Jump to content

Hurmeez' 1977 Mk2 Escort Estate


Hurmeez

Recommended Posts

I made a trip to the wreckers for a browse, looking for a center section for my diff and other miscellaneous stuff and took a tape measure with me. Using that I managed to find this: jgrRNdI.jpg

This just so happens to be the largest radiator I could possibly fit. 424KjOy.jpg lUmDeVa.jpg teWdk1l.jpg

It has about 5mm clearance on either inner wing. As you can see I'll need to completely re-engineer the radiator support/anti-roll bar mount cross member and the side panels, and the radiator hose will have to do a couple of tight turns to get around the anti-roll bar as well but other than that it's pretty much perfect. It has no radiator cap in the top tank, just like the original rad out of the Mazda, the bottom inlet is on the correct side, it is thicker than the original Mazda and compared to the original Escort rad, I21bxAi.jpg

It probably has twice the effective area. So the combination of size and the modern design means that with a couple of fans there should be no way in hell that I'll overheat it at all. I would be absolutely astounded if anyone is able to tell me what it came out of. In fact, I would bet money that you couldn't guess. 

 

Additionally, I've been knocking some suspension ideas around in my head. Being young and dumb and full of the proverbial, I know there'll be the occasion where I want to make a speedy exit of an intersection or leave a traffic light hard or something. I've seen people try this on leaf springs and the axle tramp that results is often quite embarrassing. Now I'm no stranger to embarrassment but I do prefer to avoid it if possible, along with the hammering that the axles get when the occasion arises. So ideally to avoid this I'd need a four-link of some description. Yes, I'm aware that anti tramp bars exist but from what I've seen and read, they're not really that effective and the effort to go from installing them versus a full four-link isn't a huge leap. But then my annoying requirements come in and complicating everything. 

I really like the idea of the car looking fairly bog standard from the outside and retaining as much factory functionality as possible without sacrificing any for the upgrades. Specifically, in this case, the folding rear seat. In Escort estates, as with most station wagons, the rear seat lifts the base up and forward and lays the back down in its place to form a larger cargo area. If I was to use standard four-link boxes they would end up in the same place at the seat base. Even if I used the earlier style with shorter arms, they would still intrude too far into the cabin to allow the standard rear seat functionality and so according to my requirements, they're out too. 

For a while, I was stumped. Then I thought, why not use the raised rear floor to my advantage? Who says I can't send the top arm backward instead of forward? So I made a quick little scale mockup to see if it could work. oNPozLn.jpg

I end up with about 75mm bump and 50mm droop with very minimal axle deflection at either extreme of travel. This being so small scale it's difficult to rely on the accuracy but I ran the numbers through my old physics workbooks from last year and the Watt's link type off effect shouldn't cause the axle to twist significantly over this sort of travel distance so the driveshaft angles shouldn't be a factor to worry about.

 Ldyj2Rb.gif 

This GIF shows a mock-up driveshaft to illustrate this. 

I'd probably use standard style turrets set back far enough to not affect the latching mechanism of the seat and a typical Panhard rod or Watt's link for the lateral location. This is all just ideas at the moment. I'm interested in your guy's opinions. Let me know what you think here: 

 

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Replies 152
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

After having a proper look at the rad I was starting to worry that maybe it would turn out to be too big and I was starting to consider a chin spoiler to cover up the rad poking through the front valence. I started pricing one up and found that it would be $250 for a brand new fiberglass repro or the same for a slightly sad original rubber one. Then I thought, why spend $250 to fit a $65 part when I could find a rad that fits more easily for another $65 and spend less than half the money even with the wasted radiator. Before I wrote it off though, I checked the fit one more time and with a bit more fiddling I saw that I'd be able to make it work. It'd be tight, but it would work. 

So I set to and made a CAD template. ta4SlDV.jpg mXbtfyO.jpg

This shows just how tight I have to make it with the cutout to get around the bottom hose inlet. 

