LagoonBlue

Went shopping again.. 160€ for the lot. Not great, not terrible. Anyways, better than ebay prices I am not fully happy with my current wings and even though these are in about 4 out of 10 condition they should give me options if that is something i choose to do. Hinges i will use for sure, all seem to be in usable condition. Since these came from a 4 door shell the back hinges would presumably be in better nick. My current hinges have been "bolt modded" since they were very loose. Shiny bits are in fair condition, rear-view mirror not so much but at least i now know what it should look like. Jack handle seems to be from an Anglia, no idea where the jack comes from but certainly not a Cortina (handle does not fit the jack). Some other bits and bobs there also, will have to give them a closer look later on. Altogether an ok haul, as parts seem to be getting harder to find i just had to snap them up. I guess this grille cover is an oddity to most of you. No FINIS code but feels like an official Ford item I know that some cars were fitted with roller blinders between the radiator and grille (my parts car had remains of such) but maybe this was an option for milder climates. Not in the best shape and i have no use for it but was free for the taking..

Sorry again for the recent lack of updates. Among other things i have been busy on getting my bike back on the road. Has been a learning experience to say the least. Fear not, i am not going to turn this thread into a blog about crappy eastern block bikes just couple pointers that will help me later on with the Cortina. But first couple new acquisitions; Telescoping gauges for checking bores and such. Cheap set but good enough for my use. Illustrated parts list, not required but nice to have. 70€ +shipping so on the pricey side but could not help my self So, my MZ's big end crank bearings were shot and i took the engine to bits last year. I had the cylinder rebored and honed in a neighboring town. Reasonable prices, good quality and good reputation and they seemed to be able and willing to do the work on my Cortinas engine when the time comes. Checking that my new crank survived the shipping (it did, cheaper to buy a new one than fix the old). I made this jig large enough to be able to fit Cortinas transmission shafts etc. Since this pic was taken i got a proper dial stand. Wont stick to aluminium though so i will need to make an adapter. Ok, so now i have parts in hand and workshop manual in front of me, monkey see monkey do. What could go wrong, eh? First i put the crank in wrong way around Though that the cross section pic was from the front when it was from the back.. I absolutely hate shrink fitting parts. No room for errors/fumbling about. Took three tries.. Ps. Hylomar gasket/jointing compound removes nicely with paint and gasket remover spray. Kind of obvious really when you think about it. My bargain basement torque wrench is not to be trusted for anything below 100Nm (or above for that matter). Two broken head studs.. My itsy bitsy electric rattle gun will happily break a 7mm bolt. Good luck finding the said 7x105mm 1mm thread pitch bolt locally. Temporary fix, new bolt already ordered. So now i have the thing more or less back together, have spark, fuel and squeeze but no bang even when kicking till blue in the face After a nights sleep i found out that the plastic frame holding the metal part on the points had melted throwing the timing way off. Cheap repro parts are cheap for a reason.. Well at least i hope that is the cause, i have ordered new parts from Germany but they will take ages to arrive as seems to be the norm these days. And the biggest lesson i learnt was that do not set a definite will-be-done-by date. Only leads to unnecessary frustration when it WILL not be ready in time. Just go easy, one step at a time and if something is not feeling right stop and think. On the same note, rest of the work on the Cortinas bodyshell is going to be postponed to somewhere around fall. The bodywork guy is doing upgrades to his shop (new ovens and the like). If it means a better result i am all for it. Plenty of other stuff to do on the meanwhile.

Thanks! Oh well, bound to be of use to someone else so no harm done. I did not realise that these came in so many flavours. I will check if the ally tag is still legible, that should have all the specs in it.

Thank you! Do not know about the scientist part but definitely mad Bought me my (i think) fifth rear axle.. Could not help myself, was only 50€ This one had most of the gubbins left in it and the diff does not seem to have acres of backlash. I am actually happy that there was only one drum left, took me half an hour and my second largest hammer to get this removed. I harvested rest of the small parts for safe keeping. Something to add to my list is to go through all of these and check what gear ratios they have. I quess that the easiest way is to count the turns?

