Jump to content

Phlex's 1968 Cortina MK2


PHLEX

Recommended Posts

The minor touch ups here and there have continued when I find the time.

I had replaced the dented Mk2 tank with a tidy Mk1 tank temporarally while I kept an eye out for a Mk2 tank in better condition, it fits the hole but you cant connect up the filler properly as its on the wrong angle and also a different size so I left a mk1 filler attached but just had it in the boot for now. First time I filled it up I found pretty quickly it had a hole in the top, fixed that with some knead it only to find fuel slop every time I moved the car, eventually getting frustrated and removing it to find 3 more holes on the very edge of the tank so the Mk2 tank is now back in and ill put up with the dent until I find a good condition one!

Got the "F" and "O" installed on the boot, didn't have any of the clips so wrapped a bit of electrical tape around the pins and used some foam tape to hold them in place. You'd never know!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Over a month between updates due to chasing my tail trying to find the source of the vibration coming through the driveline at anything above about 70KPH.  Fortunately due to a couple of mates who have cortinas and lots of assistance from my tech post here on OS we managed to figure out the issue was that when I replaced the modded rear leaf springs with some factory springs in much better condition it raised the car around 15mm which was enough to pull the driveshaft out of the gearbox that much too far to allow it to wobble at speed. We eventually removed the shaft and towed the car up to 90kph and it was smooth which pointed us to either the gearbox output shaft or the driveshaft itself. Having already replaced the UJs in my shaft and trying a friends one I decided to try the old springs back in before spending money and it solved the issue!!  Big thanks to everyone who assisted with that. 5 pages of good advice and the answer was actually on page one but it took me a while to try that.

IMG_6512.JPGhere's a pic of the testing rig I set up to check the run out of the rear wheel axle flanges

 

Silver lining from this is I have now replaced every bush in the car (previously only the fronts had been done), brand new gearbox mount as the old one was soft and oil soaked, checked and replaced the rear axles to a pair with less wobble (wasn't the issue), replaced the universal joints in the driveshaft, spanner checked the entire car and found a few loose-ish bolts that needed a nip up and the long term fix for the driveshaft wobble is to lower the car at least an inch which was always my plan along with widened steelies.

I picked up some second hand front king springs which have dropped the front end 55mm giving 150mm ground clearance to anything structural on the stock wheels. I have ordered some 2" blocks for the back to match it to the fronts height.  The front shocks will need to be shortened to keep the springs captive but I'm going to do some driveway testing before I commit to the height as my driveway is a bit of a prick and as this will eventually be a daily driven car I don't want to be scraping!

IMG_6564.JPGMassive difference between stock and king springs. I see why they state you need shortened shocks!

 

Still got plenty of work ahead of me to get the Cortina where I want it. Few more interior touch ups, pillar trims and a stealth stereo install and then its time for an exhaust and a rejet to get the potential out of the engine!

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Managed to get a bit more done over the past week in between work and other projects.  On Saturday removed the old rubber spring bushes from the good leaf springs, replacing them with nolathane bushes since the whole front end has already been done in nolathane.  The rear bushes basically fell out but the fronts were in there so well they required fire so there's now a nice burnt rubber patch on the grass at the workshop!

IMG_6574.JPG

Last night I got stuck back into removing the saggy old springs to install the good ones back in, replace the shackle bushes in the rear with nolathanes and swapping out the old tired rear shocks in favour of some Monroe replacements. Finished the passengers side and decided to leave the drivers for another night, All going well I should receive my lowering blocks today and can finish and road test when I get home!

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

wow another 3 month stint without update.  Back in March I finished the rear suspension and installed the lowering blocks which had arrived that day. Unfortunately due to the "good" leaf springs being a bit firmer the vibration is back, but only between 80 and 95KPH which is manageable.  Handling has improved significantly and I can live with the vibration for now as its not being driven much.  I will get the driveshaft lengthened by 1" at some point soon to get rid of the shake for good.

Not much else has been done in the past few months as I've been working on my Skyline race car instead, that was treated to a new engine and a bunch of upgrades to get ready for next season so that hasn't left much money or time for the Cortina. Fortunately its quite happy sitting warm and dry in my garage at home.