Then I transferred the template to steel and started forming everything. I opted to use 2mm plate for doubler plates for the captive nuts behind the ARB mount brackets. UuVKBnu.jpg MQ7GwVx.jpg

Ultimately I probably should have just welded the corners and done a few stitches because the warping that I got was a bit more than I would have liked, even with moving the heat around and not letting any one area getting too hot. 

Then it was the captive nuts. 1lgdD7d.jpg fc3s2yQ.jpg

 

Then I had to try to fold it without using the brake because it was too long. In hindsight, I should have made it in two pieces and welded it in the middle but I didn't think of that at the time. az20HdJ.jpg

I made it work in the end anyway. 

7ReVqTq.jpg

The first mockup went pretty well. It fits in the gap anyway. 

Next, I had to make the cutout for the bottom hose. Holesaw: rULGCTP.jpg

Grinder: bfiqcr2.jpg

Paper: Dv29pLf.jpg

Steel: ejiKgOM.jpg

Somewhere along the line someone messed up a measurement and the inlet was touching on the cutout so I smeared some neverseez around to act as a transfer medium to tell me where it was touching. BkQAXay.jpg BQVhdSX.jpg

It ended up being a fairly drastic adjustment with the bottom of the cutout moving down about 10mm before I was done. Unfortunately, I was head down bum up determined to make it work so I didn't take any photos but rest assured I made it fit. 

I also made up some pieces to locates the factory rubber mounts after modifying them to be far lower profile. WMcop3E.jpg

 

I wasn't completely happy with the clearance between the cross member and the rad. It would probably end up with the core touching once it was properly mounted and that wasn't something I was going to be ok with. I sat and thought and tried to figure something out but ultimately I had to slice along the length of the top and narrow it by 5mm. 1FXSzwz.jpg

The result left me much happier with the gap. ugM8Ppl.jpg

There's approximately 10mm clearance at the closest point between the core and the cross member now. 

With that pretty well sorted, I had a look at the brace that would have run vertically between the slam panel and the original radiator support panel. To my surprise, there was actually a good amount of room to work with. yWpr4W1.jpg

I was planning on modifying this piece to just come forward and weld to the valence. Now though, I realised I could put another cross brace between the inner wings to make up for the panel I took out. So, cardboard: W7Fum5o.jpg

(I reused the template from before, hence the cutout)

And then steel: wM0grV3.jpg

 

With that done, the next job would be to make the top mounts for the rad. To do that though I'd need to put together my nice new slam panel to have something to build to. d7DWqRm.jpg GvaYBCS.jpg

And that's where I got up to. It shouldn't take long to make up some small upstands to pick up the original rubber mounts so I'll try to get that done tomorrow. 

 

As far as my rear suspension idea goes, I found out why I haven't really seen it used anywhere else, despite how simple it looks to me. It turns out there are some dynamic aspects that I hadn't considered, all explained extremely well by this website: http://www.trucktrend.com/how-to/chassis-suspension/0804st-rear-suspension-design/

I'll save you the whole read and paste the part relevant to me. 

Quote
Full Reverse and two-Forward/two-Reverse Link Systems
If all you're looking for is simplicity of installation and you don't want a two-link, these systems are the ticket. We have all seen them at shows or on the road (you might even own one!), so we can't argue that they don't work. The best explanation that we've been able to come up with for these systems is that they are counterproductive. The suspension's job is to take energy that is being transferred into the tires from the ground and to properly transmit those forces into the chassis to be used to create more traction. A reverse link system, in which the bars mount to the rear axle and the rear of the chassis behind it, does just the opposite, and the two-forward/two-reverse link system is nearly unpredictable in how it transfers energy from the ground to the chassis.
Even if you calculate every single point to an exact placement when designing one of these systems for your truck, you will still only end up with a driveable truck and not one that handles properly. Your only hope for performance with a reverse triangulated four-link is to limit the travel as much as possible and run a stiff spring and a stiff shock. Then, maybe you'll have the traction of a poorly set-up forward-facing link system. The best way to think about it is to understand that with a properly designed forward-link system the rearend is actually being pushed against the ground by the chassis. So any force that the rear end can use to push against the chassis will ultimately create more traction. With a reverse-link system, if the rear end were to pull down on the chassis there would be an equal loss of traction. Try this on a bathroom scale. Stand on the scale in front of a cabinet and pull up on the cabinet and see that your weight goes up according to how much force you are able to apply to the cabinet. Now push down on the cabinet. Your weight will go down to nothing fairly easily. That is what's happening on a reverse-link system. The rotating force of the tires driving the truck forward applies an opposite twisting force into the rear end housing, and that force is applied to the chassis behind the rear end pulling the back of the chassis down, thus negating any hope for traction.
On paper, this design looks great because the pinion can be kept well within working limits. A quite desirable instant center can be calculated, and it seems to fit into the confines of just about any truck. The real negative effects are all dynamic, meaning that they are only noticeable when the truck is being driven and the more dynamics being applied, the less traction it has.

