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Kiwisurf's MK2 Escort 4 door


kiwisurf

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Been following this forum for a while and been meaning to start a build thread so here go's. I have had it close to a year all ready and have not been keeping to good a photo history unfortunately. 

A year or so ago I started a new job that came with a company vehicle which allowed me to sell my late model Navara freeing up some cash. About the same time we bought a lifestyle property outside of Hamilton that came with a converted pig shed at 130 square meters. 

So I thought I should get my self some sort of toy. I started looking for something american but decided that seems though we had a mortgage and a young family I could not justify the money required to get something decent.

So I decided to look around for a tidy Escort. I used to play with old fords when I was younger....had a MK1 Escort van and a Consul 315.

So I picked this up at a good price. A chick had it before me and it was her first, and only car. And as she discovered a 40 year old Ford is not really ideal for either of those. 

 

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 Once I got it home the first thing I did was fit some rear seatbelts and a child seat attachment point in the parcel tray so the family could come for a cruise.

After a few days I got sick of the interior so stripped it out and sent it to the panel beaters to have a patch done in the drivers floor and the spare wheel well....other than that it it rust free.

I stripped out the old sound deadening then wire brushed the floor and painted in Por15.

I then applied sound deadening to the entire floor and inner doors.

Fitted a new carpet kit and underlay.

New low back bucket seats from NZKW.

Recovered the rear seat with a cover kit from Autosport. Its not the same vinyl as the front seats but I had a price to have it done and it was 3 times more expensive than the covers that I got and I recovered it myself.

Vinyl died the door trims.

And reassembled.

No before pics sorry but I can assure you it was poo brown with flogged out front seats and holes every where.

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Did a round headlight conversion. I forgot to take a pic when it had square eyes.

A mate scored me a grille for $40 at a swap meet which I had plastic welded to repair 2 small cracks and then painted in Satin Black.

Same mate who is also a auto sparkie got me some new 7 inch semi sealed round lights. He also relocated the battery to the boot and tided up the dash wiring for me.

Got some light retainers from Palmside and modified the square buckets to take these.

At the same time I removed the chrome and plastic bumpers and fitted up some front 1/4 bumpers and a fiberglass rear that got the satin black treatment also. I eventually plan to remove all the chrome work and do it in black. 

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The 1300 was not cutting it so I bought a 1600 711M engine off a guy in Timaru and had it shipped up.

It had apparently been recently rebuilt and has a Kent 234 cam, double valve springs and head work and the rest is unknown.

I did a leak down test and it was fine so decided not to pull the head.

Dropped the sump and checked the bearings. There was some sign of bronzing on the Mains so replaced them.

Bores looked good from underneath with good hone marks so put a gasket kit and water pump etc and left it at that. 

No better pics but its all black now and fitted and running.

Once I had a good look at the 1300 that I pulled out I discovered it has had a lot of head work including ports that are about 10mm bigger than the ones on the 1600 head so its currently at a mates engine shop being checked over and the plan is to fit it when I'm ready to fit the bike carb manifold.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Been busy doing a type 9 5 speed upgrade for the last 2 weeks.

Cut the gearboot ring off. Cut a hole for the new shifter position. Then added a patch to fill the old hole.

I bought a gearbox x member from retro Ford in the UK as well as a short shifter but I've had to cut the x member a bit to clear the gearbox which I'm not happy about.

The factory mounting hole s for the standard x member had to be removed as well.

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