Current plans / dreams for the Cortina when time and money allows:

- Lengthen driveshaft
- Replace front shock inserts with shortened units
- Widen rear wheels 2' and fronts 1" and paint to match green interior, ditch outer chrome trims and just run centre hub cap (one needs replacing)
- A and B pillar trims to buy / make (white vinyl)
- Rebuild and tune carburettor (Weber 32/36)
- Electronic Ignition upgrade
- Semi sealed headlights / LED everything
- Stereo install either in glove box or in the dash where the ash tray currently is

 

No new photos since the lowering was complete but ill put some up next time I go for a cruise.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

Another winter gone without much of an update. Now here I am sitting a week out from Christmas and i've decided its time to get the old girl legal for summer

 

Only real updates since june is I started making Pillar trims for the A and B pillars and all I can say is im glad I bought 1.5m2 of vinyl as ill need to have another crack at the drivers A pillar once i've perfected my technique on the others.

yesterday I finally purchased some shock inserts and am I talks with somebody who can hopefully shorten them a bit for me. Fortunately they are alredy 10mm shorter than the ones I pulled out so we don't need to take as much off.

Today I went and got everything to give it a service since its hasn't had an oil change in about 18 months so I don't want to start driving around without doing that.

Also hoping santa will bring me a good bonus this quarter so I can buy a new carb from weber specialists as I feel the one i'm currently running isn't doing the engine justice

 

IMG_6249.JPG.eb53aa97bff494aaa35985228e0a9452.JPG

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Bit of an update for the new year. 

Decided it was time to get the thing legal for what's left of summer.  I had been at a bit of a hurdle of the front springs not being captive and had done some research into what shorter inserts fit in and found whatever I used would need a spacer made to sit under the shock and a collar made to make up the difference in the shaft thickness into the top hat which I wasn't keen to do. Shortening factory shocks was another option but the first 2 engineers I talked to wouldn't entertain the idea because the shaft would be too short and could end up passing the seal in the body. I posted on here about my dilemma and @Beaver raised a great point that once the springs are in the shocks it'll be impossible for them to ever compress far enough to cause a problem.  He also recommended @Steelies who came to my aid instantly and got them completed before Christmas for me.  I now have a car that's about 3" lower than factory and completely captive and brand new shocks and bushes throughout the car which has made it handle significantly better than before

On Friday I went down and got a WOF because im a lot more motivated to improve the car when I can actually drive it.  All it needed was an indicator bulb which turned out to be a loose wire, got that sorted and drove it home legally

Since it was Christmas I decided to order a few goodies for the car. First up was a manual choke conversion to switch the 32/36DGEV from the shitty water choke that's never worked to a manual choke which is currently sitting redundant. This will make it much easier to start and idle and i'm sure my neighbours will be thrilled that I wont need to warm it up for 5 mins before attempting to get up the driveway.

Secondly I decided to get hold of an electronic ignition conversion. These range in price on trade me from $150-250 depending on what seller has them listed. I went to eBay instead and found one ex UK for $68 NZD shipped which I will team up with a GT40 coil once it arrives.  I also have plans to change to an electric fuel pump to relieve the factory glass bowl type from service. I can get one of these from Repco relatively cheaply

When driving the car on Saturday I noticed the factory temp gauge is coming to about 1/4 temp and sticking there so I installed a cheap temp gauge in place of the old mechanical gauge that's never been hooked up and has the complete wrong fitting for the engine. Seems the little 1600 x/flow gets to about 90deg while driving and creeps near 100 when sitting. I plan to get a electric fan on a thermo switch to ensure it doesn't get any higher. A bit of research tells me the temps are fairly normal for the old iron engines but since I drive from the Hutt Valley to Waikanae quite frequently I don't want to overheat if I get stuck in traffic. I've also got an alloy radiator that was made for a escort race car sitting around that I might be able to modify slightly to fit in place of the stock one which I'm sure will help!

 

Once again I've been slack and not taken any photos so will ensure I get some of the upgrades before the next post

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Small update for a Thursday afternoon. Aside from the exhaust coming off the centre hanger due to the scrape going out of my driveway each morning and banging on the diff at random I couldn't be happier with how the Cortina is going, Been driving it to and from work and absolutely love the looks and smiles it gets driving round.

Picked up a GT40 coil and an electric fuel pump today in preparation for the next lot of upgrades. Hoping to see my manual choke conversion within the next few days which will make it a bit easier to start in the morning and the electronic ignition conversion shouldn't be far behind it.

