Panko

Very tidy, I like.

 

What's the plans for it, just drive and enjoy?

 

Looks like a battery has exploded at some stage.

 

Plans...not much really. Get it roadied and club registered, no rush though. twin barrel carb and extractors just to get it to breath a bit better. My wheels i had for my last Escort (15x6" Saab interceptors) maybe a touch lower. corner bumpers for the front. and thats about it. all of which I've pretty got already. 

Electronic ignition after this episode haha. 

 

 

It has a points distributor I assume.

What broke?

 

Did it come with the original wheels and hubcaps?

(and venetians for the rear window)

 

And a lawn bowls hat?

 

 

What's the colour - is it Ford Kelly Green?

yep points dizzy. remember my other one did it as well, and you fixed the dizzy at my house. 

 

original wheels, colour coded, no hubcaps. 

Well, here we go again. 

 

A week ago, i had no intention of buying another Mk1 Escort any time soon. However, a mate of mine from when I had my last escort couldn't resist contacting me, and putting me onto this beautiful little 4 door Mk1 for sale way up in Kerang, about 3 hours north of Melbourne. 

I took a look at the photos, and promptly called the owner. I was pretty much sold there and then. 

 

So yesterday, Michael (my Escort informant), my good mate Callin and I set off from Sunbury at around 9am in Michael's VW Amarok (I'm glad we did...ill explain soon) to go look at this car, with cash in hand ready to drive this beauty home to Melbourne. 

 

The owner was a retired old guy, who collects some interesting and beautiful cars. He was very honest with his asking price, and very genuine. I somewhat feel like i might have ripped him off a little with the price, but it was well within his price range, and he was happy to accept. Even left his club plates for me to drive it home. 

 

now for the good (and bad) photos of our adventure. 

 

These next few pics are the photos the owner sent me. the car is totally original. 1975 (october) factory 4 speed 1300XL. Has 139,000km on the odometer, but the engine in it apparently has about half that. The original engine came with the car, which has been rebuilt as some stage, with non standard pistons...so some investigation needs to go into that, as it may end up being a stronger engine than the one thats in it...very weird. 

 

 

interior is MINT.

 

 

 

the previous owner had it for about 3.5 years, and only drove it a handful of times. 

 

 

 

 

SO i bought the car, and set off on the long journey home. during the test drove she drove like a dream. smooth, plenty of power and comfy...

 

 

we got 30 minutes from Kerang then this happened....

 

obviously the guy i bought it from never had a problem with the car because it only ever got driven around town, never on the HWY. so me attempting to drive it home, sitting on 90km/h was enough to sort out the bugs...like the distributor which was inevitably going to die..and leave me standard  

 

SO, we flat towed the car as far has Harcourt, where Michael's dad was nice enough to borrow a friends trailer, and meet us. we trailered it back to Michael's house, arriving back to Sunbury about 8pm last night. and thats where i left the car, on the trailer in Michael's driveway, along with 1 of his Mk1 4 door Escorts. 

 

 

A big thanks to Michael and Callin for the support and help yesterday, i would've been fucked if i had taken the xf or my daily to go collect it. thank fuck for Michael and his Rok. 

 

anyway, Michael is a legend, he is going to get it going for me (just needs a dizzy) at his house. 

 

Can not wait to start enjoying this beast  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yeah I'm interested to know as well...because the GLS utes didnt have the tacho dash like S packs did. but had similar style package though. 

Yeah that should work. Sika Flex will do the job you want. My brother, my dad and i all use it on various applications and always been successfull.

My grand father made a good one up. its a piece of running tube thread, with a bolt out each end. sit it between the two ball joints, and load it up by turning it, works as a spreader, then whack the ball joint housing your trying to crack with 2 hammers, 1 each side of the ball joint. it doesn't often crack the first time, so once you've got it to move a bit, load the spreader up again, and hit it again. usually cracks after 3 hits. i got all my original balls joints in the xf to crack in 1 or 2 hits. if it was in my garage id go grab a photo of the tool, but i think its in my grandfather's garage. 

Hey man, where are you getting those control arms from? Do they bolt into the factory position, but have the drop built into them? is that the idea? 

Haha now you have me thinking about it. Im sure the ISC was working ok when i tested it ok when i finish my coffee ill go try it haha.

