’ll be enjoying it sooner for less. Minus the revin stress.

I found an alternator and starter finally, a lead on sandwich plate too. I’d lost my skimmed flywheel from way back (I stashed it somewhere way too safe) so brought another and had it skimmed too. I do believe I forgot to mention before I left BNT I brought new bearings for each corner, caliper kits, pads, Uni joints, rotors etc. not knowing I was going into another parts job, I was able to score the bits I couldn’t get prior from the new place!

I re-discovered another set of mint badges.

And the build tag

Despite having 2 boxes, I had no fork or carrier or springs. Springs new via Amayama.

Split the Nissan calipers and cleaned up. 

Brake specialist thru work offered to blast them for me..I though that’s the last thing you’d want to do, but apparently no.  I’ll save his generosity for a job I can’t do, and used my wee home kit to knock the crap off bodies and fully blasted outer shells.(body not fully, still paranoid).

I filed off the casting marks too, kept me warm on a cold morning.

Blew the hell out of them and brake cleaned, Flicked some of the leftover caliper paint (I was disappointed with on datsun wheels) to seal. Will be a darker gold when finished.

3 out of 4 pistons were shit and it’s an odd size of 40.4 I can’t get, so will use a common smaller 40mm and change the seal out of the Sieken kit I already brought + linish pad side to be same height as stock.

 

The mrs sold her 302 so I got my engine stand back and hung the CA off it for motivation.

[Mr.Mk1]

I also got multiple ‘works escort’ Hillman imp front indicators and housings for something a bit different. 

[Mr.Mk1]

Put the clutch fork together and pulled the starter apart to clean, paint and lube. Cleaned the outside of the alternator too, Years ago I tried pulling one apart to polish it (I know) and it went crunch and was ruined instantly.

 

 

[Mr.Mk1]

Trying to get more project time in recently, all pretty sporadic and spread between many projects but all forward progress!

yes, it took ages and cooked my back feeding tape into the fins to retain the Look of wound Internals and stuff

 

kitted the calipers. Couldn’t get correct pistons Cheaply so matched by size 
To a Renault one and machined off bits off each end until they were functional.

the listing had a typo and it ended up measuring the exact diameter 40.4, chur.

also scored a sandwich plate.

unboxed all spares and sorted the best parts, doubles and rubbish (Some of my ‘New’ rubber gaskets was perishing) so now engine is basically packed for the machine shop.
Made a pile to sandblast and paint ( hubs, backing plates, brackets etc)

brought another timing belt, I’d sold mine a few years back when a mate was in a pinch after hours.

[Mr.Mk1]

 

[Mr.Mk1]

 

[Mr.Mk1]

I jumped in on some free powdercoating and had the Silvia and falcon (rear) covers done after I sandblasted them.

came out great!

 Decided to chuck them together for a pine and realised they dont clear the calipers (need to trim back the curved edges but not a lot)

 

and since it’s got larger discs, they sit hard up against them too!

c.l.e.v.e.r.  B.o.y
 

Live and learn

didn’t realise the discs were murdered out, it’s cool but was expecting nice clean raw look lol.

[Mr.Mk1]

Heeeey,

Used up a bunch of my lunch scrolling to find this thread again but now she’s be back on the first page and I hope to keep it there as I get back into this unit.

It’s been in my old flats garage the whole time nice and dry. I brought a house and sold the house and the escort never made it there! I did say a few times we should dig It out of the back corner of the very hectic shed but nothing happened.

Well I moved house and have sold the Coronet so have adopted my mates C10 skyline to finish restoring and try get on the road. There were heaps of parts in that garage behind the escort so with a cleanish schedule I dragged it all home. Have been moving every weekend for ages but hankering to have everything in one spot! Thought wheelbarrowing it would be easier but brakes seized so engine crane it was.

The skyline needed an engine. Its factory L20 but has a mostly built L31 stroker with all the fruit. We decided to  keep it original to get it over the line then add the cool stuff.

So 20 was dragged out of garden shed and onto a stand, sump and mounts swapped, clutch added and then into the engine bay so I had space to get the escort inside as with my daily. Shit yarn but explains why everything is a mess and I’m trying to slot stuff into skyline asap to make some space.

