Panko

They are expecting they will be ready to paint the outside at the end of the month. I still have to get a block and the gearbox over there, which is fine, to mod the crossmember mounts right. As long as Mark is ok keeping the car, i can delay some of the work until i have the bits needed.

I went and saw the car today. It was pretty surreal to see it stripped down now with glass out, the rear panel been cut out, and see some bare metal. to put a bit more pressure on me, i said to Mark im not sure how i will go fitting the engine and gearbox without scratching the new paint in the engine bay, to which he said, HE would much prefer me to fit the driveline there at his workshop, with the use of his hoist, by dropped the subframe out, putting the engine and box on that, and lowering the car down onto the subframe, how they were built from factory. BUT, that means I have to find a 1600 before the car leaves the shop I have also been given free run of the workshop. I am picking up a key and alarm code from Mark on friday night, and a couple of us are going in on saturday to clean up the underside of the car, to get ride of all the oil, dirt and surface rust, so they can spray the underside in subframe black. filthy work, but it needs to be done. ¼ panel repaired. The reason it was so full of bog was because when it was repaired previously, the shop that did it had use a slide hammer, then never bothered to fix up the spots the slide hammer attached to, so just used bog to smooth it all over. antenna hole is filled. I had told them not to put an antenna into the new guard. when mark told me they had ended up repairing the original guard, i figured they'd leave the antenna hole...nope. rear panel gone and floor all straightened out again. the one spot of rust in the entire car. the spare wheel well. i thought that would be the case. someone had done a pretty bad backyard repair job in there to try stop it. now its been stripped its brought it right out.

absolutely. and I am keen to continue to approve more work on it. at the end of the day, as long as the shell is in perfect condition, if that is where all my budget goes, just into the shell, im fine with that. the extra stuff like engine upgrade, steering rack, brakes etc, can be out of pocket in the future.

Woo. Tomorrow I will have some progress photos. I am going to see the car in the morning before work. What I know is the back panel has been cut out, so that will be interesting to see, and the front left ¼ panel they ended up repairing instead of replacing. apparently spent a solid days work on it to get it properly straight, all the bog removed and currently in bare metal. There has been phone calls back and forth over the past couple weeks just figuring out more and more details. I think my bill from the panel shop is going to be higher than i originally intended, but i cant help myself, asking them to do extra stuff They are going to roll the guards, so my 13x6 steel rims will hopefully fit. they have a lower offset than my alloys, so they are going to stick out about 10mm further. by rolling the guards i should have no issues with clearance. They have also inspected the chassis, on the driver's side where my front leaf spring eye is on the chassis. Its always been in the wrong spot, appears to have been welded in the wrong spot from factory. 10mm further back, hence i have always run offset pinned lowering blocks. well, they are going to fix that also, and get the eye mount in the correct spot Mark has given me free rain of the workshop, so i can come and go whenever i like if there is anything id like to do underneath the car, especially now while its in the air. He suggested i spend some time over there getting the underside cleaned up and body deadened/stone guarded. On the gearbox front, Rod ( @2redrovers) helped me finished cutting the extension housing. I have spent some time getting it ready to be welded, but since then, I have been flat stick at work. I am temporarily filling a management role at work until march, so in an office from around 10am until about 5pm every day. makes progress very very slow In the mean time, I have also had the alternator on my LR Discovery 2 spit the dummy, so have spent the last couple nights after work getting that ripped out, and hopefully will have the new unit in, and car running again tomorrow night. So i have been without my daily driver too. Anyway, ill grab some photos of the car tomorrow to share with you guys. Im kind of excited to see the progress, but super nervous about it too

picked up the trailer last night, and dropped the car off today.

I finished off the car today. wipers and ID plates are off, exterior door handles and mirrors are off. Its ready to go to the panel shop. in total, it was about 2.5 days worth of work to get it to where it is, from a complete car. Goes to show how simple it is compared to the XF, which took me weeks worth of work to get it prepped for the panel shop.

