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Just back from a great trip across France and Spain in the Mk3. We did 2650 miles, spent £602 on fuel and £204 on tolls. The car absolutely flew down to the Costa Brava, stopping off at valensole in Provence to see the lavender fields and the pont du Gard viaduct on the way back. It was absolutely roasting as soon as we hit Lyon on the way down and we were stuck in traffic for about an hour but the car kept it's cool and trundled off with no problems! 3 weeks away we set off stopping at clermont ferrand and then driving non stop for Calais.

Quality, cars back from the paint shop , thanks to Andy and Craig at Amington accident repair

A little photo shoot today, the estate will be featured soon in a well known classic car magazine. I couldn't help but sneak my saloon into the mix. Given she's now 6 years old since restoration, she's holding up well against the out of the box shiny new estate. Very lucky to have these 2 beauties. Now, should we find another Cortina challenge!!! 😉😁😜

how she looks now with new bumpers and plates and the right spots. uploading pictures

Depending on the day of the week that could either be Vernon Kay or Rylan Clark...

Thanks everyone, I don't have a Cortina these days but will keep the site running and maintain it whilst people still use it.

Ready to roll tomorrow. Heading for Galway, about 2 hours away and nearly all motorway.

Yep I still own the same car since 2000

Shake down run yesterday. I previously had a problem with the nodiz, with sync loss, and it cutting out at high revs. I had looked into this when first on the road 18 months ago, and changed the crank sensor , made sure it was close enough to the trigger wheel ect. When I stripped it for paint , I found the earth battery terminal loose at the body, so thought I'd fixed the cut out fault. But I hadn't , as it's still doing the cut out for a few seconds , then back on with a big bang of unburnt fuel in the exhaust. Pretty much .ed off, and down hearted now. I've emailed ME , to see if they can shed any light. Anyway to cheer me up , here's a picture as it is now ☹️

Well underway with painting. Original factory Dragoon Red. Will be finished in a couple of weeks and then start putting it all back together again

Not done anything for a while,i pushed the car out a few weeks ago to get my trailer into the yard & had a clear up. Have now removed the nearside inner wing. New inner wing screwed into place.

If I'm lucky I can drive for approximately another 20 years ( my mother died when only 3 years older than I am now & my father 8 both from forms of cancer), rumour has it, It will be approximately 10 years be for new ic vehicles cease production with another ten for the supply of fossil fuel to end. This is only for non commercial vehicles as lorries & diesel electric trains especially can't carry the loads or cover the distance expected of them now due to the size/amount of batteries required. Bring on the washing machine powered wonders I say, leaves more petrol for me. The motor industry was recently reported to be running scared re failing sales (profits) of electric vehicles especially fleet/lcv segment as customer grants are dropping & people are becoming savvy to the real world costs/limitations. I know people who work in the back rooms of this technology & they report that the technology can't meet the customer & environmental demands now let alone for the "deadline" & that the tree huggers are siding more & more with people like us who keep older not just classic vehicles in use, as whatever fuel source a vehicle uses the carbon footprint of building & in many cases shipping them halfway round the planet ( cause its "better " for the profit margin ,err I meen planet) is no different wether ic or electric & takes over 10 years to be offset. More & more research is swinging towards hydrogen fuel cells than electric to enable a match to present customer usage demands. Call me Greta's worse nightmare but personally I don't give a ., 3 of mine already run on lpg & the rest are easily converted, which by the way is a byproduct & better for the environment! The planet won't die the human race will & that's what scares the rich & powerful. I think that before global warming wipes us out it will more likely be one meglamaniac with beliefs that differ from another or another Corona type virus that will bring the cockroaches to the top of the food chain. & The last thing the oil companies & middle Eastern countries want is an end to the ic engine. Anyway don't worry as according to news reports E10 will have forced all the old cars of the road by the end of the month like E5,unleaded,locusts & pestilence was going to before that. Long live the V8 !!!!!

So it's finally finished, she passed the MOT earlier this week. Got to say I'm really proud of what we've managed to achieve. All done ourselves bar the harder welding and putting on the paint. Photo shoot for a well known magazine feature on Sunday, weather permitting!!!! Thanks for all the great comments, it's nice that people appreciate the hard work it takes. Keep it Cortina folks!!!!

