Joe's Cortina mk2

[MightyJoe]

Discussion Thread : 

New Thread as the old one might have been deleted as i had 2 cars in it? i'm not sure but i cant find it. so here's a recap of 6 yrs. 
bought in mid 2014 from chch, she has been  a nelson car for many yrs judging by the reciepts though.  WOF n REG mayte no worries!   err. Nah, she was ropey at best. 

 

they all leak a bit of oil dont they? 

i put whitewalls on it cos i was skint and couldn afford any wheels. 

the accelerator pump on the solex died and was pissing fuel all over the exhaust. i couldnt find a rebuild kit for this apparent orphan of a carb, and i also couldnt find a weber 32/36 but less than that i wasn't keen as the gt manifolds for these apparently go for moonbeams, so a dcoe it was. i rebuilt one good one from two. 


1 yr after purchase wof time came around and 'excessive smoke' was cited. i drove it gently, but the missus didn't get the memo. she got pulled a few times in a few weeks and packed a sook and refused to drive it anymore ( it was knackered) . so i parked it, outside at work for 9 months whilst i saved up for a rebuild. this time wasn't kind to it and the paint deteriorated quite a lot. 
Yum. 

it was packed off to hpe in chch for a shitload of work. 6 months or so later it came back and i set about a steep learning curve with the help of a good friend. 

Pose! i was allowed to snug the rocker cover. 

 

 

 

[MightyJoe]

Discussion:  

 

 

wheels, i still didnt have money but i asked about these and got a PM about a guy that knew a guy that had some. legit. 7jx13 cheviot quattro. Fuck yeah. 

i had the carbs rebuilt pro-fresh-a-nally and bought a brand new manifold. i legit stared at this on my coffee table for an entire evening. 

extractors wrapped. here you can see some combustion evidence, i had to pull the motor back out as is had no oil pressure on first start up. turns out i'd forgotten an oil gallery bung behind the timing cover. MOTHeR f***ER!   thankfully, no damage. 

a

the day it got its first wof in 4 yrs, dec 2019.

so thats the car up to date pretty much. i havent really used it, but thats why i've restarted a thread. i've signed up for the kaikoura hop this yr and i want to smarten it up before then, 6 weeks at time or writing. 

i bought a rev counter off Karl late last year and cleaned it up but never installed it as i didnt want to loose my combo gauge. i've bought all the correct senders for my gauges now so i'll be doing that. i had the eaxhaust tweaked a few weeks ago to make it bark a bit more. i want to tidy and de clutter the engine bay a bit and also fit a fusebox as they don't have them, shold be easy enough to make a few important circuit run through a fuse or 6. 

i've also had this stereo for yrs, positive earth and just screwed under the dash for looks, had a modern one in the glovebox but it was just a stupid amount of effort to do anything with it so i didnt use it. i bought a cheap 2 channel amp off aliexpress and tried to wire in the OG potentiometer for max barry points. i failed, but a friend who develops tech for a living took it home as a hobby project and had it working in a few hrs. So legit. 

the song is supposed to be ironic, incase you were wondering. 

i will update this a bit more over the coming weeks, as she's all legal now but obv needs all those  small jobs tidying and finishing. 

[MightyJoe]

Small update. I've been reading shit loads about brake and suspension upgrades this week. You can buy every component in 3 or 4 varieties for escorts, Capri's and mk3/4/5 cortinas. But mk1/2 and Anglia's are all left out. I phoned Burton power but didn't get much help. But I do have a set of Austin princess calipers to bolt on, which they do, and they clear my 13" wheels. Great. So hi-spec do an equivalent billet 4 pot caliper and rotor kit. I think I'm going to go that route rather than rebuild the princess ones. 

I replaced all the gear linkage bushes today. Much improvement but I'm still having intermittent problems with the clutch. I'm going to take it to work and reverse bleed it.  And after chatting with @gazguy yesterday my idea of a bracket to hold a radio and some gauges turned into a centre console build. I went to the wreckers today and bought a cup holder and pocket for my phone and wallet. Should make things much more comfortable in there. I do like the original look in classics and shape of the dash is nice but tbh having your wallet and phone slide off the seat around turns gets very boring. Here's my start at a template. I want to add more shape into it but am restricted by the under dash handbrake. 

[MightyJoe]

well that was a quick month. shit. kaikoura hop next week so i've been doing small jobs instead of the big ones i should be doing. anyway. 
i bought some rubber and trim from palmside. 
Before, 

After. so good. 

i bought some new brake flexi hoses as i was sure the old ones were giving me some of the spongey pedal feel, i havent tested them yet but the pedal does feel nice. 
 

 

the front screen rubber was shot so i took it out, and there was some surface rust there which i cleaned up and treated, i'll refit the screen tomorrow with the new rubber and trim. i topped up the diff level and gearbox also, and made an attempt at polishing the wheels... pics to follow

[MightyJoe]

I think i caught that just in time. and the wheel doesn't really show in the picture but thats a before / after. they look tidier in person though. 