My score from under the carpet

Well after a solid 12 hours at it, with the help of a mate, the car is very very close to being ready to go to the shop. Today we stripped the rest of the engine bay, got all the brake lines out, booster, fuel lines, fuel tank, interior is completely stripped, heater box out, bumpers off. I just have to remove the outer door handles, external mirrors and wiper motor. I found under the carpet a 1 cent coin, from 1975! The same year the car was built. I also discovered, after 4.5 years of ownership, what had been causing my RH air vent to not rotate. Confirming my suspicions, it had been glued, and stuck to the dash pad. But not on purpose. Someone had repaired the vent itself with glue, then obviously put it back into the dash before the glue had set, and it glued itself to the dash pad. Thankfully that was an easy fix. This wad the shit hiding under my fuel tank in the boot. How the F does that shit get in there? I mean, I understand leaves and whatnot. But there was bark, there was nuts and spikey things off trees. Which dont fit through the vents in the back. Interior gone Heater box out

Doing some googling, I came across this image from a UK mob that do the boxes setup for Triumphs. Look at the red gearbox, can see they weld around the shifter tube, but then they plate the shifter housing on both sides, and looks like they weld a flat bit to the back of the shifter housing as well. I have a lesser quality image from the other side of the box to show the plate welded that side too.

Yeah I definitely will need to learn a lot and practice before doing it on a box im going to use. Maybe I will come see you when ive made the cut and got the shifter housing lose and ready to go back together.

We have the gear to tig weld. but have no idea how to do it lol. the issue would be sealing the shifter rod housing from leaking oil. but yeah i think i could figure a way to do a bolt on system.

I will not be doing the welding on this. But, I really should learn, we have the equipment at home to do so. but building the gearbox I plan to do myself.

WTF have I gotten myself into? 🥴 The poor bloke didn't want to do the modification for me, due to his health, but he did explain to me how to do it. So, I have to learn how to build a gearbox I am going to do the shifter relocation myself, and IF I get it right, I may have opened up a little side opportunity for myself. I just have to learn how to Tig weld, then I could offer this conversion up for others who are swapping type 9s into their Escorts.

yep im super keen. Im going back tomorrow to put that idea to him.

Ok guys, bit of an update on the 5 speed conversion side of it. I went and looked at the type 9 i found for sale today, and met the seller with a seriously cool collection of cars, tools and machines. The seller is into Triumphs. Well it turns out, sticking Ford Type 9 gearboxes into Triumphs is a very common conversion, so much so the entire conversion kits are available in the UK. Well this fellow, does it himself. He is a real old school guy, with tonnes of cool tools, lathes, etc etc, who builds engines and gearboxes for the Triumph community. With the T9 conversion into Triumphs, the shifter is also in the wrong spot for them, like it is for my Escort. However, they don't cut the body to suit the gearbox, they shorten the remote shifter, and move it forward 70mm, and weld it back on. The seller is experienced in doing this, as he has done it on a few of them now. This is a standard T9, ive circled the bit that needs to move. this is the Triumph conversion kit thats available. I have circled the shifter housing to show its been done. The T9 he has up for sale, he has already made the initial cuts where the section of shifter housing has to be removed, but thats as far as he has gone with it. this means if i wanted to use it as is, I would have to get those cuts welded back up. I was a bit miffed by this, drove home thinking about what to do. Then I had a light bulb moment. Why not ask him to do the same to suit my Escort? Move the remote shifter forward so it matches the factory shifter hole? *Bing* I got on the phone to Nick from RSOCV, who id already spoken to about the conversion, to seek his thoughts on the seller doing this for me. While I was on the phone, Nick measured how far forward the shifter would have to move. For an Escort, it has to move 75mm. (Triumphs are 70mm). So, Im pretty excited. I am still buying the gearbox regardless, but tomorrow when I go back, I am going to put this proposal to the seller, that if he works out a figure for him to mod the box and put it back together for me, so its a bolt in ready to go box, im happy to pay his figure.

Wont be cutting it. mine i imported from the UK.

Yep Fingers and Rod. That is the exact method we will be using to do this conversion. The only challenge from there is, getting my console to work. I have a Mexico console, which can’t be shifted backwards in the car due to the seat belts, and handbrake, so to line the new gearstick up in the console, i might have to look at doing some trickery with the lever. It has been done before apparently. the 5 speed lever has a factory bend in it to angle it backwards towards the driver. I believe by adding a second, forward facing bend below the Factory bend, it both straightens the stick location up, but also gets it close to the original position. The centre console has a big enough cut out that it should hopefully hide the bends

To be honest, once this is done, and done right, it looks 100% factory, id probably never go back to the 4 speed, even if i put the 1300 back in.

No its all pretty easy to do.

