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Hurmeez' 1977 Mk2 Escort Estate


Hurmeez

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Ten days since the last update! Time flies when you're busy as fuck...

School has just finished and I've been trying to focus on my exams but in between I've still been working away. Actually, I have to come clean on something. The adapter plate hasn't been coming together quite as smoothly as I made it look. The positions of the holes that receive the locating pins were very slightly out, along with a couple of the other holes. They were close enough to fit with encouragement on the cardboard but it was in no way acceptable to put it into steel. So that means the dimensions I found online weren't quite right for the engine side, however, the bolt pattern for the gearbox side was dead nuts on. It was absolutely doing my head in trying to find the right dimensions for the engine so I decided to take a step back for a second. The one option that I wasn't considering was staring me in the face. I could just measure the damn thing myself. Obviously, while vernier calipers are ok for guesstimations, they aren't nearly accurate enough to get the precise hole positions that I need. Now, while I'd love to say I just slapped the engine on the CNC mill table and swept in the XY coordinates, in reality, I haven't actually got around to designing and building the machine yet, so I took the engine down the road and asked one of the local machine shops nicely to do it for me. They were more than happy to and I'm going down tomorrow morning to pick it up. 

Between me being annoyed at inaccurate online drawings and making the decision to outsource it, I wanted to do something to get the engine and box together in the meantime to help me start mocking up the new tunnel. So I found some 16mm MDF and drew in a few bolt holes as accurately as the vernier would allow. Then I drilled them out well oversize and chucked a couple of bolts through where they'd fit. Once it was reinforced with a couple of clamps it was solid as (ish). mTp0R89.jpgIt did feel bloody good to at least get it looking close to how it should. 

With the engine and box all together I slung them both roughly into place. CUaaRdl.jpg Sits a nice long way back  PXAkDQp.jpg But not far enough obviously. 

The bell housing was fouling the tunnel and not allowing it to sit as far back as I want it to. So I bit the bullet and made a small hole into a really bloody big hole. RxgUZLk.jpg This made everything fit much nicer. TUpijzi.jpg KKeJt6y.jpgThis is the box roughly in position with the shifter in 4th. Even with the stick in the position most likely to foul the hand-brake, there is plenty of space for activities. Also note the stock Escort boot in place. I reckon it'll be cool to have everything looking close to stock until you pop the hood. 

While I was in there with the grinder out I started to look at where the new tunnel would meet up with the existing one. Due to the way we replaced the side panels of the tunnel last time, there was going to end up being quite the patchwork quilt of different panel plug welded to each other over and around the tunnel brace hoop. I wasn't happy with the thought of this so I pressed on and cut even more of my tunnel away. 49hynTb.jpg qr4FNNV.jpgHey remember when I said this? 

On 10/15/2017 at 23:43, Hurmeez said:

I could cut the tunnel again and move the shifter hole forward again to make everything fit with the engine where it currently sits. This requires me to undo more work I have already done which, while not too much work, I'd rather not in principle.

 

Yeah me neither...

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Once I had the hole approximately the right size to fit the box, I started to roll the edge over to meet up with the new tunnel. wn4aU43.jpgI could do it the easy way and trim the two panels to fit and just weld the outside corner, kind of like this, attachment.php?attachmentid=13065&d=1180
(I know this is a diff tunnel but use your imagination) but I don't like the hard edge it gives. I'd rather make it nicely curved, more like a factory shape would have been. So that's what I've been trying to do. 

I did the same on the tunnel side as well. r6cmThs.jpgJust a slight flare for now until I confirm the two shapes will match up. 

Which turned into a bit more flaring and shaping which turned into this... eABr5bq.jpgAs you can see I kinda cocked up the trimming at the back edge but it's nothing a welder and some scrap steel won't fix. You can also sort of see how far off the new tunnel is from the brace loop. This was really bothering me because there was no way I'd be able to mate the two up neatly so something was going to have to change. I've come up with a plan. I'm going to get rid of this stock(ish) hoop and replace it with one that fits the tunnel better. I will build the new hoop out of 6mm plate and put it in a position that will still help to brace the floor, as well as being the top half of the driveshaft loop. The bottom half will also be made of 6mm plate and will bolt up with four captive nuts on either side of the tunnel to the top half. The bonus will be that the captive nuts will be hidden underneath the seat boxes so there will be nothing sticking up through the floor to get caught on anything. 