 

So I guess that means I won't be doing that. I think for now I'll probably stick with the standard style rear suspension and be gentle on the clutch unless the road's wet. 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It did only end up taking a few hours but finding the few hours took a while. Never mind though. xdkXdzF.jpg

Started with the cardboard as per usual then moved on to the steel. LAdGbmb.jpg DCJzH8C.jpg

As a bit of a side note, this is what happens when you use the wrong tip on the Rivnut gun without realising. NxBYPYN.jpg

After they were all done I welded them on and mounted the rad properly for the first time. fVfvvGN.jpg d0jl4Xy.jpg

It's solid as a rock now. I'm really happy with how it turned out. 

With that done, the front panels are almost all fabbed up. I still want to modify my original replacement radiator mount panels to tie the slam panel down a bit more solidly. I'll cut them somewhere along these lines and fold up a flange to give them a bit more strength then weld them between the inner wing and slam panel. WSmz4Gl.jpg?1

I would have done them next but I wanted a break from the panel work and I've been wanting to have a go at the clutch system for a while now. So that's what I did. 

I bought a second-hand clutch pedal assembly from a wrecked RX-8 with the plan of essentially replicating it with the standard Escort pedal. This is the Mazda pedal on the left and the Escort on the right. 0CJ39WM.jpg

You can see that with the pivot points in similar positions the pedals are actually fairly similar in length and shape. You can also see the pushrod, clevice, and pin that the Mazda uses to activate the master cylinder. This is somewhat different to the cable that the Escort uses but I think I can make something work. I started by assembling this assortment of bits: UUNtaE3.jpg

Which come together to make this: fL0NbfP.jpg

I fully welded the bracket and turned up a quick bronze bushing to take the clevis pin. cKKle0R.jpg

It comes in handy having a bunch of Grandad's old boat building bolt stock around sometimes. This should last much better than the crappy plastic bush that was in the original Mazda pedal and remove a lot of the slop that was present. 

Then I welded everything together and cleaned it up. IxGfubV.jpg v2zt9MV.jpg HkmNgfH.jpg AS9tZo7.jpg

You can also just barely see the bush that I tapped in there. 

Finally, I assembled everything and had a look at how it was going to turn out. PTgMZ3L.jpg G7tqTZl.jpg Y2ccHiM.jpg

It turned out mint actually. I'm fizzing about how well I managed to pull it off. 

I threw the pedal back onto the box and mocked up the master cylinder in about the spot it looked like it wanted to be. It turned out that it would end up about 20mm further from the pedal than it would have in the Mazda so I extended the pushrod by 20mm. The rod I used was a little larger diameter than the original but it works fine.

This is at full engagement: FFj6Pls.jpg

And full disengagement: N8N9y7g.jpg

I made a cardboard template for an extension to the pedal box that would mount the master cylinder Maqz8RZ.jpg l3r8oxk.jpg

You can see how close it's going to end up to the brake tower mounts. v2AzA8u.jpgThis won't be an issue though because the brake tower won't fit anyway. With the exhaust system and the radiator set further back than factory, it never stood a chance. My plan right now is to find a brake master cylinder that has essentially the same internals but has under and over mounting bolts. That way there'll be shitloads of clearance between the two. Then I'll put a remote booster under the dash or inside the inner wing or something. 