[MightyJoe]

plenty of 'wiring' happening today. in my defence i fused everything. and it all works.

i'm really happy with the result though. finally got the tach in and working. it reads comically high but meh, thats a problem for another day. i love it, they're different cars with the tachs. 

rust converter doing the magic

got the missus tp help me string the screen in, its the 3rd one we've done, she's getting quite good at it lol. i hope i used enough sealant.

done, with the chrome. 

[MightyJoe]

Faaar out what a weekend. We travelled to Hanmer on Thursday and woke up friday morning to snow. lol. 

That was good fun though tbh, there werent any scary moments. Kaikoura bound, feeling very underprepared. 

The Clutch master died on the way over. got lucky with the roadworks and managed to bang gears/  revmatch enough to get all the way into town without stopping once since leaving hanmer. i pulled straight into the caltex and spoke to the mechanic there. he rang round for me and tried to locate a rebuild kit but there wasnt anything anywhere he could find. i decided to try a brake master from a trailer, only as i saw one on the shelf at safe r brakes yrs ago and thought, hmm, that looks similar. turns out theyre identical. fuck yeah. shop across the rd had 2 in stock. the snow hadnt reached KK but the rain had, so i had 40 mins of getting wet and lying on the floor on a sketchy as fuck jack reching in through the wheel well to bleed it. but it worked. 

the sun came out after i'd finished because of course it did so we cruised the strip a bit until we could check in. 

Night time at south bay. 

then the sat cruise. I got hit, fairlane couldnt stop, smacked into a mini which then shunted me. the mini was badly damaged unfortunately. i feel really bad for the guy. 

i was pretty pissed off but did some stuff still, but mostly waited until the afternoon and parked my arse on the espalande with a box and watched the cars cruise. 

on the way home...

The damage. FU! its been a pretty intense few days tbh. 

 

 

[MightyJoe]

 

Small update. I shut the garage door on this after the bump, i was a bit over it and expected insurance to take months. But It was quoted, accepted and cleared in a few weeks so I took it to Warrick at canterbury auto fabrication. Hes got the tools and know how to do it right. He also found some rust under the rubber seal and sent me pics to ask what to do next. I asked him to fix it as shapes and angles like that are beyond my skills to do nicely. Plus with it getting painted it would be stupid not to repair it now. He sent me some more pics of progress today. Shes looking good! Thanks to @RUNAMUCK bart for the recommendation and to @- i5oogt - karl for the replacement rear light. 

[MightyJoe]

Haven't updated this in forever. 

After I got the car back, she was looking awesome. Just about the best she ever has. I picked it up on the saturday and took it to work the following wednesday, first time it was out since collecting it, and I got rear ended. Again. Start stop traffic. Got shunted. Fuck I lost my shit right there in the middle of the rd lol. So back to canterbury auto fab it went. Less damage tha the first time but the rear panel and support brace were dented and the bumper was gouged through the chrome so that didnt survive this time. 

So yeah. Lol. Gotta laugh?  Got it back again before xmas. 

Been tinkering with it but haven't actually finished anything yet. I bought a GT dash top that needs recovering and my missus bought me the gauges for Christmas, cos shes awesome like that. They are very hard to come by these days. I was saving up to buy them off the guy but she had sorted it. I spent some time tidying them up as they aren't mint but I got them looking pretty sweet.  

Dash is also less than mint but that's ok. Its 53yrs old and they all need work. 

 

 

 

 

[MightyJoe]

So that's where it is so far. I have some vinyl stuff from spotlight but I doubt it's going to have the stretch/shrinkage I need. Dunno yet. 

I removed the stuck drums on the GT rear axle I bought forever ago and started making a list of stuff I needed. I decided I'll replace it all but haven't bought anything yet. I also have some brackets for the anti tramp bars that need welding to the body. Nice bit of kit, cheap from the uk. 

And from a few weeks ago at the mustang day at halswell air museum. It was a cracking day with loads of awesome fords, uk, aus and american stuff. 

hopefully ill have some other small updates soon. joe. 

[MightyJoe]

Dash top is Getting there. I bought a rasp after some YouTubing, it's slow work but it's hard to mess up doing it that way. 

[MightyJoe]

Its been ages since an update again, its been off the road for ages, my own fault cos i cant leave anything alone but i took the head off in may / june as i have never been properly happy with the power, its always felt flat and considering its got an a2 cam and a vernier on it i thought i should try and dial it in. trying to keep up with my mates bgt was too much effort so i went chasing power. i spent months waiting for parts from th uk, and when they came spent another few months trying to get it to idle and i was chasing vacuum leaks all over the show. i tried 3 different gaskets and im pretty sure shes right now. i've got a blackline lsd sitting in the house waiting to go into a GT axle i've half refurbushed, i ordered 2 wheel cylinders, shoes and a spring kit sometime in june and they made it to auckland, sat there for 3 weeks and then got sent back for some reason. the guy emailed me saying they'd been returned. perfect. so i need another plan for that. i;ve got new wheel bearings pressed onto the axles and waiting, so need to re source those parts and get that 3:54 rear end in. 

during lockfown 2.0 i got out at it and started tnkering. i bought these name tabs off ebay and made a small control panel for the accessories. I'm pretty happy with it, they were supposed to be mounted under the dash but I didnt like the way the keys interfered with them so I moved them, only now you cant see the tabs clearly hence they angle they're on. meh. itll do. 

