Panko

Today i decided to have a crack at fitting the twin barrel carby and manifold. all fitted, but haven't plumbed anything up. no choke, cooling system not hooked up, and throttle setup isn't hooked up yet (needs to be changed) it doesn't quite line up. so this all needs to be changed. it does run though which i was surprised about to be honest. the carby is way way over sized, but it idles, and revs up without coughing and spluttering. and sounds wicked i do have a video I've uploaded to photobucket but its being gay, and i dont know whats happened to it

so today i attacked the control arm bolts. I swear if i ever have to do them again, or pull the sway bar out again, I'm going to pay someone to do it it looks dangerous, but i promise I've done this before In case you weren't aware, Escorts dont have radius rods like x series falcons do. The sway bar on an Escort, IS the radius rod. So as soon as any work has to be done on the front end, the sway bar ends need to be pulled closer together (hence the 1600kg ratchet strap), because the ends are designed to be further apart than the holes in the control arms, which is how it manages to do such a good job of being both a sway bar and radius rod. It makes it harder that my sway bar is an aftermarket, 22mm Kmac sway bar. had to pull out the heavy artillery to undo the ends of the sway bar, so i could move the control arms around it seems that replacing the control arms has gotten rid of the steering wobble i had. they were definitely worn a little, but id never of thought they'd be whats causing the issue. i haven't driven it properly yet, but i have had it up to the speed where it would normally have the problem, and it didnt. so hopefully thats sorted. Tomorrow, is engine mount day. i have a fair bit of prep before i can put them in, so that will be a couple of days work to have it driving again from tomorrow.

got to love it when shit just works, and goes to plan, dont you? so today i continued on the car, new gearbox mount and changed the diff oil. I'm pretty sure the diff oil has never been changed. it was thicker than anything I've ever seen before. it was like tar, and lumpy. not metal flakes, just the oil itself had lumps through it original gearbox mount. it was so so soft. and the crossmember, as you can see was caked with dirt old vs new as a result, the driveline vibration i had under load, its pretty much gone. it is so much smoother in every regard. the last part of the driveline is the gearbox oil and driveshaft swap, which will need to be done together for obvious reasons, so i dont lose oil out the back while the driveshaft is removed. plus it looks like ill need to swap my current yoke onto the new drive shaft

they are AMAZING. Sure the fixed rate Bilsteins might be the bees knees for the escorts, but the adjustability, can't be beat.

ok, so as i just mentioned above, i have the car home again to do the next round of work and upgrades on the car. Last week i ordered and received a heap of part from Burton Power in the UK. so so so much cheaper than getting the parts here in AUS. the list of parts: GAZ rear shocks, adjustable Steering rack mount rubbers gearbox mount engine mounts (converting to Mk2/2L style which are stronger) new brackets to run Mk2 engine mounts with 1300 engine. steering wheel boss kit i decided tonight to start on the rear shocks. took only about half hr to do both sides, and far out i am absolutely stoked with the improvement to how the car drives. old vs. new even on their softest setting, the new shocks are significantly stiffer than the old ones fair to say the old ones were well and truely stuffed.

haha that was me. getting pissed off at the stupid traffic lol. I was bringing down to my house to do the next round of work/upgrades on it. Good timing on your part, i was just about to update the thread haha.

Chris yeah ill try get the rings sorted for AFD. Haha yeah i was walking around for a bit, but then was sitting down behind the car with my mate Cal, and Michael.

well some good news, if you look at it that way. I fitted the sway bar up, and went and got the front end aligned. First drive post alignment, it felt like it had achieved nothing, in regards to the wobble in the steering. It does however feel better in the way it drives. steering is direct and good feel, and it handles a bit better in the bends. anyway, after mucking about trying to work out what else it could be, we discovered its wheel related now. The wheels I'm running (Citroen 15" alloys) have an internal diameter of .5mm larger than the lip of the hubs the wheels sit on, only locating on the wheel nuts. So ill now have to run hub rings to centralise them. we managed to bolt the wheels on as best we could by eye, and using a feeler gauge, and sure enough the majority of the wobble is gone. however, the next thing ill need to do to the front suspension is adjustable strut tops. By added +3mm of caster, I've brought the front wheels a long way forward in the guards, and it looks a little silly. So, the plan is to fit some adjustable strut tops, move the control arms back a bit on the adjustable sway bar, then wind the caster into the struts using the adjustable tops. I took it down to Williamstown to Small Ford Sunday today. First time I've had it on display, and I have to say it got a way bigger interest than i ever thought it would. there was plenty of Mk1s, and Im happy to say, that I think of all the Mk1s there today, mine was by far the best un-restored Mk1. plenty of them had been resprayed, and every little dent pulled, so they were perfect, and of all the un-restored Mk1s, mine appeared the cleanest. I'm pretty happy with that

