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Been through some changes since this photo.

Ok I should probably update you all. its a month since my last update and well, the car is very close to finished, with only relatively minor things needed to finish it off. I only have the photos on my phone, so i will get to them in a seperate post, but I'll give you the run down. The interior is all back in, including the new mass sound deadener/carpet underlay, which made a massive difference to cabin noise. The brand new reproduction inner sill trims/carpet trims are in. I was under pressure from the RSOCV guys about getting the car "finished", or at the very least ready for display at Small Ford Sunday 2024, which happened Sunday just gone. So I had a lot of work ahead of me, with less than 4 weeks (since my last update) so get the car sorted. Needless to say, i made it. I had the car at SFS24, running and driving under its own power. Although it made it to SFS, the stereo wasn't wired up, thats not a big deal, but as of Friday morning the car nearly didn't make it. As of Friday morning, the car was not drivable. I was shattered. The car was having gearbox issues, which scared the crap out of me, given Rod and I had modified the gearbox, I was terrified something with the gearbox went wrong, but it was the aftermarket short shifter. How? well i wouldn't have believed it, if I didn't read it on a number of UK based forums, that some cheaper or lesser quality short shifters randomly fail, causing issues with being able to select 1st gear. In my case, I could not engage 1st gear at all, and it was crunching into 5th The fix, was to refit the standard shifter, and sure enough, problem solved. Friday, 2 days out from SFS, i still had a few things to sort out. - Fix the gearbox issue - finish polishing the outer sill trims, replace black stripe, and fit back on the car (pop riveted on) - and change the wheels to something presentable. the 13" 4 spokes are nice, but the black paint is flaking again, so need a pro resto job. so the car is back to running on the 15s. Ive been putting some decent kms on the car, driving back and forth to my folks place to reassemble the car in stages. the fuel consumption is the best it has ever been in the time ive owned the car, returning 9.8L/100km on the first tank i recorded. It will definitely go lower on the open road, and when I stop using so much throttle with the new carpet underlay in, the Recaro seats, and the 5 speed, the car is comfortable, and really nice to drive basically anywhere. i can sit on the freeway and cruise in it at 100km/h no worries. its not noisy, it feels tight, its not working too hard, and it doesn't get hot. So, whats left to do? - I need to add headlight film to protect the lights - look at the thermostat/cooling system. its not building temp. i suspect the thermostat is stuck open. - Stereo is all wired up, and sounds great - Front seat rail adapters have been painted today, so tomorrow the front seats can go back in for the last time, - waiting on front bumpers to come back from chrome platers. Other than those few things, the car is mostly done. interior is complete, once the front seats go back in. exterior is 95% there. So on that note I am just going to leave these two pics below as teasers. In my next update I will add more pics and details of what I went through the last few weeks. there was definitely some challenges. The top pic is the first drive around the block with the stock shifter back in the gearbox, and the 15" wheels back on. as you can see its a bit later in the day, so it was my only chance to test things out before SFS. The second pic, is a bit like a proud dad moment, driving the Escort into Small Ford Sunday to display the car. first time I have been in over 3 years, and in my own car again, was a such a great feeling. and the number of people who came to me and wanted to talk to me about the car, because they had heard its story, and what it had been through, was a little overwhelming.

Well some good news. I do have oil pressure. i went to my dad’s place today and he helped plumb in a mechanical oil pressure gauge. Not very fine increments, but that is reading around 30-35psi. at the same time the VDO inside was reading 20psi. So my VDO sender appears to be playing up. Ill just leave the below pic there for you to all enjoy. first time the Escort has been at my parent’s house since it was off the road. A quick snap with my father’s S2 Land Rover, affectionately known as George, 1 of 2 specially built, fire service vehicles for Sydney Showgrounds. Unfortunately George’s brother is nowhere to be found. While George has had a full tear down, nut and bolt restoration done by the previous owner.

Well I have the radiator out of the car again, pressure tested, and found the leak. The strange part is, that after a few minutes of being under pressure with the pressure tester on, it stopped leaking, and began to hold constant pressure. So I will pressure test again and go from there. I think unfortunately it will need to be recored. In other news, I have the car booked in for its exhaust to be made in a couple weeks. And I also have all the exterior lighting working, and the boot interior light. The restored and LED retrofitted reverse lights should hopefully be more than bright enough. The NOS H4 Hella headlights are in and working well. I fitted the globes that came with them, still brand new in their boxes. Old Philips 55/60w globes, that are god knows how old, but new in box. Wonder how long they’ll last. Boot light is working also.

