escortu's 1974 Ford Escort MK1

[escortu]

Since i am new i thought i would post my plans for the old escort. It is a 1974 MK1 1300l

It was on trademe for a long time and eventually i went for it and bought it off an old lady down in whakatane! absolutely mint condition 1300 AUTOMATIC ohhhh yea bigger trans tunnel

That same day we detoured to Otorohunga and picked up:

the good old 2 litre Sierra 205 mill along with

Celica 5 speed box

bell housing to fit sierra

1 piece drive shaft

diff and diff housing from sport model

radiator

extractors

holey fuel pump and regulator

and all ignition and components to get it to run apart from intake and lines and cables

The block has been bored 40thou i think

ported head new rings and bearings and reconditioned alternator!

and all for $2100 and not run at all!

So at the moment shes on stands taking up our whole garage and i am stripping all parts as i am putting on bubble guards and respraying in the near future will keep you posted on progress with body work!

[escortu]

Well i have been pretty bloody slack on the posting side of things but on the car side of things i have been hard out! plus i finally worked out how to post pics and not just shitty links! so here it is my last year or so of hard work.

This is one of the mk2 struts with new brembo discs 4 pot austin princess calipers, Dobi Low springs and KYB Gas shocks. I ended up buying the mk2 tie rods off trade me as the mk 1 tie rod end seamed to not work with the mk2 struts. Also nolathane bushes throughout NOT CHEAP!

I have a million more photos to put on but my internet is stuffed so they will come in the near future.

Finally after a few too many months of body work putting the guards on! i originally got a quote of $2100 for the fibre glass guards to be put on which before i started was insanely expensive but after all the work to try get them as mint as possible it didnt actually seem too bad!

In these pics it still needs lowering all round i ended up getting the leaves reset 2 inches lower but wasn't happy so got 1 inch lowering blocks which i have in at the moment but i still think it could be lower:)

So at this stage i hadn't had too many problems but these were the problems i encountered:

The Toyota 5 speed (out of a very early cressida or celica i have been told) is extremely hard like two of us under the car wiggling and levering back and worth and also turning the driveshaft to get it to locate!

also we had no problems with the tunnel as it was auto previously but the only thing we had to do was cut a small notch out of the strengthening rib which runs behind the gear lever hole. Another problem with the gearbox was that the input shaft did not locate into the spigot bearing in the engine so we had to get a bush made up and heat treated (lucky dad works at Air new zealand then we heated it up in the oven and jammed it on the end of the input shaft MISSION!

UMMM what else o yea had to lower the alternator as i have kept the booster (this has already been shown in 2 litre into escort post) but instead of welding a bracket to lower it about 2 inches we used a plate which the alternator bracket bolted to and which bolted onto the block.

well thats all i can think off at the moment from the past, now the escort looks like this:

At the moment the escort is off the road again! i noticed the clutch was starting to get dodgy and felt quite jerky not smooth at all, so we took the cable out and being by exhaust the internal cable was black and crispy!!!! definately didnt have long to go. So we are putting in an hydraulic system which i am trying to get info on.

Also radiator was poked so got a new one from Paul from Railside wreckers in henderson if you are in auckland you should check him out he deals mostly in ford gear and usually has what you need.

Lastely while off the road i decided to sort out the interior so picked up some fishnets off trademe and will sort out some new carpet and get the back bench covered!

will post heaps more picks soon once our internet gets sorted!

[escortu]

These are the recaro fishnets that i got off trademe the other day! just got to modify the mounts for the escort rails and get them recovered not going for anything too fancy just black with a bit of orange here and there!

[escortu]

internet fixed at home sweet so dug up more pics from build up plus will take more later.

a few more of original styles seems like fucken ages ago was rolling three speed auto!!

and this is pretty much when the horror started stripping out the old girl was fully depressing:(

So with the bubble guards had to semi tub the rear before/after thanks to my brother n law for fabrication abilities

Ok just some random pics now over the build

[escortu]

[escortu]

Don't know if this will automatically go to a new page cos this pag is gettin a bit big i think! ah well c how it goes! I took some more pics last night of whats going on. At the moment changing the interior, i painted the woodgrain panels with gloss black.

Also close up of the lowered alternator plate