Before I can do any of that though, I need to get rid of the current loop. Praise jebus for spot weld drills. Go0TaPv.jpg 1RvvM8r.jpgTo think when I put it in I thought "fuck I hope that never has to come out. It'll be a hell of a mission." Never mind that then. 

With that out, I could get the tunnel as close as possible. WoQAJsq.jpg BDYgZGs.jpg MLcaxkA.jpg hzm2tSE.jpg 7XeocLJ.jpgIt's getting close. It's not perfect yet and it still needs some dicking around, but it's getting close.

While I had it clamped in place, I figured I should check the heater clearance since I want to keep running the stock unit if I can. cvQwmKJ.jpg hYoccN8.jpgIt's tight. Bloody tight. As in it touches the tunnel just before I can get a bolt through into the mount. And you can imagine once there is some carpet over that, it's not going to fit at all. Hmmmm. I'm going to cross that bridge in a bit. For now, I'm going to keep trucking with getting the tunnel fitting the firewall and floor perfectly first. 

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I got the drawing back from the machine shop and set about getting it drawn up in CAD. n9cVoTc.pngI double and triple checked all the measurements on my drawing to make sure they matched and then went to school and cut yet another template out of card with the laser cutter. This is what I found when I got it home to check it against the engine. Mp2583G.jpg bIUsB0X.jpgThe second picture doesn't show it very well because I was in a rush with a dying phone battery but the gist is that the holes still don't line up. That top one isn't accurate either but most crucially, neither locating dowels actually line up particularly well. 

This is pretty damn annoying considering the fact I paid good money in good faith that I would receive good service from this shop and they simply haven't. Needless to say, I'm not thrilled and I'm going to be having a quick chat to see if I can figure something out. It's just really annoying constantly taking one step forward and one expensive step back. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...

I always seem to read back over my previous post and find that I mention something about finishing something in the next few days. Then I check the date and realise it was over a month ago. Woops. Not long after I posted the last update I had to take two weeks to turn this: 2ovlbBl.jpg?1

Into this:

 HPUSccK.jpg?1

Some muppet (me) ran out of talent on a wet intersection and made an adjustment to a nearby fence. So I spent a while sorting all that out before finally getting back to what matters. 

Picking back up on the brace, I used some paper to make templates of the large flat panels that Would be needed to weld it all to the floor. VZRqGxm.jpgI can't believe it has taken me this long to figure out that using magnets instead of tape in these situations is such a good idea, but, there you go.

Then it's the standard procedure of tracing that onto steel and gluing it all together. PzbxnfI.jpg hd4Ujhc.jpg yB8PPFg.jpg

And offer it up to check the fit. SgDWhqO.jpg 60X01lj.jpg

The camera angle makes it look a bit crooked but it's pretty good in reality. 

I gave all the welds a good clean up then coated it in a couple of good thick layers of Hammerite. X7bpSQ7.jpg VQeygDn.jpg KJlvkJg.jpg

I initially intended to use POR15 for this but the local shop has stopped supplying it for whatever reason and the guy said this was just as gooder so I figured it's better than nothing. 

Here's a comparison shot between the factory brace and my version. Note that I sprayed weld through primer everywhere that it was appropriate in addition to the heavy duty rust preventative. VI3Eznd.jpg

I've had issues in the past with this particular primer making for a spitty farty weld, so I cleaned off all the actual spots where the welds would be. As it turns out, I probably didn't need to but it did make for a lovely weld. 

Which you can marvel at here: 6jMdbqW.jpg rL60mzN.jpg

It really was such a nice change to be welding good new steel to steel rather than burning holes in thin factory stuff all the time.

And with that, I am finally back to where I was five months ago. Well with a much larger tunnel now but you get what I mean.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I finally got around to putting in the brace between the chassis rail and the firewall on the passenger's side. I did the driver's side ages ago but for some reason, I always found something else to do until now. Pm9NFs3.jpg

I'm happier with this side. It turned out better than the first try.

Next, I started working on the rear engine mounts (also known as gearbox mounts). I figured since I don't have my adapter plate yet, I can't make the front engine mounts. Without it I can't be certain of where the engine and gearbox sit relative to each other so any mounts I make with my makeshift MDF plate may not line up properly when it put the steel one in. However, I can make the gearbox mounts because I do know where that will sit relative to the hole in the tunnel. So that was my next move. 

I used the Turbo Yoda method to hang the gearbox while I built the mount for it. O0wXQ3Z.jpg

This lets me hang around underneath the box as much as I want without running into something holding it up from the bottom. Also, thanks to the threads, I could raise or lower the box as much as I wanted with plenty of precision to align everything properly.