Next on the agenda; The dreaded heater box. This thing was filthy. 48 years worth of dust, leaves, and rotting foam. The core has been replaced, so thats a good sign. I have pressure tested the core and it seems ok, but I am going to do it again today. im not convinced i tested it properly. Also, someone had used what looks like windscreen sealer to reinstall the lid when it was apart previously when in actual fact, its meant to be foam to seal it. I have bought all new high density foam, not the open cell shit that rots away, and am currently in the process of resealing it and assembling the heater box. I got a little stuck with this lever for the main vent flap. its pressed onto a spline. I couldn't get the internals of the heater matrix out until that lever, and its flap were removed. Of all things, a $19 tap handle remover from Bunnings worked perfectly at getting that lever off After I got the internals out of the box, the rest of the mess from 48 years of crap was revealed ** This is where I am currently up to. The heater box is the last thing I need to do to make the car 100% water tight. I also have another radiator for it, second hand but pressure tested ok. its also larger. technically from a Cortina, but they are the same as what was used in Mexicos. So i has a larger top tank, and larger cores. Once the radiator is in, technically I could run the engine. And with the brakes all up and working, when I book it in for the exhaust to be done, it will be great to be able to drive it on and off the trailer instead of winching it. In between all this major stuff, I have done a lot of little things that I haven't really documented. Ive replaced all the door seals now, rebuilt all the latches on the doors, mirrors are on etc. so from the outside she looks almost complete. As you would have seen in above photos from inside the car, the wiring is still a mess. its a job I am not looking forward to doing. the inside of the car is another project in itself, to do it to the level I'd find acceptable. There is wiring to sort out, small bits of surface rust, lots of cleaning to do in cavities that aren't easily accessible. I need to clean all these out so I can then cavity wax them and keep them safe from future rust. I need to tidy up the wiring, install sound deadening before the carpet goes in, and order and install the new amp and wiring for the stereo, because as much as i love the sound of the weber and the exhaust, on longer drives I need decent music. I want to say its not that far off, but it is. My expected finish timeline keeps getting further and further away, so for now I am going to say that if I can drive it out my shed under its own steam, for its first test drive by christmas, it will be the best christmas present ever. It will also mark 3 years since it was written off.

I just dropped the radiator out of the ZK at my radiator shop to have it checked out. He's old school and one of the last guys in the region that can still do brazing work. Initial look revealed that the core may need some work. I'll report back with what he did and the cost next Wednesday.

Would be way cool, and friggin' expensive, if you had 2 big ar$e flat screens on the sides, playing vast amount of stars moving sideways. Give you the feeling that your'e travelling through space. LMAO. Great work, mate. Should be proud of your achievements.

Could be points bounce, could be coil, could be vacuum leak, could be timing, could be old fuel, could be spark leads, could be i got no idea what I'm talking about. Let us know what ya find..... Love this little Esky. ...........and this one too.!

Well I did it. I had an aim to get the Escort out and driving by NYE, during my week off work. It is not without its teething issues, but all i can say is, wow. The 1660 with 5 speed drives incredible. the power and torque delivery is really nice and mostly linear. Obviously im comparing to a tired 1300 that was in there. Giving the car a run onto the freeway, it gets there to 100km/h quicker than it ever has, and with still 2 more gears to go. The engine has good torque right throughout the rev range, so much so that at 60km/h it will still pull in 5th gear, which is about 2000rpm. at 70km/h, 2100rpm, it will pull up hill in 5th comfortably. At 100km/h, its sitting on 3100rpm in 5th, and cruises just nicely. Steering The new 2.9 ratio steering rack is fantastic. im super happy i did it. the little extra weight at low speeds is so worth it for how much better the car drives now. going round corners, going round roundabouts, it is better in every way. Brakes They still need time to bed in properly, but they pull up really good. can't wait to have them bedded in properly. Radiator is doing a dam good job. i haven't seen it climb to half (normal) temp at all. its keeping the temp perfect. even on the freeway at prolonged higher revs, no problem. Now for the BAD As you will see in a photo of the dash below, the oil pressure is leading low, way too low. 20psi. and it does not move. I managed to find a record i took from when I started the engine for the first time about 18 months ago, where I had hooked up my oil pressure gauge. at the time it was holding a solid 38psi. so now why does it only hold 20psi? Potentially one of two things; 1 - the relief valve on the oil pump is stuck open and is not allowing it to build oil pressure, or 2 - the oil pressure is fine, and the sender for the gauge is faulty. Fuelling - The car obviously needs a tune. it drives great, but does have a bit of hesitation at certain RPM and part throttle positions. at WOT, its fine just pulls. I also feel like im missing the last 1000-1500rpm in the engine. winding it up onto the freeway, going through the gears, as soon as it hits 5000rpm, the sound changes, the engine gets louder and more "rattly"? This adds to the concern of the low oil pressure, that perhaps that i can't use the top end of the RPM due to low oil pressure. at the moment this is not too much of a concern because it will be rarely driven up there. Ignition - Obviously as you saw in a previous post, I blew my electronic distributor up, so I went back to running the Lucas points ignition setup. it works, but I will be replacing it with something more substantial to keep up with the demands of the larger capacity engine and cam. Enjoy the few pics below. I still have a bit of work ahead of me, but I am loving having it driving, and to be honest, it is dangerous how quickly it gets up to speed. i could definitely get myself into trouble