The plan for tomorrow is to turn the template into steel and start modifying the firewall to take the new pedal box layout. Should be sweet. 

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I said it should be sweet. Was I fuckin right or what?!

I started by making each face of the new wing in separate pieces of steel and tacking them together. KdM8iXa.jpg

There was a time when I would have tried to fold it all out of one piece but it was much easier to do it this way. OLTUmaw.jpg

With it all tacked up, I snapped it off the pedal box and welded it fully. 5fjCYUf.jpg

Then tacked it up again and welded it to the box properly. 4mQKNy7.jpg

Then I marked and drilled the appropriate holes to mount up the master. X2H8gxj.jpg ndGTHZF.jpg

The bottom bolt is a bit of a pig to get in and out because it ended up right on the wall of the original pedal box. Eventually, I think I'll swap it for the studs that the master originally had but shorten them a little and run a nut on the inside of the pedal box. Should make the whole situation a lot easier to mount. 

Finally, here is the pedal at clutch fully out, gxw5kaS.jpg

And fully in. TO5H8aw.jpg

Next I knocked together this little fella, IA5A35N.jpg

And filled up the old clutch cable connection point. a1oF58A.jpg

Their powers combined they make this: O1xEyjz.jpg

A neat little adjustable pedal stop with a rubber button from the original Mazda pedal. Much better than putting a nut and bolt through the floor like I've seen suggested on some pages online. 

With that, the pedal box modifications are finished (at least in the clutch department anyway). Now I just have to get on to mounting it. 

To start, I ground off the return on the doubler plate and clutch cable conduit where it would foul the new wing. wjxuySw.jpg

Then I made an extension for the doubler plate and welded it on. I7oe1i4.jpg

Finally, I had to drill and cut the holes to allow the master cylinder to penetrate the firewall. It just so happened that the center of the main hole was inside the clutch conduit hole so a hole saw would have made a terrible mess wandering around everywhere trying to cut the hole. Instead, I bolted up the pedal box and used it as a template to make the two smaller bolt holes. Then I made a temporary support for the hole saw and bolted it to the bulkhead with the new holes. nt6iLXv.jpg

Which let me cut it out from the other side. K8x4kMN.jpg 2PGOIOh.jpg

I might weld up the oval parts of the original penetration but it works fine as it is for now. 

As tempted as I was to bolt the pedal box and master cylinder straight up, I figured I'd get a little more fab done in the area while I was here. So I made up this little guy, V2OcHcB.jpg

And tacked it in place on the firewall. I also threw the pedal box and master on while I was there, PcotOfn.jpg

Before mounting this sweet piece of kit. QTCHREe.jpg

It's a leftover from my old man's roadster when he mistakenly ordered the wrong kit for his braking system. I reckon it fits really nicely in there and I'll only need a short 90-degree elbow to connect it up. The whole thing came out looking kick ass and I'm really happy with the result. It's going to be fantastic when it's finished and running. I'm just leaving the mounting pedestal tacked on there for now until I find a brake master cylinder that will work in case I need to shift it to make it fit. 

That leads me to a request for help. What brake master cylinder should I use? Bearing in mind I plan to use princess four-piston calipers on the front and I'm not sure exactly what on the rear yet. I am going to use the R31 skyline diff that I have but I'm not sure what brakes to use on it. I don't have any for it yet and I'm looking at probable disks of some sort but I'm not sure which and I'm open to suggestions. I'm looking at a Datsun B310 master right now because it's the same bore as a standard Mk2 Escort master but it has the under and over mounting holes. I'll have to run a remote booster but that won't be an issue. My only concern is whether or not it would be compatible with disk brakes in the rear due to its internal residual pressure valve. I'm open to suggestions if you have any. Please let me know here: 

 

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...

I'll be honest. At this point, I had a bit of a crisis about what to do next. I felt like I'd done everything and I was struggling to figure out what else I had to do. That was until I remembered all the panel work I'd put off to instead make the engine fit. So that was the next logical step. Back to rust repairs. Oh goodie! 