I set the angle of the engine to be the same as the stock crossflow in dad's car. rqj83ad.jpg This means I don't have to worry about the driveshaft angles being out on the U-joints. 

From here on the photos start to get a bit spotty because I just had my head down and completely forgot to take enough photos. Oh well.

Anyway, I started but making a mount to pick up the points used to mount the black bit below the output shaft in this photo: Mazda-RX8-5-speed-gearbox.jpg

(That's not my photo because I forgot) It is some sort of steel block rubber mounted to the trans but not mounted to anything else. Possibly some sort of vibration dampener. Who knows. Anyway, I used it as a template to make a similar plate out of 5 or 6mm steel plate (I forget which), which also has mounting points for an off the shelf mount. Something like this: Fb14YHM.jpg

I reused the press in studs from the original mount but cut the tops off and welded them in with lots and lots of amps on the TIG. Then I made it pretty. h4eJ6B4.jpg 5ZuYmm2.jpg

I used captive nuts rather than tapping the plate, mostly because we only have a bottom tap in the pitch I want and I couldn't get the bastard to start. So nuts it is. 

What are the nuts for you ask? They bolt to an off the shelf, out of focus powerglide trans mount like this: Dxenhx5.jpg

It's nice and low profile (and cheap) and will fit really well. 

Here is the whole assembly in place. gRAWd5h.jpg

Next I started on the car side of the mounts. I wanted to more or less copy the design that the factory used. These are a couple of boxes that are welded to the tunnel with some tapped doubler plates behind the mounting surface. The advantage of doing it this way is that there are no penetrations in the floor, so fewer opportunities for water to enter and start causing rust. Also, bolts sticking through the floor just suck in general.

So it started with a cardboard template to get the shape right, then I started to transfer it to some 2mm sheet (the same as the factory mounts). HqTy2Fe.jpg

Then I made the doubler plate out of 10mm plate. I managed to get the tap to start this time so I made a real nice job of them. 6m3x03Z.jpg

Then I welded them in place. iYC81cj.jpg

This was great fun because it was the hottest I've ever run the welder and laying the fillets in there just felt fantastic. 

Finally, I fully welded the seams and bent the flanges over. SqwTw4T.jpg

This is it compared to the original. dnbKhzY.jpg

Pretty good I reckon. Then I tacked them in and completely forgot to take any photos. Yay!! I'm planning on putting the car on a rotisserie to stitch weld the chassis rails so I'll fully weld them then. For now though, I'll just leave them tacked; I really hate welding on my back.

Finally after all that, I started on the crossmember itself. Starting with a cardboard template in terrible lighting. Of course. 0aZZfuU.jpg

Then I started to transfer it to a piece of box section I picked out which happened to fit the powerglide mount spot on. Q6RVtXJ.jpg

 

And then I forgot to take photos while I cut it out and bent it to shape. In any case, take my word for it that I did. And here it how it turned out: iaCsfbU.jpg

You'll notice the gearbox looks a bit crooked. It is actually clocked approximately 2.5 degrees clockwise relative to the car from this perspective, and offset to the passenger's side by about 10mm, all for a very good reason. I'll go into that later on.

 BBWcC9o.jpg

I still need to cut some of the green off the ends, drill the powerglide mount holes, and finish weld the joins. Other than that, it's pretty good. It's 3mm plate so I don't think it will need gussets between the bottom and the mounting flanges, though I might do it anyway later on. We'll see.

In other news, I've been looking into diff upgrade options for a while now and I think I may have come across a very viable deal. I was lookinginto a hilux diff, but they proved to be harder to find than I expected. They also don't seem to have many options for decent crusing ratios, as well as options to easily (read cheaply) convert to four stud, which I really want to keep for my Cheviot Turbos. So instead what I've found is an R31 Skyline diff nearby for $150. I saw that @Rhubarb77 had used one in his turbo Pinto MkII so I know it can be shortened to fit and will obviously hold over 300hp easily (which might be part of future plans). It's four stud already, and I can get a bolt in LSD 3.54:1 center section from the wreckers down the road for another $150 or so. Those are the positives. The negatives are as follows: It has no brakes at the moment, disks or calipers, and the stud pattern is 4x114.8 rather than my mag's 4x108. I have thought that I could put the rears in a mill and slot the holes slightly to fit but I don't know how well that would work. 