So not much has been happening lately. I got my new sway bar from K-mac suspension, very quick turn around, i was wrapped, as to was the new sway bar, in bubble wrap, over fresh paint. Yep, i was disappointed that they couldn't back up their fast turn around, with a decent paint job. They had used Enamel paint, with no primer, then wrapped it up in bubble wrap to be freighted to me. unwrapping it, revealed it looked like it still had the bubble wrap on it, because the paint was soft. SO, i spent yesterday sanding, prepping it and painting the bar in ACRYLIC subframe black with with a clear coat over the top whilst awaiting the paint to dry between coats on the sway bar, I attacked the extractors with the wire wheel. so far they have come up pretty good for about 10 minutes of wire wheeling. Last week I installed a little SpeedHut 2" tacho that I purchased 2nd hand (never used) from a guy on FB in SA. its fully programmable, can do any number of cylinder engine, has a in built programmable shift light, which is obviously programmable. It works a treat, however I'm just awaiting the guy to send the 12v LED inverter he forgot to put in so i can actually get the back lights working. As a result of having the tacho, i have found out it revs higher than it sounds like it is, and higher than i thought. The shft light by default is set to 4000rpm, so i left it there... normal driving I'm shifting at 3500rpm, and at 80km/h its sitting on about 3800rpm...so I'm going to need to up that shift light haha. for reference, thats where I have installed it. bolted to the under side of the crummy Mk2 centre dash panel (dont care about drilling holes in this one ) so fairly discrete, and perfect spot i can see it from the driver's seat. and just a cool little photo of the car because I can...again sitting waiting paint to dry i got camera happy

Well yeah it worked perfect. I think my concern with criticism was that some may see the fact we modified the blocks as dangerous. But nothing has changed in the way the block is made, just the pin is re-located. The day we did this, we drove it round to a friend of Cal's (who owns a few very nice X series ESPs and a couple of nice FG turbos), and when we told him what we did with the block he said he had done that numerous times on his old XYs and XWs for the same reason, to correct the rear end alignment

hahahaha ok guys. Mark you are on the money. Like i said, we "fixed" the issue when we installed the blocks, i never told you how we did it mainly because i was a little weary of criticism what we did (and i didnt take photos ) was relocate the pin in the block i installed on the driver's side of the car. See the blocks for the escort where 2 piece. the block was flat, with a large set screw with tapered was that was the pin, about 10mm heigh. So we removed the pin, and drilled and tapped a new hole off set to the guide hole on the lower side of the block. bob's your uncle it fixed it. we moved exactly the 10mm we needed to.

haha yeah i have to do all that yet. diff will come out eventually do be painted up, same with leaf springs and the under body at the back. exhaust will get changed hopefully in the next month or so when i fit the extractors up.

Yesterday I went and purchased 2 more tyres the same as the fronts (175/50R15s) to replace the oversized 195/50s that were on the rear and scrubbing my guards. Also turns out my wheels are Citroen alloys, not Saab. Cool so I'm pretty happy with the way she's sitting now. just need the sway bar to fix this vibration.

haha thought id post this, found this funny. i needed something to help get the new bearing cups into the back side of the hubs...50mm tow ball works perfect.