That sort of coil should be fine, just needs to be a GT40R coil - to suit a resistor wire/points system GT40R is a 9v coil - to suit points GT40 is a 12v coil, for electronic style ignition

I run a Quickfuel 600 vac sec on my XF ute with similar specs,

You've got it, about the only other thing is the bellhousing, it will bolt up to the block but the sump won't bolt to the bellhousing unless you swap to an au bellhousing, I recently found an in car video on an old sd card of my ute circa 2008 after it had the hot 4.0 but before it was tuned, I don't think i ever uploaded it back then because it was a zero to 180 pull, it was quite capable of getting ot of its own way and it lived through 180,000ks of p plater abuse

well its been a month since the last update Whats happened in the last month? I looked into getting the radiator repaired. It will need a complete re-core, which was going to set me back over $600, thanks to the cost of copper at the moment. I just can't quite justify that at the moment, especially after paying $250 for the unit originally. One day I will get it done, but at the moment I think im just going to keep that aside. In the meantime, many of the guys from the RSOCV, rave about the cheap eBay alloy radiators. so at this stage I am probably going to take a punt on one, and see how it goes. for about $200 delivered, i could get a few years out of 3 of them before i have spent the some coin on re-coring the copper unit, which given its age could very easily spring a leak elsewhere in 12 months time. For now, I have the original 1300 radiator in place, just to keep me going, so i can start and move the car around. Its a little smaller than the upgrade behind it I fitted the original front seat for now just so i can move it around. Got it out of the shed, around into the driveway to wash the 12 months worth of "barn" dust off it, ready to go in for the exhaust Grill back in, number plate on the front, and it looks finished at the front. well it basically is, but i do need to remove the grill to do one more task that i forgot about. Next, it was ready for the exhaust. This was a fair challenge getting the trailer down the driveway. I decided to load the car onto the trailer the night before it was going in for the exhaust, because the shop doing the job for me was about 45 minutes drive from home, and they wanted the car by 8am. The trailer track width was wider than my driveway, so ran down the grass both sides, and bulldozed some of the bushes down the LH side with the mud guards The Escort on the trailer, fits under my carport comfortably, so once the trailer was loaded i backed her up under the carport to keep it out of the rain. *race tape on to protect my headlights from any rocks coming off my tyres on my Land Rover* The exhaust shop who did the job absolutely nailed it. Exhaust Fix in Lillydale if any Melbourne people are looking for a good exhaust shop. His freshly restored XD ESP maybe a known car, "RAREXD" is its plates. Mick did a 2" system from the headers back to a high flow muffler right before the diff, with a flange upon my request before the diff, to a resonator in the tail pipe. The flange is there in case I want to make it a little louder, he will make up a straight pipe at the back for me. The workmanship is spot on, and it sounds perfect. Has the perfect little raspy crack to it while not being too loud. I can not wait to drive it properly on the street to hear it. Preparing it for cavity wax and rust protection, Ive been trying to wash out what ever is left of the years of dirt built up in the cavities that are hard to get into. after all this time, its incredible how much shit is still coming out of the sills and chassis rails. Ive been having a bit of trouble getting the car in and out of the shed, because of the step down, onto grass/dirt before the laneway. I bought a pair of gutter ramps, but needed to extend these due to clearance underneath. At the moment this is the solution i have, some timber blocks to help reduce the angle of the drop. and so far its been easier to drive it in rather than back it in, due to traction issues on the grass at the bottom of the ramps. nearly impossible to reverse in Its a work in progress as I come up with a new idea to help. Replaced the dash lights with some low output LEDs. including all the warning lights. the photo makes the dash look really bright, but its not. that is at full brightness (mine has a dimmer being a 1975 model) The Oil pressure and Alternator charge light (Amber and Red lights at the bottom) are insanely bright now with the LEDs directly behind them. But I am not mad about that, because if i lose oil pressure, I want to bloody know about it The upper dash is now all back together. I just have to tidy up the wiring under the dash so i can install the centre dash panel back in, which will also give me my choke cable back. Today I picked up my new kenwood amplifier and 8" sub for the car. I previously was running an amp and sub from a BA falcon with premium sound, because the sub fits in the parcel shelf of the Escort with no mods, but they didn't cut it over the engine noise. So I am fitted new Kenwood stuff. The amp goes under the passenger seat, and will power the front door speakers as well as the sub in the parcel shelf. I just have to setup the front door speaker wiring to take signal from an amp instead of the head unit, then tidy the rest of the wiring up and tuck it away, and then the dash will be finished. So the car is getting close to being done, but whats left? Once the wiring and dash it back together, i still have to finish cleaning, rust converting surface rust in any cavity i can get into, and cavity waxing, the inside of the doors, the sills and anywhere else that may be appropriate. I have some of the original shitty sound deadening up behind the dash I still have to get out. then its clean the floors, install new sound deadening, carpet, seats, and door cards. At that point, the car will be complete, but not finished. I still have to find the jets for the carby which have gone MIA, and jet the carby for a 1600 again, at present its set for the 1300. I still have to mount the rear number plate. Replace the interior light Replace the number plate light Put clear protective film on the headlights Order, and fit new radiator that will keep the engine cool. (and paint it black. they alloy ones all come polished ) I still have to remove the headers and get them ceramic coated And, the last biggish one, is i have to get the dizzy regraphed.