Of course, since that was the next logical step, I went and did something else instead. You may remember me mentioning a while back how I was planning on modifying the radiator side supports to fit the massive new rad. Well, I made that my next mission. I started with a cardboard template of the panels I had already made all those months ago and placed them more or less in position. BMFb2BP.jpg

Then I cut it down to clear the rad. gDikiXn.jpg

Then trimmed the premade panels to match, complete with a folded flange on both outside and inside edges. 99tnmfO.jpg 6EVELoO.jpg

They're just sitting in place for the photos so they actually fit much better than they appear to. 

With that done, there really was nothing left to do other than start on some rust repairs. 

I noticed some bubbling around the bottom edge of the driver's door a long while ago but put off doing anything about it until now. I started by stripping the paint back over the bubbled area and quickly realised how much bog was all over the door. So I carried on and stripped the whole door, exposing a multitude of sins. 

First, the original issue was revealed to be an old rust hole that had been "fixed" by filling it with bog and calling it done. Oo4MLX8.jpg

Then there's this hectic az mirror delete too: 30xqqgG.jpg

Just half ass weld a patch through the holes and punch the whole lot in with a hammer. Then it's easy as to bog up and no one will ever know! Easy two-step guide for any beginners out there. :) LTSQVGH.jpg

Probably at least 10mm over most of it. Nothing wrong with that. 

I initially thought that this skin was beyond my abilities to save (or my being bothered to save it) so I looked at a brand new skin. After seeing how much they want for one of them I quickly decided that perhaps I could fix this one after all. I decided to start with the rust hole on the bottom edge. x51w67N.jpg

Before I welded it in I sorted out the frame underneath it where the same rust repair technique had been used. NRmd3TX.jpg

VOCTtFj.jpg

Then it was the skin. iOoW9av.jpg

I did it really slowly and ended up with fairly minimal warping f776LzF.jpg

Then witness paint makes it look far worse than it actually is. Because of the inner door structure, it's really difficult to get a dolly in behind it to do any meaningful panel beating but as it is I'll get away with a maximum of 1mm of filler to smooth the whole thing off. I'm much happier with it now, if only for the fact that there's some real steel behind the paint. EbZUzSu.jpg

I still have to sort that issue on the left hand side, as well as the meat hook abortion situation around the mirror. I'll get back to it in a little bit but I found something way cooler to work on right now. Stay tuned...

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I had no idea it had been a whole month since the last update. There hasn't been a lot of solid progress in any one place but there has been lots of small progress in different mini projects. 

Firstly, I got the intake situation all pinned down and finalised. I actually fairly radically changed the layout and turned the whole thing on its head. Literally. To start though, I cut what was left of the original manifold down even further, before making up some transition pieces out of the 50mm tubing I've been using, and tacked them into place. DZFSmHo.jpg

The welding on these more heavy materials isn't so difficult but once I moved on to tacking the donut sections I really started to struggle. That said, I persevered and got two manifolds fully tacked and bolted on. wvplOd0.jpg BUgBM0A.jpg

You'll notice a couple of things. Firstly, the throttle bodies are now the other way up to how I originally had them. Second, the right-hand bank has two sections of donut to make up a single bend. That was because when I decided to flip them all I realised I didn't have enough left of the donuts to do it out of one piece anymore, thus, two bits. 

As for the reason I wanted to flip them in the first place, doing it this way gives me twice as much room for air cleaners/trumpets on the passenger side bank, ipsydKs.jpg LgQYEaI.jpg

(forgive the paint stick rule) as well as clearing my original clutch reservoir position, pfmfi4q.jpg

while still clearing the valve cover vent on the driver's side too. mmNsnlf.jpg

It's going to be a little close between the throttle linkage on the passenger side and the bonnet but if that's the only issue then I'm a very happy camper indeed. 

One last beauty shot from above, oljJBig.jpg

Before I sent it away to get fully welded. While I'm sure with enough time and perseverance I could have gotten everything stuck together in a way that would hold water, the money I would have spent in replacing the donuts I rooted in the process would have quickly outpaced the cost of asking a professional nicely to do it. That and the fact that it's such a central piece of the visual puzzle under the bonnet, I'd rather pay for some stacked dimes then make my own bird shit. Hopefully it won't take too long. I'll be sure to show it off once it's back. 

