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Dirtbikes Project... Volvo'd Mk1 Escort

The rustiest car I own isn't a 300...:) But yeah, I own that thing for a reason, even if I haven't used it yet!

cheers

James
 
yeah more updates on this car. I have a HO scale slot car track and my favriote car is a MK 1 escort wish we got them in the states.
JERIC
 
I know, I know Karl... it'll get there I promise!

The last 6 months have been hectic, I got married, imported my wife from the US to the UK, earned a better salary (one I have to work significantly harder for) and deal with a critical ill family member so unfortunately the car has taken a back seat...

However, family member is now well on the road to recovery, the wife is now settling in and has a job, unfortunately work is still fairly manic but we're getting there...

The good news for the car is that I've decided to front half it so that I can run taller struts and gain some valuable space in the engine bay. Here is the latest very depressing situation :(

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I've just aquired some materials for creating a box section steel jig that will show me where the struts are currently located so that I can position them back in the right place once I've chopped away the inner wings.

I'll make another update when the jig is made and I've fired up the grinding disc for the inner wing removal :eek:
until then...

Nick
 
Ok it's been a while, big update, some big progress made but still a long long way to go?

The aim is to raise the strut tops by an inch and remove the inner wings to give me more clearance for the engine and ancillaries.

First I started with some box steel I scavenged from the local scrapyard to build a Jig for the front suspension.

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With the box section frame built I made some replica strut tops out of 2mm plate and some angle so that I could bolt them onto the Jig and record the current strut top location.

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Strut top plate attached, I opened up the lower slots which were exactly an inch lower meaning that I could simply lift the plates up an inch to give the extra travel required.

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Half of the passenger side inner wing removed :eek:

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Now the otherside

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To fabricate the uprights I sued 15mm copper tube because it?s easy to form so making templates became a simple task.

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The copper template was transferred to steel but I also added an extra kink to give a little more width in the engine bay.

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The steel is 1.5mm wall CDS tube which is a little flimsy without reinforment so I used a strip of 2mm steel to give some vertical strength.
This was first made out of card to get a suitable template and then transferred to steel.

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For appearance purposes I added some holes, I suppose you could argue that it saves a little weight but anyone that?s ever done this would also know that it makes hardly any difference :p

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With the uprights now fabricated my attention turned to what they would be attached to and again I used copper to make the template before transferring the template to 1 5/8? CDS roll cage tubing.

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I take my hat off to the guys that fab chassis and roll cages for a living, it?s not rocket science but it?s so time consuming and there really is only 1 correct position for any tube so everything has to be perfect on the first try or you better start from scratch?

Anyway with that done I needed to get some strut top plates cut so I had a friend turn up some 5mm plate into something suitable for strut tops

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I bolted these to the plates on the Jig and then tacked them onto the uprights and upper tube.

Here are some pics of the finished pieces:

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That?s it for now :)
 
and if you need any shapes in metal , give me the drawing ill do it on our cnc plasma

Thats useful to know Mr Slater... I shall bare that in mind.

Thanks for the compliments,

Pete, you got that haltech slinging sparks and spitting fuel in the right direction yet?
Steve, you still ragging that lardy lexus???

Called a company yesterday to order up some fibreglass panels, I asked if I could get a discount for making such a big purchase, he said yes without hesitating and was supposed to give me a call today to confirm a price but unfortunately the call never came...

Anyway, the panels ordered are as follows:

Bonnet(hood), boot(trunk), doors, bumpers, wings(fenders), front panel...

He's going to bond the wings and front panel to make a semi 1 piece front end but I wanted to retain a regular bonnet for inspection work etc.

hopefully going to be picking this lot up in about 3 weeks :)
Hopefully going to get the car back on it's own wheels this weekend, it'll be the first time in a couple of years :O

Laters
Nick
 
nice....

i was looking for a 142 rollcage earlier , and prepfab in gainsborough came up as a stockist - check their website out for escort stuff !!!!
 
I'm sure I've had some dealings with prepfab in the past they were one of the first to start adapting the corse EPAS columns for Escorts iirc...

So the guy called me back today, he's gonna charge ?50 for bonding the front panel to the wings, a little steep I thought as I'll still have to build mounts and reinforce it as a one piece but as they have a proper jig and I know that it'll be correctly aligned etc... I wasn't too upset. They also gave me a 10% discount make the whole lot come out to around ?850...

Not cheap but it does account for nearly 75% of the visible panels of the car.

Laters
Nick
 
Eek? I turned the car over!

Intentionally though 

I borrowed a roll over spit/jig many years ago and as the guy will not let me give it back to him I finally decided to modify it and make use of it.
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It?s just an A-Frame with the bearing housings from an old Escort axle, the front also has the original drum brake and a handbrake mechanism so that you can brake it at any incline, neat huh :)
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Additional support as there is no longer a front panel to mount it to.
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Underside of car, including the trans tunnel, I think I?m going to make an exhaust tunnel through the floor while I?m at it so that I can maintain decent ground clearance without killing the downpipe and exhaust.
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Obviously the damp doesn?t like the underside of the rear kick up? you can also see the Jaz fuel cell, ignore the black aluminium pipes they were originally going to be fuel feed and return lines, this will now be replaced with braided lines front to back which I picked up cheap on a transatlantic trip a couple of years ago 
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Another shot of the underneath back to front.
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I?ve patched up the bulkhead after cutting a hole on the passenger side to clear the inlet manifold giving me plenty of room for future growth.

Here?s a snap of the bulkhead before
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From above, it?s the left hand side that I want to even compared to the right hand side.
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Another one from above, but in reverse.
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Snap of the cam cover.
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Cosworth Inlet Manifold cleared the bulkhead but only by about 5mm at the bottom.
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Hence the big hole for clearance.
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Inlet manifold flange I picked up at SE7 from Ken Lanham (qwkswede)
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The finished piece, very time consuming but definitely worth it, I could probably fit a catch can as well in the corner 
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From the front things are now evened up but the slope is a little less on this side to make better use of the space if I wanted to at a later date.
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Now that I?ve got the car on its side I can tidy up all the old brackets that are no longer used, mount the fuel pump and filter as well as run the fuel lines, brake lines etc? so hopefully I?ll be able to make some real progress of the next few weeks.

However I may take a different approach once the fibreglass turns up as I?m excited to get the shell back on its wheels and outside so I can take some pictures?
 
Auto options?

To get the car up and running as quickly as possible I'm contemplating switching to an Auto for the initial setup so I'm looking for a gearbox that I can use for mockup.

I can lay my hands on a powerglide locally which I think is a possibility for drag only action due to the low weight of the car but I may have issues with the big GM bellhousing clearing my wrap around bulkhead so I'm also contemplating other options one of which being an AW71 with either an upright dell housing adaptor or a cut and welded bell housing...

To use the T5 I need to make or buy a steel flywheel and a suitable clutch which I think would have to be a twin plate affair and thats a lot of money.

So if you've got a trans even if it's just to loan I'd be very appreciative just let me know
Laters
Nick
 
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