Does anyone else have any experience in this sort of area? Should I pull the trigger and buy the diff or do I have better options? Let me hear your suggestions or comments here: 

Cheers :) 

 

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  • 1 month later...

So I've been working 70 hour weeks for the last month and a half, meaning not a huge amount of fabrication had been happening for a little while. Rest assured though, there has been progress and I'll do a proper long winded update soon. For now though, I need to ask a couple of favours. Firstly, I did end up acquiring the R31 diff housing and axles.3oxJPfX.jpg However, as I mentioned previously, I'll need to get it shortened to fit. Can anyone recommend somewhere to get this done? Bearing in mind I live in Whangarei so I'd prefer it to be no further south than Jaffaville. I plan to strip the whole thing down myself to the bare axle and weld on the spring perches once the work is complete so all I need done is the physical shortening of the housing and axles themselves. Any help would be greatly appreciated as per usual. 

Secondly, by extremely exciting happenstance, I stumbled across a bona fide KL-ZE in a wreckers in Auckland! OkIZ3iS.jpg FMX5zGD.jpg

(Excuse the blurry photos, it was pissing down and I wanted to make like a shepherd.) Since I don't want to let this opportunity slip through my fingers again, I'm planning on going down with a mate on Saturday morning to pull it out and bring it home. If anyone would like to come in, help out, and spin a few yarns at any point during the day, we'll be at the Zebra yard in Wiri for most likely the whole day. 

Let me know by private message or on here if you have any advice or are able to help out: 

Here's to less month long blackouts. :)

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So the weekend came and went and made me a very happy boy! We left Whangas at around 0730 Saturday morning and got into the wreckers at 1030. I wanted to get in as early as possible to try to get the most amount of daylight possible, as well as beat any other prospecting V6 removalists to my prize. It took us three hours, but we got from this: Tdnexgf.jpg

To this: A75flSD.jpg

We spent the next hour or so stripping all the unnecessary ancillaries like AC and power steering pump off before slotting it into the back of the car and coming home. It turned out to be a very good thing we got there as early as we did because as we had it hanging and were stripping it down, some poor bugger came to find a big empty hole where he thought his engine should be. We helped him out with a belt tensioner and other things I already had at home but there were a couple of things he said he'd been planning to grab that we already had our hot little hands on. Yay for planning ahead. 

Tonight I spent an hour playing around with different bits and pieces to see what I'm dealing with. @yoeddynz, you were dead right about the right head, wrong gasket guess. EsZJTXz.jpg

Ironically, my DE from last year had the opposite, wrong heads, right gasket and intake manifold. Huh. 

Those sweet, sweet KL31 cams. GyioLJ8.jpg

While I was down there, I also picked up a cam cover from a 2.5L Telstar. KEfpNjT.jpgI thought it would suit the car a little better and help me say, "it's only the DE bro, honest" before I blow their doors off ;) 

And here it is fitted H6C5WxQ.jpg

I also started to have a look at my flywheel options. I bought an RX-8 flywheel a long time ago before I realised how difficult it would be to adapt it to work on the V6. I pulled it out tonight to see how different the two were, and what the best plan of action would be. dn880gW.jpg

As you can see in the photo, the RX-8 flywheel on the right is 35mm larger in diameter than the V6. It's also lighter interestingly so go figure. The two friction disks are the same diameter at I believe 225mm (though that's just from memory), however, the internal splines on the V6 are smaller so it doesn't fit the RX-8 input shaft. The spigot bearing diameters are the same though so I was able to fit the V6 fly to the RX-8 shaft to see how far out the starter was. ar4D6kL.jpg

The answer is "quite". I should have used the flash but never mind. As you can imagine, that 17.5mm difference in radii makes for quite the gap. It would be a hell of a mission to move the starter location so the plan right now is to modify the flywheel. My original plan was to order a custom machined one from the tame machinist down the road (the same guy who milled the aluminium intake I made for the old Pinto), but I think we have come up with a better idea. It should be much easier (read cheaper) to remove the ring gear from the V6 flywheel, then machine a ring that has an undersized internal diameter and heat it to shrink fit over the original ring gear surface of the flywheel. Then, re-machine it to the standard RX-8 flywheel outer diameter before shrink fitting a new RX-8 ring gear over the top. Then I'll have to machine a spacer for the crankshaft but that should be the easy part. I'm wondering whether it would be worth machining down the back side of the flywheel while I'm there to lose a few kilos for that extra zingy V6 feel. How does the plan sound to you guys, both from a safety, and rotating assembly balance standpoint? Let me know your thoughts on the matter. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Aaand we're back. 