 

 

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

The next job was to get the diff mounts sorted. I found some suitable box section and carved it up into something resembling a diff mount. eEq02zK.jpg

I copied the original Escort pads in pretty much every way to make sure they'd fit the standard springs nicely. Then I welded up the original holes in the shock plate/spring mount and redrilled them further apart to take the bigger Falcon U-bolts. fC2dgFd.jpg

I bought a new set of springs for it a while ago because I thought mine looked pretty shagged. They were making a W shape rather than a U when there was any weight in the back of the car. So I threw them in and it bolted up, set all my angles, and jacked from the centre section to see what ride height I'd get from the new springs. fuwb5Je.jpg

Just to prevent any confusion, that is the car sitting on bump stops. With no weight to speak of in it. With my new springs. Yayy.

So I had another look at my original springs. It turns out they'd been subjected to the ole' flipped leaf, hence their W shape. wb2tpqu.jpg

So I disassembled them and put them back together in the right order and swapped them back in to find that they gave me a ridiculous monster truck ride. So I swapped the centre leaf of the original spring for the two centre ones out of the new set and tried it again. That finally sorted it out. I didn't actually get any photos but I think it's something like a two-inch drop from stock. 

It did come with a whole new set of problems though. Measuring the angle on the gearbox output shaft gave me an angle of 8.5 degrees down. So I set the angle on the input shaft to 8.5 degrees up at ride height to make sure the drive angles were equal and I'd avoid any vibrations etc in the U joints. Then I measured the angle of the driveshaft itself and got 2.5 degrees. IKRnhoH.jpg

This means the U joint angles would come to a total of 6 degrees. Now everywhere I've looked online says that 10 degrees is the absolute maximum you want to run on a driveshaft U joint but anything less than 5 degrees is far more ideal. Now I wasn't completely happy but I was willing to just run it with the 6 and hope for the best but there was one other thing that meant I forced myself to do something about it. 

With the engine at its current angle, I was going to have a clearance issue between the front passenger side throttle linkage and the bonnet. I worked out that if I were to raise the gearbox cross-member by ~50mm, it'd put the driveshaft angle down to something closer to 4 degrees, as well as getting ~10mm of clearance for the throttle linkage at its closest point. The only other option would be to drop the engine down. But I've already go it as low as possible with the standard cross member and any more and I'd have to start modifying the steering rack mounts and suspension geometry and that's a huge can of worms that I have absolutely no intention of opening. 

So next job was to make a riser for the transmission tunnel. As per, I started with a CAD template, F6NC74x.jpg

Then steel, 3kuYFQl.jpg

Welded in my original boot mounting ring, bBqfJKp.jpg

Tacked it, Xv3ovDl.jpg

And welded it. 9lh2xWe.jpg

I reckon with a custom centre console and a standard looking vinyl shift boot, I can cover the whole thing and still have it looking fairly standard. g69Vgub.jpg

Finally I made a new gear box cross member to lift it up into its new home. 2wdIJWz.jpg

I'm much happier with this one. Here you can see just how far I've raised everything by the difference in cross members. Jbnd38x.jpg o8n8YBc.jpg

Still no rear axles though so I can't fully and finally sort out the diff mounts and rear brakes yet. That's it for now. I'm planning on working on the throttle linkage and pedal setup next. 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I got my axles back from the machinist for an unbelievably good price so I can start getting them set up to go back into the diff. 

I made a start by pressing the brand new bearings on. 4vEc0rn.jpg

A handy thing about the skyline axles is they have identical bearing faces to the Falcon axles I got rid of out of my housing. So two brand new Falcon bearings later and I have a fully together diff and a rolling chassis once more. 

Next, I threw my mockup brake setup on. XH1vwCI.jpg

I quickly noticed a problem when I went to bolt the wheel on. QTyh50M.jpg

The caliper actually sticks out further than the wheel mounting face. I'm not exactly sure how the Mondeo wheel looks, but I'm getting the idea that it must have a bit of offset with a mounting face the same diameter as the brake disk. The Cheviot Turbos that I have have a mounting face that is bigger than the brake disk face, so it doesn't sit down properly. 

