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Panko

Panko's Mk1 Escort (Round 2)

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Not much progress yet. 
I just took delivery of my new tools, so i can start making some good progress on the car. 
 

I got the rear lights all fitted up. 

 

Next step is rip out all the rear suspension and rebuild that. once the diff is back in the car, then I can start on the front of the car. 

 

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the car is now up on stands ready to rip the rear end out. 

 

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I wont remove the diff this time, just give it a clean. 
i will remove all the handbrake setup to give it a clean and get rid of 47 years of grime. 
 

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I decided it was too late to do the rear suspension, so instead i fitted the freshly chromed rear bar, with all brand new mounting hardware. 

 

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Now you may have noticed the boot lid is missing. 
unfortunately it is back at Mark’s shop being done all over again. 
There was a small amount of damage to it, after it had been painted, that had happened in the shop. So its been returned to Marks to be stripped down and repaired and painted again. 

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I pulled the rear suspension out of the car, to find some very very crispy crush tubes inside the rear spring eye bushes, so the point i had to belt them out with a hammer and punch. 

 

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It turns out the front eye bushes and the shackle to chassis bushes are original Ford bushes still! :o 

 

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I found part of the original part number on the leaf springs, and then after pressure washing them, i revealed the rest of the part number. 

Im considering stencilling it back on once ive finished doing them up, just to add to the "original" look of the car  :D 

 

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this is what happens to a free, unknown condition diff is used after being unused for many years 😬

 

LH axle seal has let go. In the future I will be fitting an "english" (mk2) axle, which look like a mini 9" diff. they are a lot stronger and have LSD centres available for them. I can't afford to budget for that conversion right now, so ill just keep an eye on this leak for now, or maybe repair this to keep me going. 

 

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Progress has been slow but it is happening. 

 

all the rear suspension parts have been painted with VHT High temp roll cage and subframe black, it finishes almost like powder coating rather than paint. 

 

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Fitted up the freshly coated leaf springs, new bushes, new shackles, new nylock nuts. 

 

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tried the new sandwich pads, and uh oh, there is an issue. 

 

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the new pads do not have big enough pin to do the same. it barely makes it flush with the top plate (see above picture) 

the original pads have a tall enough rubber centring pin to poke through the top plate, with a steel collar around the rubber pin, to locate the springs into the diff. 

 

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even with the steel collar, the new pad does NOT provide anything to centre on, relying on as little as a mm to keep centre. not safe. 

 

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So from here I went to my brother's house, and we got our heads together and designed and cut on his CNC a new guide pin. 

 

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so the new pin is cut out of solid plastic. 

 

we have machine the pad out from 14mm ID to 18mm ID. 

The new pin slips inside the new 18mm ID of the pad. 

The new pin has a hollow with a 14mm ID to slip over the steel pin in the middle of the leaf spring.

The top of the new pin is 23 or 24mm, the right size to locate in the diff. 

This is prototype 1, unfortunately we didn't hollow out the under side deep enough, so the steel pin in the middle of the spring bottoms out before the pad and pins can sit down properly. 

 

 

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As I keep saying, progress is very slow. However both leaf springs are finally in. 
 

going to pull the handbrake bar off tonight and the brake lines on the diff to clean them up, and maybe bolt the diff in tonight also. Should be on its wheels by the weekend

 

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Well the car is back on its wheels and rolling again. 

Its nice to look under the car and everything is clean instead of being caked in over 40 years of dirt 🤢

 

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I had a go at fitting the new front corner bumpers. they are brand new reproduction bumpers and brackets. 

 

The side brackets are a bit off, and as confirmed by Mark, they will need to be adjusted in a vice, test fitted, rinse and repeat until happy with the result 😕 

 

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14 minutes ago, bear351c said:

What a cool project. Love the first Eskies/Capri's.  Did you look at reset leaf springs, or happy with lowering blocks.? 


For the time being, cost effectiveness, i have kept the blocks. 
 

in due time I will go new aftermarket springs. Probably reverse eye, single lead parabolic springs. 
will handle a lot nicer, and sit proper low 😆 

 

If you go back to the start of this thread when i first bought the car, I had to run blocks, with an offset centre pin to correct the fact the front spring eye on the driver’s side was 10mm backwards on the chassis compared to the passenger side. 
 

part of the resto, this has been corrected, so yeah for cost thing, ive just corrected the offset pin on the blocks and refitted them. 
 

im fine with running blocks. I run them in the wagon too 

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Well im in ISO for a week with the spicy cough 😷 

So that means i can try get a bit of stuff done on the Escort. 
 