After I finished welding in the dowels I drilled them out with a tapping drill before cutting a thread in each. You can really see how off center the holes are from these photos. GCXa5dc.jpg dyOK4Rn.jpg

With that done I moved on to making the flywheel spacer. I wanted to get this out of the way fairly early on because it was the thing that would tell me whether or not the plate was going to work. Up until now, I knew that the plate fitted the engine and gearbox separately but I still wasn't sure whether or not the input shaft and spigot bearing would line up correctly when the two were combined. Once I had the spacer in there though, the input shaft would be able to slide all the way home in the spigot bearing and I'd be able to tell if there was any side loading on the input shaft.

So that's what I did. AZpYf1S.jpg

I did the maths with my notebook to figure out exactly how much spacing I need, which turned out to be 16.3mm, in order to get the ring gear and starter motor to line up nicely. xVe9Wa7.jpg

The spacer slips snugly over the end of the crank and into the flywheel. I have some longer high tensile flywheel bolts on order to take up the longer distance so I should be able to assemble it once they arrive. I dummy fitted everything without the bolts though and everything lined up really nicely. With the knowledge that it was finally going to work, I could press on and make up the last few turned pieces to complete the plate. 

These were the plugs for the engine side locating dowel holes. I need to put a countersunk bolt in one and a normal hex headed bolt from the back on the other, so I needed to make up some partial plugs to reduce the diameter of the ends of these holes. zU6VPym.jpgThis being the threaded one that takes the bolt from the back side, 

0IebuMW.jpgAnd this being the plug that will be countersunk later on. 

Both were made slightly oversize and pressed and welded in, as per the previous ones. 

With those all complete, the only thing I have left to do is countersink the appropriate holes and bolt it all up. However, I had to special order the countersunk bolts and bit and they aren't arriving for a couple of days so I decided to see if I could make it work with the bolts that I do have. Here it is bolted to the block with the couple of bolts that come in from the back side,qt8ELMs.jpg

And here it is with the gearbox bolted in place.

 Nj7D5uZ.jpg

So I gently eased the whole assembly down to horizontal and found that the few bolts that were in it were ample to hold everything without any flexing of the plate. So, naturally, I slung it into place. xYBjAho.jpg

It sure looks sweet nestled down in there. 

Just to double check, I threw the heads and bonnet on to check clearances. MeGWKVC.jpg XvmKhML.jpg

There's a good 20mm at the closest point so I'm happy for now. We'll have to see when it comes to making an intake manifold but I'm sure I can make something fit within the space I will have. 

The extremely astute among you may have noticed the engine doesn't look perfectly level left to right. That was my cunning solution to the problem I encountered way back in this issue: 

 There was going to be a couple of mounting holes that would overlap slightly but not perfectly, in a way that meant I'd be trying to wind the thread of one bolt into part of the head of another. I ummed and ahhed over this issue for a while, coming up with all sorts of fantastically complicated solutions, until I realised the answer was staring me in the face. Just rotate the engine and gearbox relative to each other by about 5 degrees. Then I would offset the gearbox mount by 2.5 degrees one way and the engine mounts the same the other way and viola! Problem solved. There's nothing wrong with having either on a slight lean, just ask any skyline owner. 

With that all sorted and while I'm waiting for my bolts to arrive, I'll make a start on some engine mounts and get that part of the deal started. 

I don't have long left on these long hour work days so hopefully I'll be able to put some more quality time in on the car before long. I can't wait.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I spoke to my regular bolt suppliers (a fantastic bunch of really genuine guys) and they were unable to get me the countersunk bolts that I needed but they did point me toward a few shops that may be able to help. So after doing a bit of running around there turned out to be no one local that would be able to sort me out. So I came up with a cunning plan. I went back to the regular guys and picked up some countersunk 12mm bolts that were way over length and god knows what pitch. Then I chucked it up and spun down the threads to be a very close fit to the inside diameter of an M12x1.25 die. Having it be a close fit helped to ensure the threads would be nice and square to the shank as I cut them. Once cut, I cut them to length and bob's your uncle. 