Thats what i thought, but unplugging it doesnt appear to make a difference

Dave, I'm not throwing your offer in the bin, because your offer on that engine is tempting. but just not yet, my priority for now is to get the diff built and fitted, because although my engine is tired, the diff is whats making the car a real bitch to drive. 

 

i do want to try one more thing tomorrow regarding the engine. I discovered this morning watching closely, the issue with it playing up when its warming up, seems to start the moment the thermostat opens for the first time. the reason i picked this? the temp gauge goes up to normal, then basically as soon as it starts shitting itself, the team gauges drops back down, and the base idle spikes for a couple of minutes until the missing goes away and its all back to normal. 

I just re-read that Neo, you would want something with longer life if your doing those kms. If i remember correctly, the continentals had a 60,000km guarentee on them. So for me i should get 2+ years out of them

In that case, i would recommend the Yokohamas. as mentioned above i have them on my XF in a wider size, and been really happy with them, but like i said are beginning to wear out because of age, not use. 

Or on my other car, I have continentals, ContiContact MC5s, in an 18". So far so good. they are a mix of performance and touring tyre, super grippy, and after about 20,000km, have barely worn. This is my daily, where i do mostly FWY driving, and i average about 25-30,000km a year. so at the 12 month mark it will be to see how they are going. 

XH i am looking at 16-17 my preference would be 16 but have seen a few nice 17 sets I've considered, I am looking at a stiffer suspension set up to see if that helps (still using the originals from new and there getting abit soft) wouldn't mind finding a decent set that gives a better performance overall if thats possible (this car will be a show car once i can buy a new ute for work purposes)

 

Performance as in grip? or performance as in life span? 

 

Its rare to find a tyre that will do both really well. 

 

you need to look at how many kms a year you do? because there is usually a point where the tyres will go hard and be as good, because they have been on the car for longer than it has taken to wear the tread out. 

Im currently finding this on my XF. I'm running Yokohama C Drive 2s, in 225/60R15,which are a softer, grippier tyre, about over $200 a corner, they have been on there for 3.5 years, and still have a bit tread left on them, but because i dont do a lot of kms in the car, they are going hard, and i feel it when i drive the car, they dont feel as good on the road anymore, even though they have a fair bit of tread left on them, maybe another 10,000km. 

 

i guess what I'm getting at is, if your not going to do 80-90,000km in 2-3 years, your going to be wasting your money on tyres with that sort of life spawn. 

Yeah Dave im not saying your wrong, but i just figure if it was down to the comp, wouldnt play up all the time?

 

I guess if im going to throw a new engine in it, i might as well limp this one along until i can put my turbo engine together for it. And i have to way up my part of the cost of getting the xe turbo wagon back on the road, as to whether i keep mine n/a and cheaper to put a new engine in, or sell on or strip the xe so i can afford to turbocharge mine.

Well like i said the compression isnt the best, i knew that. But go back to before it started having this miss, ive tested it numerous times before, the compression hasnt changed much at all, if any over the past couple years. I now run a bit thicker oil, which may explain why i was a little surprised at the reading on a couple of the cylinders, which previously i have thought were worse off.

 

I know the engine is tired, but the fact it runs so well after its few minutes of madness, is why im so confused by it.

I dont think compression is the issue.

 

Well i have another engine, but in bits lol. The other engine was always intended for the turbocharged build, which im certainly not ready to do, with the other turbo wagon build already on the go.

Thats possible and why I said do a compression check cold & hot.....

 

Maybe at that time for a reco....

Hmm ok maybe its worth a shot.

its still very much an electronic (or would appear to be) issue, very distinct when it starts and stops.

 

Im screwed if the engine is up for a reco. I cant afford that lol. Just had the gearbox done, and now the diff has gone, definitely hadnt planned on building a motor.

I would do a compression test... one when its cold and another when its at temp.....

As you know things warm up and expand under heat.....

 

Well i havent done for a while, but i do know it was pretty average last time i checked. But it does have 325,000km on it untouched.

 

Another theory i had, which i want to seek views on.

When i had the gearbox replaced recently, the transmission shop told me the head gasket was leaking slightly at the back of the head, dropping a bit of coolant, which i have no seen for myself. Could there be a chance that under certain pressures as the engine warms up, the head gasket is spraying or leaking a bit of coolant into the cylinders, or 1 cylinder, causing the engine to missfire until it either builds up enough pressure or temp to seal the leak, or it dries whatever coolant out and starts to fire the cylinder again.