My best solution for this is a 10mm wheel spacer. I made a mockup out of MDF to test my hypothesis. 813NSJX.jpg

According to the Hobby Car bible, this would meet almost all the requirements of a wheel spacer. It also has the bonus effect of making the wheel hub-centric, because the turbos have a larger center hole than the standard Escort sized hub spigot and are do not transfer the load to it on a normal English diff. 

The only thing I'm not sure of is the requirement for the spacer to "be set-screwed or attached by another secure mechanical method to either the wheel or hub face." Does the fact that it is clamped by the wheel nuts not cover this? Or would I have to drill and tap countersunk screws into the mounting face of the wheel to ensure they are compliant? 

In any case, I threw the mockup spacer on to check fitments. 

MHOy9UV.jpg

Here you can see that it provides a mounting face with sufficient clearance to the caliper.  LKK35oV.jpg

And the hub centric support: 9XVaVQJ.jpg

In the final version, I would probably make the center a blind hole that sits snugly over the axle spigot for extra support. 

And finally, the wheels fill out the arch much better in my opinion with just that 10mm extra track width per side. 85autWb.jpg

And with the center caps on, you'd never know the difference. MgFdhLf.jpg

While typing all this, I had the thought that Mondeo front disks may have a different offset between the braking face and wheel mounting face which may solve this whole thing. It wouldn't solve the hub concentricity issues though. I think I'll still go to the wreckers and have a look but I'm open to suggestions. 

Cheers. 

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

With the benefit of hindsight, of course, the front rotors would be totally different with a larger braking area so they would have been completely useless to use on the rear. In any case, I didn't bother with them and moved ahead with making up some wheel spacers. I started with some alloy plate and roughly cut it to shape before chucking it up and beginning the turning process. x8v4tpZ.jpg YarjfwG.jpg

With the spigot sorted on the front, I bored a recess in the back to receive the spigot on the axle. LK28ud9.jpg

Then it was as simple as drilling the holes for the wheel studs and countersunk holes for the mounting screws.  FivzI2f.jpg

Finally, I put a couple of tapped holes in the back side of two of the wheels and mounted them up. XrBMfok.jpg Sqa6Yav.jpg

I ended up with a little over 9mm of spacing and still 12 or 13 turns on the wheel nuts, so plenty of thread engagement. I'm still a bit annoyed about the fact that I had to drill and tap the wheel for a wheel spacer but such is life. I mean, there's nothing holding the brake rotor itself on other than the wheel nuts, so why does the wheel spacer need to be "mechanically fixed" while the brake rotor doesn't? 

Moving on though, with the wheels fitting over the brakes properly, now I could continue with mounting the calipers in a more permanent fashion. I machined up eight bosses to replace the temporary wooden ones and slapped the whole lot together. E3NR9VN.jpg byurR1T.jpg

eTnOf3a.jpg 2Ewzkad.jpg

The thing I learned about the Mondeo handbrake system is that it has an auto(read: crap)adjustment system built into the lever itself. Which means the cables themselves are neutral in the system and have no adjustment mechanism built in. If I want to use them, or a shortened version of them, I need to design my own adjustment system. So I did. It's not particularly complex but I think it should get the job done. Mi7oQg2.jpg

On the bottom is the original Mondeo cable splitter that took the lever's action and turned it into a pull on both cables. I figured this would be the easiest place to make an adjuster since anything acting on this would affect each cable equally.

On the top left is a piece of steel tube I squished into shape to fit the standard Escort handbrake lever clevis pin. This has a keyhole shape cut into it to allow the cable end to slide in. Next in line is a threaded boss with a similar slot cut to allow the cable to slide in which will be welded into the end of the tube. Then is a locking nut, and finally, the adjuster bolt itself. This has a hole drilled up the center and a slot cut to allow the cable to slip in. When assembled, the lock nut just needs to be loosened and the bolt wound into the housing to tighten the cable. 

