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Having had a fantastic weekend at the Lakes Tour, I thought I really should put a bit of information about my car up. Admittedly its a bit shabby, but it's a work in progress and lately I've spent most of my time and money on the mechanicals.
I bought it in 2007, as a scrapper and its had a rolling restoration and been on the road since 2009. I've done quite a bit of the work myself, but have had a lot of help from mates.
A random photo from 2007:
Here is it in 2009 when my mate Pawl did extensive welding and painted it in VW 'Canyon Red'
and back then it had a little 1600 Pinto
but Pawl got it back on the road for the NEW in 2009:
Sadly, no amount of nice paint will help an iffy shell parked out in the rain for 3 years, so this lovely shiny finish is 'somewhat diminished' these days.
I bought an Atlas axle from a Mk4 2.3 V6 Cortina...
and made it shiny again:
Spax shocks
I fitted Wilwood 4-pots & Capri 2.8 vented discs, while I still had the 72bhp 1600:
It was originally a manual 4-speed, then after I had a bit of an accident, automatic, then a disagreement with a speed bump gave me an excuse to put it back to manual:
I bought a scrap engine and my local machine guy (who is ex-Rolls Royce jet engines) worked magic with it, taking it out to 2.1cc to match new pistons I found cheap on ebay...
They also converted the head to unleaded, fitted big valves and yours truly enlarged the ports just following the steps in my "Performance Pinto" book
My mate Joe supervised the engine rebuild, making sure everything was done properly:
and when finished it looks like this:
We're up to Spring 2011 now, and I decided to rebuild the front sub-frame:
I had a go at tidying the engine bay, it was fairly rough so I stone chipped the whole thing
Rolling on to Spring 2012, I was increasingly unhappy with the condition of the shell, I'd also joined my local rally club and was seriously thinking of buying/building a rally rep. After three winters the Cortina was getting very crusty, but I didn't want to discard the years of work in it. So, scrapping plans to buy a Mk1 Escort, I bought this:
The floor was rotten, but the rest of it was pretty good, so it's at my mate's garage at the moment, getting some serious fettling:
Meanwhile I've been learning to paint and did this myself
I'll be painting the 2-door shell as a 'rally-rep' from the Embassy (tobacco) 1971 RAC rally team which included Roger Clark. Here are a couple of photos of the original cars which I found on the internet, but I guess you all know it anyway:
I drew my own designs for the vinyl
then Grid Grafix in Devon cut them for me from burgundy and gold vinyl:
Which brings us up to date. I'm still waiting for the 2-door's welding to be finished, then I'll be fitting a half-cage, fitting a new front valence then my friend Andy will be painting it, with a bit of help from me.
I bought it in 2007, as a scrapper and its had a rolling restoration and been on the road since 2009. I've done quite a bit of the work myself, but have had a lot of help from mates.
A random photo from 2007:
Here is it in 2009 when my mate Pawl did extensive welding and painted it in VW 'Canyon Red'
and back then it had a little 1600 Pinto
but Pawl got it back on the road for the NEW in 2009:
Sadly, no amount of nice paint will help an iffy shell parked out in the rain for 3 years, so this lovely shiny finish is 'somewhat diminished' these days.
I bought an Atlas axle from a Mk4 2.3 V6 Cortina...
and made it shiny again:
Spax shocks
I fitted Wilwood 4-pots & Capri 2.8 vented discs, while I still had the 72bhp 1600:
It was originally a manual 4-speed, then after I had a bit of an accident, automatic, then a disagreement with a speed bump gave me an excuse to put it back to manual:
I bought a scrap engine and my local machine guy (who is ex-Rolls Royce jet engines) worked magic with it, taking it out to 2.1cc to match new pistons I found cheap on ebay...
They also converted the head to unleaded, fitted big valves and yours truly enlarged the ports just following the steps in my "Performance Pinto" book
My mate Joe supervised the engine rebuild, making sure everything was done properly:
and when finished it looks like this:
We're up to Spring 2011 now, and I decided to rebuild the front sub-frame:
I had a go at tidying the engine bay, it was fairly rough so I stone chipped the whole thing
Rolling on to Spring 2012, I was increasingly unhappy with the condition of the shell, I'd also joined my local rally club and was seriously thinking of buying/building a rally rep. After three winters the Cortina was getting very crusty, but I didn't want to discard the years of work in it. So, scrapping plans to buy a Mk1 Escort, I bought this:
The floor was rotten, but the rest of it was pretty good, so it's at my mate's garage at the moment, getting some serious fettling:
Meanwhile I've been learning to paint and did this myself
I'll be painting the 2-door shell as a 'rally-rep' from the Embassy (tobacco) 1971 RAC rally team which included Roger Clark. Here are a couple of photos of the original cars which I found on the internet, but I guess you all know it anyway:
I drew my own designs for the vinyl
then Grid Grafix in Devon cut them for me from burgundy and gold vinyl:
Which brings us up to date. I'm still waiting for the 2-door's welding to be finished, then I'll be fitting a half-cage, fitting a new front valence then my friend Andy will be painting it, with a bit of help from me.
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