Hopefully ill get under it tonight and rejig the centre exhaust hanger so it stops coming off and start writing a shopping list of bits to do the electric fuel pump conversion. Plan at this stage is to put it on a relay on the key and then have a hidden kill switch somewhere as well as a bit of extra security

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Saturday night and I'm sitting at home sober-ish

Choke conversion arrived yesterday so had a go at installing that when I got home. Got it all installed and working on the carb and can manually operate it open and closed. Also found a vacuum line had come off which was causing a shit idle so put that back on and it was night and day difference.  Unfortunately the choke cable is too frail and missing too many strands to open the choke butterflies so I have ordered a solid core cable to replace it which will hopefully work.  The cortina had also blown out the exhaust manifold gasket yesterday on the way to work and since I wanted to go cruising I slopped some RTV on it and that solved the issue - for now im guessing 

Last night when driving home I had to stop half way up the hill I live on to let the carb bowl refill once again, this had happened once before last week and I had put it down to being low on fuel, this time there was plenty of fuel so it was pretty obvious the stock mechanical fuel pump wasn't keeping up.

I jumped in the car after breakfast this morning and went down to repco to grab some fuel hose and try to find a fitting to convert the standard fuel pump inlet side -plastic tube running through a brass fitting. They didn't have any female fittings that looked right but I had a brainwave while I was at the counter grabbing the rest of my bits and thought id grab a female compressor fitting just in case that'd do the trick. 

Got home and thought id give everything a dummy run before making permanent connections so unscrewed the inlet to the pump and hey presto it was the same size and pitch as the $4 compressor fitting. The barb side fit into the fuel hose with a bit of persuasion and the fuel pump test did the trick. 

I had been thinking over the best place to install the pump itself knowing most people install them in the engine bay but I am trying to keep a fairly original classic look so had thought about putting it inside one of the guards but upon opening the instructions that came with the pump it recommended being as close to the tank as possible so I made the decision to run it under the car by the tank. Install was fairly easy using a  relay taking main power from a circuit breaker at the battery end and a switch hidden under the dash providing fused power from the "on" position of the key to trigger the relay. 

Totally forgot to grab a fuel filter while I was out so back down to repco and grabbed a couple of inline universal filters, installed one before the pump and will install another in the engine bay but i ran out of enough hose to do it tidily so that one can wait a few days until I get some more and some sort of bracket for it

IMG_7915.thumb.JPG.f94f5d3b1e2508bbe51b23b5e7b501d2.JPG

[Photo showing fuel pump installed up in the cavity just behind the tank ensuring its not in the path of the diff bolted through to the boot]

IMG_7916.thumb.JPG.1dce640d75c6244c0d250f35fa07803b.JPG

[Photo showing the fuel filter installed. Second time I was fortunate to get fuel in my armpit today. Glad that's done!]

Road tested absolutely fine and even tested turning the override switch off while driving up the hill, waiting till it splutters and flicking the switch back on it comes back to full acceleration within seconds which is a major improvement of what I was dealing with before 

Installed my Bosch GT40 coil today as well, nice simple swap over from the ancient Lucas coil and am now ready to go for then the electronic ignition conversion arrives hopefully next week

Have been having some issues with one of my wipers coming off at random which after some research I have found out was due to how they were removed by the previous owner so am currently only running a wiper on the drivers side and have been looking for a replacement pair but not having too much luck at the moment 

Also managed to stop the centre exhaust hanger from coming off every time i go over a bump and spent some time replacing the springs in my bonnet release because the bonnet has been popping up at random, Still plenty to do but loving driving it everywhere and learning heaps about the car!

 

Oh and here's a couple of snaps of the cortina out and about yesterday IMG_7911.JPG.dfa1d547fc3a8f86e8362b14b358d2b6.JPGIMG_7910.JPG.ab79a4ff25e7bc908a8d124ac855cd33.JPG

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ran into some issues yesterday heading down the hutt motorway towards my lockup where I found as soon as I got into 4th the car felt like it was running out of fuel, changed back down to 3rd, same issue, 2nd, same issue so pulled over expecting the engine to die but it kept idling away happily. Sat for a couple minutes, cant see any faults so took off again, once again found it dying after not long after getting up to speed, pulled over again, this time drove down the gravel onto the riverbank and got out, checked under the bonnet, checked for leaks all along the car, pumps happily chugging away. Another few minutes of idling and took off again, got to 100, same thing happens. Super frustrating!

Managed to limp to my lockup by pulling over every so often where it was safe to do so and was absolutely fine when I got back to the 50k roads.

Got to the lockup, found absolutely nothing wrong, checked the pump wiring and all connections thoroughly, cant find an issue so set on my way back home and seems to be ok through the 50, then the 80 and at this stage i'm thinking maybe there was just some air in the system, get to 100 and bam back to dying. I pull over half way home and chuck some more petrol in which I have been carrying even tho I have half a tank, take off again and seems ok but same issue again a couple k's later. I managed to get it back home by staying under half throttle.