The idea behind cutting slots in everything is to allow me to use a standard Mondeo part without modifying it, which should help keep the certifier happy. On the other hand, I'm not so sure about how easy it seems for the cable to slip out the side of the adjuster. I might cut the end off the cable and remake the adjuster bolt with a hole up the center only. Then I'd get a new end soldered on the end of the cable with the adjuster bolt made a permanent part of the cable. I'm not sure if this is legal or not though. Let me know your thoughts here: 

 

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I went ahead with the hand brake system and got it all assembled. hrQKz4Z.jpg

Next job was to make something for the cables to pull against. So I folded up some 2mm steel to emulate the original Mondeo bracket. Then I plug welded it to the underside of the transmission tunnel to keep the cables as sucked up out of the way as possible. 5eSyt1x.jpg

The bracket is the same thickness as the original Mondeo setup so the standard retaining clips will work well. 

Finally, I needed to shorten the cables. Since these are just mock up units that were already damaged when I pulled them off the car, I had no qualms about cutting and welding them myself. Obviously, when I come to final fit up, I'll get some brand new cables professionally shortened to match. ioTUaIk.jpg

With that done, it was time to throw it all together and give it a quick adjust to test it out. 6tTdEKf.jpg

After a bit of fiddling, I managed to get it so that with five clicks on the lever, I can't move the car by hand. That's not too shabby for rusty disks and pads. It still needs a couple more tabs to keep the middle of the cables tucked away neatly but I've just left them cabled tied up for now. 

With it all assembled and installed like this, I'm far happier with the slot in the bolt. With the whole system under a bit of tension all the time, there should be no way the cable can come loose and slip out. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which brings me to something of a bittersweet post. With the handbrake all sorted, I shifted my attention to sorting out some last few half-finished things. For example, I made final confirmation of my driveshaft angles at ride height and fully welded the rear spring pads to the diff. 56yag2o.jpg

The welder sure does sing at full noise like that but it was super satisfying to get it sorted. 

With that back in and bolted up, I put the front end and doors back on. KySOtu0.jpg 3MK9n8B.jpg

The guards and doors are bolted on as normal but the front panel, slam panel, rad supports, etc are all tek screwed on. y7E92Ao.jpg

Also, the bonnet went back on, radiator in, and the latch mechanism made to work. 

Moving inside, I threw my dash topper pad and heater box in, n47ML09.jpg

As well as front and rear seats. 1OWlNJC.jpg

Next, I pulled the front wheels and bolted up my princess calipers. XjRcIF7.jpg

They're just the bare housing at the moment because I haven't got round to putting my rebuild kit to use. 

Finally, I pulled all my spare parts out of storage and stacked them in the back. Everything from my spare V6, to spare wheel covers, to the cover for the torsion bars that hold the rear door up. Pretty much everything I'll need to finish the interior. vOmMiiI.jpg

After all that, I was finally able to stand back. oNbdcfi.jpg

As I said at the beginning of this post, this is a bittersweet moment. It was awesome to bolt everything to the car and see it down on its wheels again, but the reason behind it is less awesome. Having finished school at the end of 2017, I've spent most of last year bouncing between seasonal work to make a bit of money, but not doing anything about really starting a proper job. That's been great for working on the car since I've been living at home, but not so great for starting a career. So this year I've enrolled in a Certificate in Aeronautical Engineering in Auckland. Living in an 8mx8m flat leaves little room to store the car (or even an engine stand for that matter. That much has been made very clear by my better half) so I'm forced to leave it all behind. 

The complicating factor in that too is that my parents are selling up while I'm gone, so I need to have all my car parts packaged up ready to be transported down the road to our dry storage. Hence bolting everything on. I figured everything takes up the least space if it's bolted up where it's supposed to live, and it makes it far more difficult to lose parts that way too. 

So, nothing else to do but push it into a corner, throw a cover over it and wait until we can afford somewhere with a closed in garage.jyGe1mh.jpg

My old man has said he's happy to look after it until then so hopefully sometime next year we'll be reunited.

Thanks to everyone for their advice and support. 

Cheers. 

  • Like 7
  • Sad 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

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...