So it seems i'm finally there after 5 long years - August 16 2015 i started this thread, 5 years later i'm almost done, wheels from Image, VRT and sunvisors are the only things left to be done. They have been 5 years where many times i wondered why the heck am i doing this, a lots of downs and some ups along the way.Had to redo things along the way due to unfortunate circumstances hitting panels during assembly,glue from headliner oversprayed on the luggage boot and it burnt through paint ,,,list is endless. They were HARD times! Still are as i planned a VRT on Saturday and i am stuck here on obligatory quarantine till Monday. Restoring a car is an upward struggle in my opinion both mentally and financially but all in all i'm a happy man with a car i have practically all done by myself except for upholstery. A BIG thanks goes to everyone here at BSC especially one who is no longer active here Pete C and many others who helped in giving support and needed parts. Dave Baglow's rear bumper(now rechromed as seen in pic) @TIB3300 and @sheffieldcortinacentre for washer bottle and recently @RichardJ for providing a baggage of info on Image wheels. Thanks to all and sorry if i forgot someone. When i have the car VRT'd and with the new wheels on will take the obligatory pic in front of car as Tibbs said i should do :).In the meantime this is the latest i have done,front and rear bumpers. Cheers take care stay safe.

Nowadays cars are just white goods people are more interested in the gadgetry or how envious the neighbours will be rather than wether it's actually any good.

You may find a couple of new members signing up…I’ve reached out to the 1500 members of Irish Cortina Facebook group recommending the Forum.

Few bits done this weekend; calipers, master cylinder, servo, steering boots, track rod ends. Still a fair way to go, but heading in the right direction

Not as odd as finding the whole database gone missing today, got back from work at 2pm to find an error showing on the website & no sign of the database on the server, over 20 years of info gone completely missing. 7 hours later, I've just this minute managed to get it back up and running!! Panic over!

Finally road legal, loving driving the old mk3 , been a long bumpy road getting this finished, random Cambridge parked at the top of my street well worth a pic

Took the Cortina out for a wee drive this evening as had a pizza to collect anyway so a nice excuse to take some pictures!

Hallo peeps how you all doing, been quite a while (understatement) Just thought i'd pop up a thread saying hi as i popped in to check out the moose I dissapeared for personal reasons and not at all cos you all smell TBH i'd put all the cortina stuff to the back of my mind but sunday i drove past the YAT and today i got an email about the moose so i took a brave pill and signed back in i may hang about for a bit, you know, eat the moderators hidden stash of biccys if they still keep them in the same place ect

I'm with what John Mack said, Facebook does my head in, this format is straightforward and logical, we never want to loose this site, it's far superior to anything else out there and is still the source of great help and great people, whoever the people are that make it happen, well done, you are stars.

Bought this a few weeks back, Motd and quite pleased to be driving one of these again. Ive managed to fluke one picture over with Mrs help, by resizing it but only one it seems. Still hopefully I will find working under the bonnet of these easier than uploading photos.

yep i know about it glad she's still going Ford will be over the moon, he grew up working on it Hallo peeps, been a long time, won't take up this thread with my history just popped back in cos the email the site sent me kicked my . into action

Merry Christmas to all from Malta! Its been such a sunny Christmas here! This is what it is like today

Facebook is nowhere near as good as a good website such as BSC. In my humble opinion, of course!

Big thanks to Rich' aka wolf-race for my new picture

Pointless really but super clean looking

I was out on a charity run today and on the way back stopped at the last vestige of Cork's Ford plant. This is the offices of Henry Ford and Son, seems to be in decline to my mind.

Still no call from the body shop, so more engine time, new core plugs fitted, and finally managed to get the wood ruff key out of the crank, with heat, drill, n some MC hammer time. Painted in Porsche Riviera blue, this is the left over paint I was going to paint the Cortina in

Body shop lads gave me keys to sort a few niggles on the body, final top coats this week, timed to perfection, followed by 2 weeks off work .......nice 😁

Base coats on, think it was four, it's taking paint and time to build the colour up, flatting back tomorrow, final top coats later this week VID_20220617_172520.mp4 VID_20220617_172520.mp4 VID_20220617_172520.mp4

We have been for our MOT in the RAIN today and passed with no advisories. Great news. Only did 600 ish miles last year but we really had no where to go. But shouls be better this year I hav entry applictions in for Moffat and another show in the Scottish Borders near Jedburgh. Lets hope for some good weather this summer.