So from left to right you have, an original bolt, without threads, thread cut, and cut to length. leVXf3A.jpg

And here they are mocked up in the plate. X7dvphB.jpg

Then I went ahead and set to with my shiny new countersink. Everything went fairly well other than the drill press not being able to go as slow as I'd like and getting a little chatter but other than that not bad. One of the inserts I made to go over the 10 o'clock locating lug fell out when I drilled through the weld with the countersink. 0dqXoK7.jpg

I was sort of expecting it and I don't reckon it'd be worth the effort to try to make such a small piece of steel fit so I'm just going to run without it. There's still plenty of contact patch for the bolt to take up on so I'm perfectly happy with it. 

With that done I could finally, finally bolt engine to gearbox and sling it into the car properly. f7GRJaX.jpg xYBjAho.jpg

Remember I first got the engine and gearbox in September of last year so this feels like the end of a project in and of itself. 

Next job, onto engine mounts. 

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Well, tell a lie actually. First I wanted to sort out the centering of the gear stick in the gearbox hole. FHj8CrC.jpg

I'm not sure how I managed to get it so far rearward but I wanted to center it properly because A) it bugged me being off center like that and 2) it actually placed the engine a little further rearward than I wanted. So I modified the cross member to make it work. 6unsfaU.jpg

So now it's much better.T19JUSY.jpg

The camera angle makes it look funky but trust me it's much better. 

Now it's on to the engine mounts. 

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Before I got to cutting up my cross member, I wanted to remedy the bolt holes for the lower control arms. They had been welded up and re-drilled what looked like a couple of times; one side actually had two holes for some reason. My first course of action was to weld up the current holes so I had a solid base to start from. jVFAF9J.jpg

While I was there, I fully seam welded the upstand to the main cross member to add strength. 

Then I took a template off another unmodified cross member to find the location of the factory LCA bolt hole before moving it up and out by 6mm as per the bible: X9g6TsN.png

(Available here if you're interested: http://www.doublegmotorsport.com/rsprep/prepindex.html

Then I marked it on a group of four 2mm reinforcing plates and pilot drilled them all. Then I filled them full of holes, painted all the hidden parts with weld through primer to try and prevent rusting between the skins, then prepared to roset weld them on. DhhhrTq.jpg

I figured that there's no harm in beefing up these parts of the suspension so I might as well while I'm here. 

Once they were welded on I decided to weld around the edges too while I was at it. qOn3PUW.jpg

Now I could run a drill through the pilot holes and bingo, one cross member with reinforced LCA mounts and slightly more camber.

As a side note, the geometry doesn't make sense to me. In the book, it says that moving the holes out and up gives more negative camber when the car is raised for rallying. Surely the opposite should be true? If you are raising the cross member relative to the wheel then wouldn't you want to lower the LCA back down to compensate rather than raise it as in this example? And by extension lowering the car means you should raise the hole as I have here? Am I missing something? 

The next job was to cut off the existing engine mount brackets. I decided it was going to be much easier to fabricate new designs than to try to adapt the current ones to fit. K4UiHmX.jpg

One Escort cross member minus engine mounts. 

And cleaned up: WBdRxL5.jpg adwYuk3.jpg

Now I wanted to plate over between the two flanges to give myself a good solid base to build off.

This was the normal process of paper to 2mm steel. DMefeOp.jpg t2ukvVM.jpg FEU5IKi.jpg

I only welded every other hole with the idea that I'd weld the new mounts right through this plate and into the existing flange in a triple layer sandwich.

 

I decided the easiest way to figure out how the mounts would end up looking will be to build them from the engine side first, and then up from the cross member to meet them. So I started with making some plates to fit the engine with paper then steel. KKVYvUJ.jpg 7mlqU6E.jpg kuCxiiy.jpg trokEWs.jpg dE05G2J.jpg

I left this one oversize because there will be some fouling issues with the oil filter if I don't play my cards right, so I am playing it safe for now and leaving myself plenty of wiggle room. 

Then I spun up some appropriately heavy wall tubing and some temporary bushes to use so I don't damage the real ones while I'm welding. xdrovK6.jpg

They're designed to take MKII Escort rear leaf spring bushes. This is for two reasons. Firstly, I prefer this style of engine mount because even if the bush completely collapses, the engine is still captive (albeit loose and clunky as hell), unlike a spool mount which (though very unlikely) could lead to catastrophic failure. And secondly, I have some of these specific bushes hanging out almost brand new from when the wrong set of bushes were replaced on a WOF job on the old man's car. So they're the best kind of cheap. :D 

Next job will be to make some upstands to space these new mounts out from the block. That shouldn't take long...

 

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