The heater box is in after a bit of stuffing around, and the cooling system is all hooked up. I ended up having to add an extra 12mm thick run of neoprene foam to the top of the heater box to seal it against the body of the car. the replacement seal that i bought from the UK, was miles too thin, and when bolted up, there was a decent gap between the heater box and the body of the car. Heater hoses are all hooked up. All the vents tubes are in as well inside the car, so I can start tidying up the wiring under the dash. Getting close to starting it. all thats left is to mount the coil, add water and fuel, and i need some hose for the brake booster and PCV so there are no vac leaks. I also know the jetting in the carby is all wrong, because i had it set for the 1300. but i should be able to idle it and run it in. I have had the engine running previously, so it will for now

wow, so sorry its been so long between updates.... Well here we go. The bolts I originally used for the shifter were too bulky, and were touching the body, so I fitted smaller round headed bolts, and loosened the gearbox mount and resettled its alignment, which seems to have given more space. I then need to sort out the shift gator. This is a steering rack boot, that happens to actually fit together up inside the original interior shift gator. so now the short shifter mechanism and the body are both sealed. Next was the brakes; I replaced the booster with a new one instead of trying to use mine. Rebuilt master cylinder by myself, was pretty happy with that. And new booster all mated together. All installed. I was wrapped to see that my new brake lines that I made, purely off copying the old ones, fitted perfect first go. From there I went onto the wiper mechanism. It was in pretty much perfect condition. I just stripped it, cleaned it, gave the motor and gears a clean and regrease and reassembled. Next, I went onto the throttle cable. I'd had this vision for ages, to run a throttle cable like Mk 2 1600 Ghias had. The Mk2 1600 Ghia had a 1600 with a factory 32/36 Weber. basically my exact setup. now they also had a unique throttle cable, where it was super short, and came from the firewall and straight to the back of the carby. I have the same setup, including the Mk2 Weber throttle bracket. Problem is, Mk1 and 2 throttle pedals are different, and cable ends are different. I had a custom cable sitting here, suited for a 2L Pinto into Mk1. Basically its a Mk1 pedal, but Mk2 at the carby end. However it was way too long for what I wanted because the carby on a Pinto is on the opposite side to a 1600. My solution; I bought a generic cable end and ball from Aeroflow. That gave me the ability to cut the cable down to the length i needed, and set it up how i liked. Can see the cable end in the below photo. The kit came with a larger ball, so I had to cut the original one off the linkage and the new one was a bolt on arrangement. AND this is the end result ** there is more to come. Still sorting through photos**

OOOHH I had this issue once also then. i didn't pick it, i didn't have many cars that had this style seat, and once i got over the fact they weren't a "head rest" and the Girl Friend at the time fit her pony tail knot in the opening, it was the best thing ever invented apparently. if they marketed it as a pony tail void, they'd sold double the amount lol

so, its still no go, so my mechanic is going to come up one night and have a look ( he's done a heap of work on this car so knows it well ) , its a mystery but I'll let you all know the results. Fingers crossed, and thanks for your suggestions.

