My '76 RS

[Sepp]

And finally, last weekend I reset the FS front wheel well.

[Sepp]

I spent a few mins, and a few pounds on some red paint and gave the car a slight refresh.

[m3dtm]

Looks better to me in red.

Funny, did you expect the car to be like it was or did you buy with the idea of being able to use it immediately?
I am always suprised to see people buying a car that looks okay and after a while they end up (partly) rebuilding the car. I would be very disappointed.

John

[Sepp]

For the most part, it's what I expected. There's usually surprises...good and bad with any used car. A race car, even more so. Luckily, so far, nearly every issue has been easily sorted.

[Sepp]

The car ran a little hot after some test runs, but a cooling system purge sorted it all out.

[Sepp]

In order to prepare the car for gravel use this year, I raised the ride height up 1 inch. It had a 2 inch lowering kit on the rear springs, and I wanted more suspension travel. The fronts are coilovers, so adjusting them is very easy.



And, everytime I take parts off of my cars, I always renew/refinish them.



The leafspring mount on the NS looked suspect, and I was right.
Here's a shot of all of the rot removed.



The internal guard piece was barely attached, so I made up a new one.
And dusted off the welder.




It's a horrible piccie, but this is all sorted.
I over built it, adding in an additional support plate I made from 16 gauge sheet.



The car as it currently sits..
I have to run it around a bit to get the suspension to settle and make more final adjustments.

[alancdavis]

Very nice car ..

[Sepp]

Thank you Sir!

I finally got around to ordering a new trans output seal, as it's been a slow leak all last year.

A little bit of help getting the propshaft bolts loose.



All in good shape, save a sticky rear u joint.
Luckily, after cleaning it up nicely, it was able to be revived...just too much crud in the joint boots.

[Sepp]

The propshaft looks sharp with new coats of epoxy.



A deep socket 35mm was perfect for seating the new seal.





And the car is getting better, every day I work on it.

[Sepp]

I'm back tracking a bit on this post. The rear end of the car had the lower section cut away for exhaust clearance or something else.
The cutaway angles of the metal wasn't matching on both sides...this has driven me crazy.
Here's an old pic of the car, and one can see the lower section with miss-matched cutaway angles.



So since I was doing body work on the car to address some trunk rot, this was the first thing I sorted out.

Prepping and measuring the FS, so it will match the NS.



And all mended, filled with new sheet and painted. Yes, the paint work is rubbish back there. It's just temporary as the whole car is getting resprayed eventually.


Add in a new coat of paint to the rear silencer....much better........
This pic reminded me that I still need to trim some excess off the rear arm U bolts.

[Sepp]

The FS front indicator started acting up, after the car had sat for a few months.
When I pulled it apart, I found that instead of being fastened to the bumper with 2 bolts, it was fastened with 1 bolt and a zip tie.
That would explain the faulty electrical ground.......




And also, speaking of bumpers....I have no other Escorts in the area to compare notes with...but this was not correct.


So I sourced some grommets and they turned out to be a perfect fit!!!
Now, I need to get some better looking hardware

[Miniliteman]

Are your indicators earthed via the bumper???

[Sepp]

It's an odd setup.
I have 2 wires going to the indicator. One hot, and the other does ground out to the indicator housing. There might be a small issue as the indicator only works when bonded to chassis ground. (if the bumper is removed from the car)

[Sepp]

The car has some of these anti slip floor guards, riveted in place. There was a bit of surface rust beginning to appear on the floor near the plates, so I removed them to get a better look.


A fair amount of dirt, surface rust and rot were hiding under the plates on both footwells...



So they both got stripped back to bare metal and all the rot cut out...
The rot on the FS footwell continued on into the lower door jamb support...
A hefty pile of Ford sheetmetal cut out.


New support plates were added into the rebuild..
Double seam welded.


Halfway through the lower jamb-to-floor replacement....more holes to fill in, on the floor pan...


Both floor sections mended, epoxy coated, with epoxy coated floor guards.
Good enough for now!

[Sepp]

Got the car out for a trip round the block..



And noticed that the car was running hotter than usual when I pulled back into the shop.
The cooling fan is obviously aftermarket, electric.
When I turned it on, nothing happened.
I confirmed power at the switch, but not the fan power leads.
As I began to trace out the wiring, I discovered this fusable link tucked behind the radiator...it has seen better days.
The melted fuse is seen above.



A new one, in it's place, complete with heat shrink on the connectors, and it will probably last another 20 years.