[MightyJoe]

I got the dash top fitted and installed  the temp and fuel gauge dont work so I'll need to look into the senders etc and see if the gt ones are different. but still. coupled with a new GT wheel I love it. 

I got the wideband installed and working, I havent had the car out on the rd yet so havent been able to use it properly yet. but it boots up and I've ran it through calibration. seems fine.  also: vacuum gauge for the boomers. 

these are in the boot until after the wof. prob gonna have to man up and get it a cert after fitting these so I'll try and get the summer out of this wof and go from there. 

reverse/rally lamp fitted during lockdown. 

randoms, just cos. 

that's roughly where it is. its booked in for a wof in 10ish days so I'm getting stuff finished and tidied up for that. it's literally done 0ks since feb this yr so... hopefully no nasty surprises. 

shit pic of the dash and wheel, some better ones.  fuck I love that wheel. 

[MightyJoe]

Today I fixed a problem that's been stumping me for months. the car would idle like crap, intermittent misfiring on 3 and 4, give it a rev and it's ok, bit lumpy but definitely running on 4. i pulled the plugs, look good, definitely firing. drives ok, i balanced the carbs, tried all kinds of adjustment but couldn'work it out. today I got out the weber book and had another browse, the idle circuit on these is separate to the main jets, I dunno how I didnt put that together with the fact that it idled like crap but drove ok. it was the rear carb that was giving the hassle and I knew it was balanced, so I took the idle jets out, mixture screw and progression hole caps and sprayed brake cleaner through it until I was getting good streams out of them all. there was an instant improvement on idle, I fattened up the mixture a bit and it idles perfectly. fuck yes. must have been some varnish or some shit in there from when the fuel evaporated out of them after months of sitting.    took it out for a drive and it's great. crisp and smooth progression. it's still a bit rich though so I'll sort that and I'll time it and do some fine tuning now. 

[MightyJoe]

discussion.  opinions on the top mount situation appreciated.

 

 

another bits and pieces update this week. went to fit my shock inserts and found both top mounts are perished. They're kind of functional due to where they've failed but also very much at the end of their life, so I fitted one insert and left the other as theyve both got to come out again anyway. They are made of that famous cortina unobtanium but I can get repro ones. I'm hesitant though as I've fitted aftermarket rubber to the triumph and it lasts a few yrs and is then also fucked. I'm leaning toward the (believe it or not) slightly cheaper adjustable mounts which means a cert for sure but they're fully adjustable and rebuildable with a spherical bearing.  I'm gonna talk with palmside tomorrow about how viable they are for a road car.  also had a stall with the rear axle. I cant get wheel cylinders at the moment. worst case I can get rebuild kits but the guy is gonna ring me tomorrow if he can get some then I'll get a hard line made. pics...

damaged top hat.

replacement options

it's a shame these get hidden.

 

[MightyJoe]

More of the same suspension stuff. 

I bought the rubber top mounts,  they were cheaper from palmside than the other place, and cheaper than the adjustables. these have a replaceable bearing too if needby, so, win. 

had to drill the bushing out to 12mm 

new bumpstops courtesy of Mr.Mk1 who I met yesterday. its great to know new people. 

cleaning and painting stuff, I went with blue in homage to the race teams and works cars of the day that ran bilstein shocks. pointless ultimately, but slightly more interesting than the standard rattle can black. still only have 1 side done though but I'll do the other side tomorrow. 

Boom. theres nothing like showing off to the Wof guy. 

 

 

[MightyJoe]

A huge update for the car, but a shitty update when I try and write about it.   theres only so many pictures you can take of an axle.  I had the 3.54 gears and blackline Lsd sitting in the house since august. the supply chain is wrecked as we all know. so I had brake shoes, springs and wheel cylinders brand new ordered but they never arrived. got all the way to Auckland, sat there for 3 weeks then got sent back to the uk. go figure. so I fitted the old shoes, used a mixture of the best springs and clips I could make of the 2 sets and bought wheel cylinders again. I pressed new bearings onto the axles and bolted it all together. I just needed to get it done the old diff was knackered. I took the car out today to a motorkhana with a mate with the MG club today. had great fun and it was also a great test of the car, suspension and diff etc and I got a few hrs cruising to tweak the carbs and keep an eye on the wideband. I need to do more research. when the car runs best it reads about 12.8 cruising and 12.2 on full throttle. from what I've read so far that's too lean but I need way more reading up on it. anyway.. few pics.

old

new.

 

 

[MightyJoe]

Last update for a while probably.  I am so chuffed with this car at the moment. I love it. It rides well with the new shockies, runs well and the wideband is sweet for keeping an eye on stuff, its just done a trip to kaikoura and back flawlessly with my mate and his MGB. I'm gonna drag the missus triumph out now and work on that and hopefully just be able to enjoy this as is for the summer.