Pulled the fuel line off the carb and point it into a petrol can and turn the pump on and I'm getting constant flow without any spitting or anything nasty so think for sure its the carb but realised it seemed to be taking a very long time to fill up the 5L can as its rated to 1.5L per minute at 4PSI max so I went and got a litre jug and timed it filling that. With good charge in the battery although engine not running it took 1:16 to fill the 1L jug which I worked out at 52% of its rated efficiency. I also chucked on a fuel pressure regulator with a gauge and it wasn't even registering 1psi with the other end blocked off.

Highlight from this is that I was able to use the pump to drain 20L of fuel back out of the tank (so I don't get sprayed when I take the pump out) and my gauge reads correctly and it goes past the E without starvation which is awesome as i've never really known.

 

Anyway, off to Repco to try and sort this pump out. Will make sure I bench test the replacement before I install it as i'm sure this isn't good for the engine!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another Monday update.  Managed to get hold of a replacement pump on tuesday which flows slightly better than the original but still nowhere near the "1.5 litres per minute" freeflow maximum that it advertises on the fuelflo website, wondering if its old stock and has since been improved but the same part number? Anyway I fit the new pump with a new filter to be safe, went for a test drive and same issue again, not filling the carb up fast enough for wide open throttle usage or uphill journeys - my house being at the top of a hill with only motorway access so a bit useless!

Chucked the car back in the garage and left it for a few days, unsure what to do as I know of 2 others who use this same pump on similar sized engines, one even has twin carbs.  I went back out on Friday and used a multi meter to check for voltage drop, nothing found so its definitely the pump causing the slow flow. Got to work reinstalling the original pump, at least that makes the car drivable.

Had a brainwave as well since the flow on the electric pump seems to be 1psi maximum at around 750ml per min I left it in line and flicked it on before starting the car with a dry mechanical pump which almost instantly primed it for me (saved about a minute of cranking), I went for a drive down to the motorway with the electric pump turned off and it drove fine, did a bit of 100kph driving as normal and no issues, made it about halfway up the hill and it started bogging, flicked the switch for the electric pump and got power back instantly. That basically solves the issue I had in the first place anyway. I drove all the way to work this morning with only the mechanical pump and have been out at lunchtime with no issues so I think ill leave it inline for when it needs a bit of a helping hand.

Also received my new solid core choke cable which has a bit more oomph to push the choke back open about 90% of the time. Im going to whip up some sort of spring to help it open 100% of the time so I'm not wasting fuel

Finally my electronic distributor parts arrived at work over the weekend so I'm going to get those installed over the next couple of days, the instructions are a little vague but im sure there's info sheets online

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Few courier deliveries over the past week saw the old girl get a little bit of attention over the long weekend. I finally have two working windscreen wipers again thanks to Rex at Classic Car Mirrors and Accessories who managed to find me some OEM replacements. I opted to modify these slightly by drilling holes in the end and riveting on adaptors to run standard Japanese type wiper blades, these being $6.25 each versus $75 for a pair of flimsy chrome classic type.

IMG_7987.JPG.d793938a1c79a2eaa816fd1f39d739a9.JPGIMG_7986.JPG.8cdfd662137f5b114f3f68cc183e2147.JPG


Last night I finally got round to installing the electronic ignition kit I got off eBay. This was not nearly as daunting as I thought it was going to be, simple removal of the points and condenser and install of a keyed ring onto the dizzy shaft and the pickup screws into existing holes once you figure out the orientation. Only tricky bit was I had to unscrew the base plate of the dizzy to allow enough room to pull the wires through.  Got it all wired up as per instructions and fired first pop. Noticable improvement straight away, seems to have a bit more pep as well so wondering if the points were starting to get tired.

IMG_7983.JPG.8aa23ef838bcbdf439f09e93a51aca0c.JPGIMG_7985.JPG.ebe2394ee974591bbc23d48e8d5b19e2.JPG


Still a few things I'm wanting to do over the next few months but pretty happy with the progress and its perfectly drivable. I have bought some shallow mount component speakers to install into the front doors and a mechless shallow mount stereo but I am still torn between cutting a hole in the dash or making a bracket to sit it under the dash so am holding off for now while I decide because there's no turning back once I cut a hole through the dash!