First thing I did was test fitted the new extractors. 
There was a hand written note on them “1300? Hit floor” 

Well unfortunately that is exactly the case. Because the 1600 block is around 1/2” taller, the extractors do in fact hit the firewall in front of passenger footwell. 
 

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I then worked on the boot latch, cleaned it, reinstalled it and adjusted it. Nice to have a functional locking boot again. 
 

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On 5/6/2022 at 2:52 PM, Panko said:

There was a hand written note on them “1300? Hit floor” 

 

what's the fix for this? can they be tweaked with the oxy set or is it just better to buy a new(or used) 1600 set? 

 

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There has been no progress lately due to work. I am smashed with work commitments at the moment until the end of june. 

 

 

On 6/6/2022 at 3:08 PM, deankdx said:

 

what's the fix for this? can they be tweaked with the oxy set or is it just better to buy a new(or used) 1600 set? 

 

 

I have concluded that they are from a Mk1 or Mk2 cortina, which have a completely different shape to them, and even new parts listing for extractors say that Cortina and Escort are not interchangeable 😕 

So I am on the hunt for another set. 

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Its been a very long time between drinks, but here we are with some updates. 

 

since the last update, I rearranged my shed. I now have 2 car bays, and a work bay all beside each other. only downside now is, i can't get the escort out (easily) until its moving under its own steam, but oh well. 

 

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To this...

 

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Ive fitted up the new front indicators, but I wasn't happy with how "fat" the lens seal was and how it could be seen through the lens, making the indicators look really terrible. Looking at the old indicators, the seals didn't need to be that fat. so i cut them down. 

 

Before

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one half done 

 

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After 

 

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The last thing ive done was finally get one of the front corner bumpers fitted. 

 

The aftermarket corner brackets are miles off being correct fit. it makes no sense how they can be manufactured so wrong. 

 

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After heating and bending the brackets loads of times, i gave up and made a bracket from alloy strap. 

 

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The alloy bracket isn't pretty, but it gave me the correct shape. so from there i went back to heating and bending the steel brackets knowing what shape i needed now. 

 

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This was the final result. 

 

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They essentially have an extra, unnecessary 45 degree bend in them. you can see in the below pic the line across the bracket where the bend (closest to bumper) used to be 

 

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Now I just have to repeat the process on the passenger side and get that one fitted. 

The remove it all, clean up and paint the brackets, get fit them and get them all sitting the same, and lock them off. once they are one, I can fit the headlights. The headlights are out, because I use holes for them to reach through to bolt the corner bumpers on. 

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1 minute ago, 2redrovers said:

It's nuts how many parts are made incorrectly for the resto sector. It's a waste of time for everyone involved when stuff doesn't work the way they are supposed to. Getting there though emoji106.png


yeah its pretty frustrating. Pretty much everyone who has bought these repro brackets have had to modify them. I can’t remember who i bought them from, but there must be a hundred escort parts suppliers around the world who all sell the same ones, and they never fit. 
 

if i was doing it again, id start with steel strap. Bit like i did with the alloy, and make the brackets from scratch. 
 

hopefully the other side will happen a lot faster 

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Its the bending thats the hard part. 
 

if the car was at my folks place, it wouldn’t be an issue because i have the hydraulic bending rig. 
Whereas I am doing it in a vice with a MAP gas blow torch and a pair of multi grips. Definitely no finesse about it 😂 

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And then there was two! 😁
 

 

 

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They still need adjustment to get them sitting the same, but I have finished bending the brackets. 
 

the driver’s side as a whole needs to be lowered slightly, and the passenger side just needs the corner raised a tad. Otherwise im glad this is done. What a nightmare its been 

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looking complete again, 


slimline plates are now available for club permit, have seen them. would one suit the front better? (no idea if you can get them in same number, or a new pair etc.. not cheap either)

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1 hour ago, deankdx said:

looking complete again, 


slimline plates are now available for club permit, have seen them. would one suit the front better? (no idea if you can get them in same number, or a new pair etc.. not cheap either)

Yeah im thinking a slimline for the front. 
can get the current combo stamped in slim. 
 

also considering putting the number plate where the UK cars had them, down the bottom where that little groove is under

the “nostrils” 

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1 hour ago, Panko said:

Yeah im thinking a slimline for the front. 
can get the current combo stamped in slim. 
 

also considering putting the number plate where the UK cars had them, down the bottom where that little groove is under

the “nostrils” 

yeah looks better below the bumper line in My opinion also . 

be simple enough to blue tak it in place for a look in various positions 

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