Finally springtime for LagoonBlue! Though it is raining sleet right now but had couple tolerable days to complete a project i started late last year. I have wanted a parts cleaner for sometime now but why buy something when i can make my own for twice the price That said, mine has couple added features not found on the usual cheapos. On to the pics; Cleaning fluid lives on the reservoir pot in the middle with a coarse screen filter at the outlet where it is piped to a standard oil filter (biggest i could find on a clearance sale). Drain is located at the low spot. From filter it goes to a sealed magnet drive pump and onto a heat exchanger unit filled with coolant (the white box) which has two 300W lab grade immersion heaters and a 240 series Volvo heater core. From the heater core cleaning fluid goes to bypass and flow valves, on normal operation flow is full on and amount of fluid is controlled by the bypass valve. Sparky bits be here. Inside the DIN box is 6A breaker, RCD and contactor which is controlled by the E-Stop. Smaller box houses switches for heaters and the pump. From the backside you can see the quick release for the reservoir pot. Overall capacity when fully primed is about 6-7 Litres. Lid opened and screen that usually sits on the sink. I can easily change nozzles via the pneumatic fitting. And a quick test run with some random bike part. Works like a treat Now to the sketchy part.. I am using kerosene heater fuel as a cleaning fluid which works really good for oily dirt, is cheap and readily available but is (no surprises here) somewhat flammable. So no smoking when using the thing, though that would be hard to do with an (at minimum) A2 rated mask which is a must since the stuff can do some serious harm if inhaled. Not especially explosive so that's a plus. Time will tell how well the hoses will fare, at least there is no ethanol in the mix. I might add a work light and some exterior panels later on, works good enough for now. Drill and tap set for the oil filter was eye wateringly expensive plus i had to buy valves and some pipe connectors but rest of the bits i scrounged from my vast horde. I think this will get a fair bit of use when i start messing with my engine parts. Next up little work on the Cortina itself, i promise

Thank you! Ah, i forgot about the steering lock. It became mandatory in Finland from 1968 onwards and i suspect in other parts of the EEC too. My '85 Mazda 626 also has locks that can be opened with anything that fits in the hole, though to be fair pretty much all car locks in general are nothing to write home about. Electronic immobilizer (mandatory in Finland since '98) helps a bit but locks only keep the honest people away. There will be some mods and shenanigans hidden on mine Those are easy to add when refurbishing the wire harness plus something like a HF tracker is always a good investment, can't rely on just GPS these days. Not that theft is a huge issue around here parts but being a bit paranoid does not hurt

Thanks, i think i will but luckily i am not in any rush to do so. Better to have a little breather in the meanwhile. I want to be bored again, it's been a long time since i last was On the Cortina side of things; farming out the remaining work on the bodyshell will still happen but needs to be bumped to somewhere around Q1 or 2 of 2021, too many irons on the fire right now. Anyhow, i did get a nice part in the mail today. It's a boot lock & a pair of keys in near mint condition. No, the keys are not melted, i blurred them on purpose Not that it matters since the VIN is right there: BA90HA62563 which decodes to; Ford of Britain Dagenham 2 Door Standard March 1968 so should fit my '68 Deluxe like a treat. Was only 15€ +10€ for P&P, a bargain at twice the price. I know that many cars of this era had the one key system, you know: one key for the door, one for the ignition, one or the boot, one for the glovebox and one for the gas cap But how is it supposed to be on MK2's? I think it's doors and boot with the same key, Ignition would be it's own and gas cap also if fitted? So two to three keys in total. If so i will need to have the door locks recored (those need to be serviced anyway so not a big deal).

Industrial electronics, testers etc. that sort of stuff. Nothing for the retail market. I was the repair department though lately mostly assembling products and whatever else the boss told to

Good news everyone! I lost my job and can soon devote more of my time on the project. Guess i should go into details a bit more . The last chapter started three years ago when the company was taken over by Enics, a competitor of ours. As feared our new evil overlords shuttered manufacturing operations at the three year mark, as it has previously done with most of it's other purchases. Design functions relocated to another city but will likely share our fate somewhere along the line. The news came 7 months ago, just as first reports of some sort of new flue were starting to emerge from China. Since i had 12 years on the company my notice was six months which was extended by a month to get things wrapped up. When i joined the production staff was in the hundreds, now just four of us were left in the end.. Yesterday was our last day on the job; Proper attire for the times. Btw. Cigar is Partagas Serie P No.2 which i can heartily recommend to affectionates. Since the factory had been running from the seventies the amount of accumulated junk was staggering, a good portion of that plus a third or so of the remaining component stock i bought (cheaply) and hauled to storage which explains the lack of recent updates on this thread. Most i can "refine" and sell as scarp but some (tools etc.) require a bit of spit and polish to sell on. Right now i need to sort and catalogue components to get quotes and ultimately more space at the garage, a fairly big job in itself. After this i can really get back on the Cortina again. Luckily being a thrifty bugger i have enough funds put aside to take a breather of sorts before even needing to think on getting another job, these not being ideal times for job hunting obviously. Might even be my own master in the future, who knows.. Also luckily i had grown to hate my job during the last few years, so nothing of value was lost to me (colleagues excepted). On the contrary, now i am finally free!