 

I stuck my inspection camera down all the cylinders recently when i checked the plugs, and it appeared there may have been a slight bit of something seeping into a couple of the cylinders where the head and block meet, from the passenger side of the engine. However,my camera wasnt clear enough to make out what it was. Also the pistons looked very dirty on top, or crusty, but again couldnt make it out.

So it stumbles and farts about when it's cold.

is your timing set correctly? What condition are your plugs in?

I set the timing when i replaced the module last year, but my timing light has since shit itself. Plugs seemed fine when i checked them, but they are LPG plugs, i just never got around to replacing them.

 

Hows your economy when it's running? should be <14lphundred on highway.

Haha try 9.5-11L/100km on the hwy, 13 around town

 

Check AFM meter, I have not run a stock EFI system for YEARS now but I'm pretty sure the IAT sensor is inside the AFM. you can confirm correct operation of both AFM and IAT using a multimeter. But if it runs fine when warm it's unlikely the AFM, morlikely the IAT, CLT (you said you already replaced it), Timing, annnddd... thats all i can think of right now.

For shits and giggels you should measure the voltage across your battery immediately after starting it too, Make sure your getting >13.0v <14.4 you should take this measurement while the car is still playing up.

I did clean the AFM last year with proper aerosol cleaner stuff, made a difference in the way it drove, but didnt help the miss.

 

Volts are all good. Well should be, i have both the normal digital volts guage in the car, and an aftermarket analogue VDO volt gauge, which reads about 14.1V all the time.

yeah exactly my thoughts Thom. There is a wire in the injector loom that they broke and tapped into for the fuse and LPG solenoid, which i had to re-solder join together. i have checked that, and that join i put in seems to be holding up ok, BUT, somehow that engine fuse is still bypassed. 

I suspect that wherever that bypass is for the fuse, maybe the bad join thats causing the stalling

No I haven't got a spare AFM, maybe i should try that. 

And no it definitely can't run without the AFM. 

 

I have just discovered, like 5 minutes ago, that the "engine" fuse in the fuse dox does NOT A THING! if i pull it out while the car is running, it keeps running, and starts fine without it too. 

 

I tried pulling the injector loom apart while it was running, and it did exactly what it does when it stalls. identical symptoms. So i tried wriggling wires around on the looms, and couldn't get it to stall. 

Same with the temp sensor for the ECU, unplug it while its running, and it shows identical symptoms to when it stalls on me. but again, no luck wriggling its wires etc while running. I think the the stalling issue might be a intermittent broken wire somewhere, but where i got NFI. 

The bigger issue is still this horrible misfiring issue. 

The ecu didnt help in regards to the miss. The car felt to have a bit more power, but that was about it.

 

Plug leads was a thought, but because the miss starts and stops at specific moments, i cant see how leads wpuld cause it, however i have another 2 sets of leads, second hand i could try.

Yeah i ran a NOS one i borrowed off sparky dave for a couple months.

Ok EFi nuts, please help!

 

I have been having an issue with my XF for some time now, but its getting a heck of a lot worse, and I've decided i really need to do something about it. 

 

The issue - 

When the car is coming off cold start, the engine develops a miss, a big miss. when this occurs, it bumps the idle up, but drops 1 cylinder, and runs like a dog on 5 cylinders. which cylinder, i haven't tested yet. its been doing it for probably 18 months now, but the past few months is becoming so much of an issue i can't drive it while this is happening (it stops after a few minutes and runs normal) I think I have put it down to ignition system. 

 

trying to fault find, in the last year or so I have replaced injectors (which needed doing anyway) rotor button and distributor cap, ignition module (with a genuine Ford NOS unit), currently have another coil the same as i already had, but less work, temp sensor (the one for the ECU) which helped with cold start in the sense it brings the RPM down over a longer period rather than being on a switch going from high rpm to low rpm, high pressure fuel pump (again was desperately needed) fuel filter. 
Its not a fuel supply issue, because the fuel pressure is perfectly fine while this is all happening. Its an electronic issue, and i can only think it will be ignition. 
Later this week i plan to fit new plugs and new coil, but I'm fast running out of ideas as to what it could be  

 

Its also developed an issue where it will occasionally just stall, but not cough before dying, just switch off like I have turned the key off. So any ideas would be well considered, because I have no new ideas regarding this problem 

What bosch plugs? Part numbers? I looked up bosch, ngk and champion part numbers, so will be interesting to see what bosch units you run.