Ok bit of a minor update. My plans to drop a 1600 / 5 speed driveline into the car, is definitely gaining momentum. Ive sourced a Type 9 for a great price, cheapest ive ever seen. And ive also got a lead on a freshly built, high comp, mild cammed 1600. Ported head etc. I had a lengthy conversation with one of the most knowledgeable Escort nut I know, about the 5 speed conversion, and it is 100% a bolt in conversion. Bell housing is the same as my 4 speed, flywheel, clutch and cable are all the same, tail shaft is the same, speedo cable has to be longer. There is just some fabrication work to be done underneath, and the shifter hole needs cutting out a bit bigger, but that can be done by Mark while its in the shop. The one and only con I can see about this conversion is, its terminal. As in, once i do this, if i ever wanted to go back to the 4 speed, it means another round of cutting and welding to reverse it all. im excited, but im yet to speak to Mark about the extra fab work

Well today, the biggest and hardest part of the strip down, is completed. engine and gearbox out. The poor old car is looking a little grim, but my mate's who helped me out today, are just as excited as me to see it all fixed up. Its kind of a nice feeling when all 3 of us, have extensive builds either on the go, or in the case of one of my mates, has a new project Mini on its way. its going to be an exciting time for both of us getting our cars done and back on the road. A bit of car shuffling this morning to get the escort into the shed to do the engine removal. Move dad's 1953 Land Rover project out, move the buggy out. The buggy doesnt drive at the moment, so that was hard going on my own. Then, back the Escort in. looks so small in the big shed on its own. we have lift off all done and back out in the carport where it started, and the land rover back in the shed. long day, very tired, but glad that part is done.

A few? well thats your retirement fund sorted

Yep look i think id love a 2 door, but to me it makes no difference. actually ive said it before, my favourite Mk1 is still an estate. The way a member of the RSOCV put it recently is, owning a more door means having the same amount of fun as the snobs in their two doors, for less money. im pretty excited too. if all goes to plan, it will be running corner bumpers up front, deep dish steelies, 1600 with alloy rocker cover, and a 5 speed. the 5 speed isnt urgent, because they are hard to get, but its the perfect time to do the conversion. If i cant find a 5 speed in time to put the running gear back in, I will get the Recaro seats fixed up (and installed) instead with the money i would spend on a gearbox.

I made a start on the escort today, pulling it apart. I havent done much. But over the next 3 days, im expecting to have it down to pretty much a bare shell. so engine and gearbox out too. The 1300 is unlikely to go back in, so I am actively hunting for a 1600 now. After meeting with Mark yesterday, to discuss the final list of things to do on the car, he believes I will have a few thousand bucks to spare out of the insurance money once he is done with it. with the spare money, im going to try track down a T9 5 speed manual for the car, to go with a 1600. Im picking up another set of wheels tomorrow for the car, which Mark is going to spray for me while its in the panel shop. He said he was not willing to spray my RS 4 spoke wheels for me, because of how time consuming it is to work on those wheels. it would basically take up another staff member's full day of labour just on the wheels. But, I did ask him if he would be willing to spray a set of deep dished steel rims for it, and he is happy to do that. so tomorrow im picking up a set of 13x6", reverse banded steelies for the escort. The deep dish rims, with chrome hub caps, i think is going to look great against the fresh paint. I also learned something new about the escort today. For as long as ive owned it, ive hated how the silly wiper arms could not be help up away from the windscreen. Well, they can be haha They have this little lever under the base, that rotates and holds the arm up away from the screen. its also the locking mechanism to hold the arms onto the spline. On Boxing Day, I ordered myself a new (toy) DSLR camera. The next couple of photos are taken on it. I am so in love with the new camera I start on the interior tomorrow, which should be all out tomorrow, then the weekend will be spent ripping the running gear and brake booster out.

No pinto. Radiator shroud has to be modified to drop a pinto in, because they are too long for a Mk1 engine bay. So even Mk1 RS2000s, from factory had the radiator shroud cut out, so the radiator could sit further forward. you're a little light on the figures. a 4 door is 840kg. So, any engine upgrade will be a 1600. a 1600, with a mild cam, some head work, 32/36 carby, headers, will make a comfortable 70-80kw at the flywheel. which is about double what it currently has. considering i can get the 1300 to rip skids easily, and i can get it to power slide as it is, a 1600 with double the power is going to be more than enough fun. eventually with a 5 speed box behind it, it would be perfect to drive on the open road.