Have engaged Glen Durie to build the CA18DET as he’s done a few fast ones and knows tricks to help them oil and stay together. He was chokka but will drop it all off next week.

Have been looking into cam and crank trigger kits on Ross balancer, ECU etc.

[Mr.Mk1]

Have spent some time on research and made some lists.. ticked some things off a list! Have a cart full on the palmside website.

Spotted a mate selling the near new Bosch ‘1000’ injectors from his CA setup so grabbed those for a good deal. Complete with the CA adaptor cups. 
 

 Best deal on a Link monsoon was Simon at Surfab so swung in tonight and copped one. Honestly probably have him wire it all up to be fair. Great work, a link agent and has done mad numbers of engine swaps..Said he has some adjustable cam gears spare as well.

Had a dig in the spare room last night and organised all the bits I’d bagged and tagged 20 years back, bit of a stocktake if you like. Plenty to clean up and re-furb..can be fun wee jobs when I remember. Motor is at the shop too. 

 

[Mr.Mk1]

Fooo Palmside is a danger zone!

Came away with:

Bonnet rest rubbers

Headlight Bowl gaskets

Fibreglass front lip spoiler  

Boot rubber

Door rubbers

Outer Window seals

1/4 Window seals

Rear side glass rubbers

Door hinge pins 

and an ‘ah fuck it’ luxury purchase of full Mexico front guards.

Ive had since ages ago, some well made weld-in steel flares to attach to Standard guards (mine are pretty rough to be fair)

..and I also got expensive Fibreglass ones years ago too. Instant regret when they arrived with no mounting flanges (or filler panel down the A pillar) other than the one you see when you pop the bonnet. WTF

Ive since learned fibreglass tends to keep moving then degrades and I can’t have that under lovely paint on something as obvious as the front guards so I flogged them on trademe last week and recovered about half the Owage which was cool.

I was looking at my standard guards and they need all the flanges remade to attach to car as they were spot welds drilled. There’s old repairs to re-do along the pillar and bottom, the front edges are so thin they have split and the general shape is hours away from coming back so I picked up my balls and biffed them in the naughty corner.

https://imgur.com/a/1iAMu1m

Everyone watching probably already knows, but the RS/Mexico/Sport arch is maybe an inch wider and 2.5ish higher towards the midline than standard. 
Watch this momentous purchase backfire as future me cuts the guards to get wide wheels under with max slam..

Present me Wishes to utilise tyre stretch and camber to achieve this

 

[Mr.Mk1]

I WORKED ON IT!

Couple of days saw some progress. It’s more just re-doing and finishing what had been started ages ago but I’ll call it progress for mental health reasons! 
 

Circa 2008 I wanted to strengthen it up as much as I easily could (Rollcage will mess with the ascetic I’m aiming for but might be a thing depending how deep I get into Motorsport events?) so I seam welded everything I could reach and drilled plug holes between the spot welds in all the window/door/screen pinch welds.

Perhaps me, perhaps the welder didn’t like Schmutz between the layers; it welded fucking horribly. I postponed that shit and this weekend was when it was revisited. Now all the holes had surface rust in them and around them, joy. I whizzed a drill bit in each one to clean up the edge then pushed the car out and spot sandblasted each hole and orange bit as well. Fizzed them all up without much fuss this time and ground them all back, wire wheeled and got some aerosol etch on the bare steel + the back side. Also hammered any heavier pitting with the wheel and got some brunox on there..fantastic stuff.

I also zipped up the holes and slots in the rear parcel tray I don’t need and wheeled/ground/sanding-belted MANY other areas I’d uncovered ages ago and let get crusty, especially in engine bay.

*PSA go flick some spare paint on any bare bits of your project or parts cars. It will save you or the next guy so much fuckery in the future. Shit eats even in dry storage

Few more seams got stitched up..dash to A-pillar top and bottom, rear parcel to C-pillar top and bottom for instance

 

I’m having a CUNT of a time with Imgur lately, so sorry if the pics won’t show in the post 

[Mr.Mk1]

Grr

[Mr.Mk1]

Grr

[Mr.Mk1]

Grrr

[Mr.Mk1]

7 minutes ago, Mr.Mk1 said:

Grrr

Rawr XD