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Although the last couple of weeks have seemed like 2 steps forward one back I have achieved a little bit on the Cortina in between other jobs.

I have had major fuelling issues for a few weeks now, initially installing an electric pump to try and combat them which worked for a few days and then the same issue came back.  Thanks to the help of a few guys in the tech talk section I have now replaced my tank with a spare from a Mk1 so although the fuel gauge is now very inaccurate I have managed to stop all the leaks and now have constant fuel flow so at some stage over the next week or two I will re-remove the mechanical pump as the electric is now doing its job properly.

Back when I first got the Cortina I bought a set of imperial tools as I knew I was going to need a lot of different sized spanners and sockets which I don't normally use on my Nissans and Euros so I got a small 2 draw tool box which has usually lived in the boot of the Cortina. I had an idea a while back that we should make a bracket to hold this into the boot so it doesn't roll around (it already had once and dented the side of the car). We had a bit of downtime one evening so whipped up a bracket from 20mm angle iron that fits the base of the toolbox and bolted it to the car using 6x M6 bolts with the middle ones running through a short camlock tiedown to hold it down. Definitely worth the muck around because although the Cortina hasn't needed anything other than a timing adjustment, I have pulled the box out twice to help with somebody else's car where I normally wouldn't have been carrying tools!

IMG_8014.JPG.28890bf99517fbea546893e73b171765.JPG

On Friday I had a bit of free time waiting for a friend to turn up so I finally got round to installing the new oil pressure sensors I bought a while back. The previous owner had completely removed the factory oil light sensor and replaced it with a cheap mechanical gauge which I am sure is very inaccurate so I have now hooked up the factory oil light which works as it should and for good measure (and to retain gauge symmetry) I have made a start on installing an electronic pressure gauge which matches the temp gauge I installed a few weeks back.

 

IMG_8052.JPG.9e39d416650ee0d1428c1fa5111da944.JPG

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...

Few years between posts but I'm still here!

There's been a couple of big gaps between any sort of progress, mostly due to losing motivation not being able to find certain parts. Bit of an update ahead and I will try to backfill some photos where I can.

Early 2019 I made a start on preparing the Cortina to be used as our wedding car. This was going to include its first drive further than 20km and with other people driving it so I needed to make sure it was going to be reliable. First issue I had was over about 80kph it felt really floaty and generally unstable. I took it down to get an alignment and was told lowering the front had caused the front wheels to shift too far back in the guards which was causing it to float around.  He suggested trying to get some castor adjustment to bring them back forward.  Unfortunately easier said than done as this is the swaybar and nobody seems to make adjustable units for the Mk2 that ship to NZ.  After speaking with a friend who has had the same issue with his Mk1, he gave me some instructions and we set about modifying the original item to move the wheels forward. Back on the alignment machine and came up significantly better. Can now do a bit over 100kph without issue.

Next annoyance was the vibration I had been trying to remedy, Eventually we diagnosed this as the pinion angles of the gearbox and diff which is why putting the saggy old springs in took the issue away. With the help of some diff alignment shims I managed to get this vibration to almost disappear other than a small wobble off throttle at about a 10kph window between 80 and 90kph which was livable. I also took the time to install some semi sealed lights on relays to take the load off the factory wiring. Major improvement over the old sealed units!

A friend helped me give it a really good cut and polish to make sure it was looking its best for the photos and it performed the duties well. The morning after the wedding we found a small but noticeable puddle of coolant under the radiator so it sat in my parents garage for a few weeks while a replacement alloy radiator made its way over from the UK so I could drive it the hour home.  I coupled the new radiator with an electric fan and thermo controller in case its ever needed in traffic.

February 2020 I decided to  blow the dust off and get it to British car day. I hadn't done any work on it for a while so decided to re wire everything forward of the firewall and wire tuck as much as possible. This stemmed from the quick job I did wiring in the brighter headlights  This went really well, i was super stoked with my work and the modern fuse box has plenty of spare spots for extra wires later down the track. The day before the event it was all legal and ready to go and i decided to pop out for a quick drive and I hadn't latched the bonnet properly which meant as soon as I got to about 30kph going down the street it flew up, fortunately stopping vertical before hitting the windscreen. Whoops!!!  Took it off and banged it back straight to get to British Car day. 

Morning of British car day I met up with a few other small fords and we had a bit of a cruise on the way to the event. It became very apparent the gearbox was in desperate need of some attention as the bearings got noisier and noisier during a run through the hills and the vibration got to the point of unbearable.  Fortunately the event was 5 mins from home so after parking up for the day it wasn't too far to limp home.