not a bad idea winton, but it wouldn't achieve anything sadly. because the sway bar is also the castor rods, so when you lower the car it makes it longer towards the back, pushing the arms back. if you did what you are suggesting, i reckon the geometry would be further out. thats where the adjustable bars come in, they have the ability to be spaced so the arms can be moved forward or back. good thinking though On that note though, there are dozens of companies that make camber/castor adjustable strut tops for the escorts. that is another option, in fact ill probably add them later in the future, so i can then have camber adjustment (yep Escorts, Cortinas and Capris have no camber adjustment either). plus i need to fit roller tops due to the original rubber ones knocking sometimes, so the adjustable roller tops would fix that too, but would not fix the caster issue alone.

well, bam. I have an answer to the vibrating issue in the steering. unfortunately the remedy is more money, and quite a bit of it the cause? The Escorts (and Cortinas, Capris) have no caster adjustment what so ever in the front end. I have gone and lowered the car, which has given the negative caster (control arms have gone backwards). so whats happening now, at certain speeds the control arms essentially start to vibrate, because the struts are too vertical, and the sway bar also being the caster rods (and a giant spring) just makes the situation worse. The solution? a larger AND adjustable sway bar. to pull the control arms forward again to about +3 deg caster and good, because the car will handle a lot nicer, and apparently be more responsive up front. but, being adjustable, and Kmac it is likely to set me back a few $$$. ah the things we do with our cars *enter face-palm emoji*

some did some didnt. both of my Mk1s have had them. Some Mk2s have as well. people swap them out for singles all the time because the 2 piece are hard to service. apparently ford did it to quieten down the cabin. i.e. the 2 piece vibrates less etc etc.

Its not the unis thats the issue, the bearing that sits in the centre carrier in the middle of the shaft.

well thats new. the escort guys for years have been saying throw the 2 piece tailshafts away, they aren't repairable.

well i lost my GoPro in Perth in August last year. But I do have awesome footage of the run going up Mt Buller, flat out (and i mean flat out. nobody on the roads that time of year) in Cal's Cooper S replica, which runs a 1330cc, big cam, head work, larger SU carby, extractors. ill replace my GoPro before the tour this year. The brakes are pretty good. they pull up pretty well, although I'm yet to really test them out hard. they should be fine though, even though they are solid not ventilated.

Oh, and I have until March sometime to fit the down draupht twin barrel weber and extractors and get it tuned. The VicMini club hold their Alpine tour about then each year. It runs over 2 days, starting in one spot and finishing somewhere else. Cal, Chris and I went last year with both Cal's classic minis. About 500-600kms over 2 days with a lot of spritied driving. Last year we stayed at the summit of Mt Buller. So hence the name, the tour is all alpine region. So im hoping to take the Escort this year to round up some of the minis, but will definitely need the carby and extractors just to give it the best chance of keeping up haha. Edit: ill also need to replace the 2 rear tyres with the smaller tyres that match the front. That way they are correct size, but also should stop scrubbing the 15s on the back without modding the arches.

Ok so the next job in the list of things to do...front wheel bearings Any takers? Haha I shouldve bloody well done them when i has the front end apart the first time. But nope. So now its time to do them. Then the tailshaft needs to be swapped for a single peice. The sorce of the vibration under load is the centre bearing on the factory 2 peice tailshaft. Its flogged out big time. Unfortunately nobody makes replacement bearings etc for them, so ill just drop a single peice mk1 tailshaft in and that should sort the issue out.

No i dont think so. It just means the steering wheel is off centre because the front end alignment was done with the rear end out of whack

Haha im too affraid to hack the body. Its too tidy. The solution we found is probably frowned upon, but its not a daily, and it seems to be fine.

Today i had a good look at the Escort to try work out why the diff wasnt straight. After measuring off a number of relevant spots on the car side to side, it turns out the driver's side front leaf spring eye was 10mm further back on the car. Which is welded to the chassis. I asked around on fb for advice, and pretty much every response i got was basically, never use a tape measure on and Escort, because they were all put together badly haha. Anyway, Cal and I decided to unbolt the diff, and try moving it anyway, no good. So we come up with another idea, when we installed the 1" blocks, which has appeared to work. It has corrected the rear wheels, and brought the back ride height down perfect. It just scrubs the rear left arch on big bumps, and turning left turns too fast, from the body rolling sideways onto the tyre.