the XE diff will be 25 spline so if you wanted to run 28 spline to my knowledge you'd need(i'm not 100% sure) 2.77 LSD center, if wanting LSD not sure if you can retro fit 4pin setup into them? (thought there was a 28 spline version though?) if you wanted those axles you'd need the 28 spline spider gears in the center(no idea if they fit) i think the EB axles will fit the drum diff if you put the correct bearings in and holders on? (never tried, haven't read about it for well over 10yrs) i think you can convert from drum to disc by drilling new holes in the disc caliper mountings and clocking them different (the flange on the diff is rotated differently for drum and disc. ) @Thom may remember, @gerg may know even if it was Mine, i'd be getting a 2.77 LSD diff with discs from an XF ghia/ZL fairlane etc (some were 2.92 for no apparent reason in my opinion) and then having the gears fitted to it. leaving it 25 spline unless you are going big hp (stock 351 would be fine with 25 spline, I never had 28 spline in anything i had not even the 1UZ conversion)

yeah it's not unusual.. BUT. @Nato of Falcons from that VISUAL, you may find the radiator is fine, just reverse flush it, and see if you can see water flowing through the tubes (alloy radiators are cheap at least).. what you will likely find, or find out soon. is the welsh plugs are on their way out.(there's one behind the inlet manifold also ON the manifold)and one behind the flywheel. and. the biggest risk in my opinion, is the water pump if it's got the steel fan type (genuine ford had a cast iron impeller that would last longer than the seal at least) anyway, the fan blades can rust away. AND, the other risk is rusted bolts in the block from the water pump. all good learning stuff. not fun for new players. but. the XF is THE BEST CAR FOR LEARNING.. one of the easiest things to work on this side of a gemini.

Don't skimp on the cost, buy the Loctite product called literally "Rear view mirror glue" or whatever, It works every time.... Scrape the glass clean, use the primer in the pack, and clean the Ford plate thingy, put your sunvisors down and make sure they don't hit (make it central in other words). Place the metal plate on the inside of the windscreen, get a mate/wife/girlfriend to mark the outside of the windscreen with a texta or marker. Prime both surfaces, dab on the glue, stick on, Robert's ya Fathers brother. Don't heaps of these over the years, never fall off.

The au short motor in my ute was from an au taxi at pick a part and had 885 000ks on it, when I tore it down for a re ring and bearing it was still within factory tolerances You must be Quite a Character Most Guys go to the Wreckers and try hard to get a motor with the lowest mileage & wear. You get the bits that should have been Melted and Resurrect them to Glory. Just goes to show!

Update time Reassembling the the heater box, the last thing i had to do was fit the tiny little circlips that hold the main flap shaft in. Well I snapped the second one, and didn't have another. So I went through my R/C stuff, and ive got loads of body clips. so I mangled one and used it to replace the circlip So here is the heater box finished. All new foam. Im pretty sure this thing will work better than it ever has I didn't bother to paint the top lid, because as far as im concerned, now with the new seal once its back in the car it shouldn't leak, shouldn't continue to gather surface rust. plus its not seen. Next up, the radiator I pressure tested, and painted the bigger radiator, and got it installed this afternoon. looks right at home in there. its definitely big. Ive removed the grill again to do a list of things up front. I need to install the other headlight, and wire both of them up, paint and install the horn, and fit the front number plate. I use nut and bolt through the front panel, and once the grill is in, I can't install the number plate.

I have these for the XF. The lower arm is a reinforced stocky, with the spherical bushing. The upper is for the std coil set-up, using the corrected top balljoint and Shelby drop. I'm using the Open Tracer Racing delrin front strut pivot balls, instead of the urethane style, as it puts less stress on the bracket. Using a 1/2" bolt isn't an issue, one can drill it for the 14mm (9/16") bolt if one desires, as I have, plus I'm using the fixed square camber plates they supply to stop the pivot bolt moving under cornering, or minor bumps with those who won't give way when I dive under them in the corners. I also have the a Baer bump steer kit, plus solid tie rod adjusters so I don't have the same happen like Dick Johnson at Forest Elbow in 1983.

Have you tried the paintless dent removal option yet b4 doing the sanding/filler route?

wait until i get it finished then take it for a drive and do a few tests,this diff could be worthy a rebuild in my book and while its at the diff shop get them too fit the 25 spile lsd centre