Oh thanks D-FENS! The meeting when i finally got my camera (or was it my late parents one..?) I took some pictures of those cars that hadn´t left. This is a -68 Lotuscortina LHD and with twin brake servos because from 1968 all Cortinas in Finland and Sweden had dual brakesystems. The owner have a MK1 or two and with one he had won the FIA European Historic Touringcar Championship. Here is another MK2 Lotus -70 but the TC wasn´t ready yet so it had only a 1600 GT engine at this moment. In the background an untuched 1500 GT -67 and a 1600E 2D -70. And some Ford Taunus or 17M, 20M or 26M, P3, P5 and P7 in the background. The 2 door 1600E had still same owner for two-three years ago. I remeber when he did some uppgrades on the 1600E and widened the rims to 7", putted twin weber 40 DCOE:s, better exhaust manifold and a pointerless distributor and got 105 horses from the original 88 engine spec. Okey, the wheels didn´t affect on the power... But it became really cool with it. Another nice original 1600E 4D 1970... A few GT:s. They put my "Lotus style" -64 with the GT:s because the organizers didn´t really know what it was: A tuned 1600 Xflow with two DCOE-Webers, MK2 brakeservo, Lotus style dashboard etc. The last one was a GT but changed to a Lotus with TC engine, dashboard and all Lotus stuff. All GT:s, exept for GT-63, has crome list on the sides that are sold new outside of UK. Super have the too but they have little different shape or profile. This was the first ever GT-64 I have seen. In Finland Ford sold at first only 1200 DeLuxe 2 or 4 D and some -64 estates. A few -64 GT come here too but when the facelift came Ford took more GT:s, 1500 DeLuxe and 1200 Standard and from late -65 15 LotusCortinas mk1 and 3 MK2 -67. Rest of the Finnish LotusCortinas are privately imported about 10-15 overall over the years. Ford Finland had an own rallydivision here in Finland 1964 with 3 GT-64 that later was changed to facelift ones with different chassiesnumber but with same registration numbers. Some of them became even Lotus and competed with in rally and racing in the -60:th. Weather was really brittish, cold and rainy, and the guy in the foreground with the umbrella came all the way from Switerland. I thought we will win the prize for longest run but not this time, He and his girlfriend had twice as long trip that we had. He was little unhappy because somewhere just before he arrived the bonnet flew up and became bent. It was the dark green MK1 with lighter green "Lotus stripe" on the side, a really god looking car. This was my first Cortina meeting ever and the following day we went to a castle with some of these Cortina friends. More will come because the trip home didn´t go quite as on rails...

It will be 2Tone. Rio Brown over champagne gold. No filler required and no welding. I'm looking for a new front left indicator. Must be genuine Ford. Mike. VID-20210306-WA0000.mp4

one day i need to buy a scanner, hope you can read it:

I have most of them. But many of the in-progress photos were posted at the time then discarded. Work on PAL rarely stops... here is the last 12 months or so: Engine rebuild after losing the water pump belt (and having a truck behind me so couldn't stop): Complete gearbox rebuild with tasty rally ratios: Replaced the Tex mirrors with genuine Mk4 door mirrors: I abandoned the Wellers as I struggled to get them balanced well enough, especially when towing. I went back my Superlite replicas, powder coated white: Having cooked on hot days a couple of times, the polycarb rally windows were replaced with original door drop glass: Fitted a genuine South African bonnet as the fibreglass Aussie one warped: After the "Minder" Capri caught fire, MarkyMark came to help and we finally finished the engine bay fire extinguisher system: The millboard door cards got kind of saggy, so I made these custom door cards from checker-plate alloy:

So stripes have been fitted today. Can't thank Tony enough for taking the time to come and template and replica the rear wing sections to complete the estate template kit. (these are available to buy from him via Ebay in your exact cour combination for your car colour) Colours are vibrant and exact and really make the paintwork pop. So chuffed with the finished article. Can't wait to get out to a few shows later this summer. Just a few last minute bits to sort now and off for MOT very soon.

A post & forward panel finished,bonnet hinge mounting screwed into place,can't weld on until inner wing is repaired. Repaired the hole in the bulkhead.

Thanks Mr One year nine months and it moves under V8 power

Crusader stripes on.

After 5 long years of spending thousands of money its officially over. Had the image wheels arrive and wrapped them today with toyo195 50 15.Thanks To RichardJ for the valuable information and help you provided. Thanks to all for the help provided throught this journey. Will post my progress on the bike carbs i have just fitted.

I use to have a girl friend that breathed heavy, I thought I was doing a good job, turned out she had asthma !!!! I know above is completely irrelevant and I hope it doesn't offend anyone with asthma.

Well it was tight,but i managed to turn the Cortina around in my back garden. Now a few pics before it goes back into the garage.

Hot weather? painting weather !, had the wings back from Enviro strip £100, strip n etch prime, hes quoted me £150 to do the same to the boot and bonnet, so pretty much cleaned, gravitexed, base coated and clear coated, two days graft ........