 

IMG-1040S.jpg

IMG-1029S.jpg

IMG-1320S.jpg

IMG-1327S.jpg

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right so the only notable update between Feb 2020 and Feb 2021 was during covid lockdown a gent in Levin listed up a few old gearboxes for sale he had hoarded for 20 years or so, one was a Type 3 and a suitable replacement so the deal was done and as soon as we went to L2 I drove up and collected it. I got the noisy one out and noticed straight away there were some differences as the replacement was an earlier unit, most likely from a mk1 GT, the most annoying being the slave cylinder was different and the one supplied with the box was buggered. The bellhousings also couldn't be swapped over for some reason which I cant remember.  Anyway I managed to source another used slave and rig up a line to make it work. Took it for a drive, nice and quiet and a lot less vibration-y than the previous box so that was a win. One thing that I just couldn't get to work right was the clutch needed a couple of pumps to work which made it a pain to drive, so it sat for almost another year while my skyline got all the attention. 

 

Fast forward 9 months to Feb 2021, Trade me is doing free selling for vehicles.... Yes i'm going to be that prick and "test the waters" so I listed the car with a list of what i know it will need for a WOF, put a realistic price on it comparable with others in similar condition. The following day as British Car day again so i "transported" it down there and had several people come up to me telling me not to sell it (had been up for 20 hours by this point)  On my way out of British Car Day the diff started clunking so took it home to investigate and the pin had started walking out of the diff. Fortunately I caught it in time and managed to fix it (or so I thought).  After hanging out with a few other small fords I got motivated and decided to work my way through the list starting with getting the clutch sorted. After a bit of mucking around I found it was just massively mis-adjusted so was a relatively easy fix. By this time I had received a fair few serious offers for the car but none at my "absolute bottom dollar" and couldn't bring myself to sell it cheap. General consensus was it would sell easier with a WOF so I took it off the market and kept working through my list. 

 

Next job was to fix some rust in the boot floor and mount the tow bar I have had sitting around for about a year as it fouled on the exhaust so I never got round to fitting it.  Rust was fairly easy to sort, Bit of upside down welding to keep me on my toes. I jerry rigged the rear muffler mount with some cable ties ready to drive down to a friends workshop to replace the very rusty exhaust. I'm getting too old for long periods of time under the car so a hoist was a must for this. I'm fairly new to welding and this was only the second exhaust I had made from scratch so altho the welds are ugly i'm happy with my efforts. 

 

IMG-1544S.jpg

IMG-1548s.jpg

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Had my new external starter solenoid show up yesterday so whipped the starter out to switch in the "period correct" unit. Typical old car problems, worked fine on the bench but once in place it is not spinning fast enough to engage the teeth onto the flywheel (yes the tooth count is right, have done that before!)  

So back out it came and I pulled out my box of spare newer starter parts and set about matching the best solenoid and starter. Worked perfectly on the bench but murphy's law once installed the solenoid doesn't want to kick. Toys thrown and went inside for the night. No pics as you all know what starter motors look like. 

 

Next on my agenda is improving the handbrake. I checked the shoes the other evening and theyre still in reasonably good health. I freed up the adjusters and tightened it right up. The cable running the length of the car is on max adjustment and looking tired / I suspect stretched so will try and find a NOS cable or have one made at a best guess length and I have found replacement plastic pulleys available on eBay. At least one is buggered so will inspect the others and get ordering.

  • Like 4
  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I got exactly 1 start out of my thrown together starter motor before my last living solenoid decided it was ready to retire. Pulled it back out and bench tested and its toast. Bummer!

I pulled my inertia starter apart and gave everything a good clean and its working fine on the bench. After a bit of online research I found that even tho both starters have a 10 tooth pinion and look identical size the inertia requires a 110 tooth ring gear rather than the 132 tooth I had offered it which is why it didn't engage when I tried it.  Ill add here my car is supposed to run the inertia starter, the pre engagement its currently using JUST fits but requires the solenoid to be installed separately which is very fiddly as it is extremely close to an engine mount. Most high torque aftermarket units state they do not fit Mk1 or Mk2 Cortinas for this reason.

Not wanting to muck around too much and my quick search for the correct flywheel coming up short I opted to order a new ring gear to fit to a spare flywheel. This means I will have both options moving forward and keeps the door open for an aftermarket unit in the future .  Hoping this shows up today and I will take some pics of the process. EDIT: Has shown up right now so there will be pics later. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...