Thank you all! Well, i might be able to do the job myself eventually through trial and error but even if i had the skills i do not have the proper facilities. Paint is maybe the most important part on a restoration, it's right out there in the plain view. Though of course mechanical bits are equally important too, like on my bike.. Looks good outwards but had a rattling noise when running. I took the mug off yesterday and found generous amount of radial play on the con rods big end (roller bearing or journal worn) Changing a crank on these is a bugger of a job but luckily parts are available and affordable. Might be something for the winter months.

Thank you! Let's hope it's not an oncoming train Thanks! After offering up the LH wing it became apparent that the headlight bucket was ~10mm too far forward. Must have warped when i welded it ages ago. Not too big of a job to fix, after drilling out couple plug welds i gently pulled it back to it's correct position and welded it back on. This time with careful measurements before AND after. Timing belt came handy again for strapping the come along to A-pillar. After that i prepped the wings. More on later why i did it at this stage. Paint was removed with poly strip wheel, surface rust and pits sand blasted, same areas treated with phosphoric acid (dark blotches), everything roughed all over with coarse scotch-brite, cleaned with silicone remover and.. shot with 2 pack epoxy primer. Note the fourth ceiling on my tent, this time around i invested on a proper PVC tarp with 5 year warranty. Back wall i will sort before winter (probably). So why paint the wings now even before they are banged back in to shape? In part to shield them from rust, and because i will have prep & paint done by a pro. I am rubbish when it comes to block sanding etc. but that's ok, a man's gotta know his limitations. And there is fair amount to be done; but certainly doable. Since wings and some other places will need a little bit of massaging with hammer and dolly and most likely doors and wings welding to get the gaps right (wings are now temporarily in place with sheet metal screws) any old paint shop will not do. I have couple good referrals lined up with local guys that are well regarded and willing to take it on. This being a big job it will happen around fall at earliest but that's fine by me, no need to rush. Of course everything will be put on writing with time tables and rough budget agreed before any work starts. And hey, no more rot

In order to start work on fitting the wings on the chassis i needed to spin it around in the garage. Sounds simple enough but took a lot of mucking about since the place is currently packed full of stuff from floor to ceiling. Made this portable winch to help move the chassis as wheels under it roll rather poorly on the gravel and over the door jambs. It can be mounted to a tow hitch (there is a larger 50mm hole under the flap) but for this job i drilled couple holes with screws and plugs through an plank to the floor at back of the garage and looped a discarded timing belt between plank and the winch. Those timing belts can handle quite a load, good for tinkering. Next step will be fitting the filler panels. Doors should be fairly well lined up so hopefully i do not need to touch them at this stage. After that the real work on installing the wings and ironing them smooth can begin.

Thank you! Best practice would be to use lead but i'm rubbish with tinning.. That said, all the welds that can be reached from both sides are welded on both sides where necessary so there is nary a pinhole in sight. Plus i have made a habit of running over the welds with a fresh wire brush to knock off any "loosies" A quality 2 pack epoxy primer should suffice. Box sections will be cavity waxed and all lap joints seam sealed as from factory.

Almost there.. I had to make a new rear bottom corner from scratch. Next i will have to repair the rear edge as it's got a shallow dent on it (could be due to a failed door limiter) and sort out all the spot weld areas. Today i remembered to check on the parts that i painted with two-pack-in-a-can some weeks ago. Seems ok to me, could hardly make a mark with a finger nail. I think i will paint all the ancillaries in the engine room with it. Expensive but very convenient to use. I should be able to pick up the pace after next week when my vacation starts

Heh, i remember climbing all over the metal pile at the council dump as a child. Certainly would be frowned upon these days, back then we still had a sense of self accountability If i were not being eaten alive by the mosquitoes i would of had a good long peruse at the yard, who knows what treasures are still hidden there.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.. More work on the wing; Valance joining edge and front part of the arch lip restored. Center of the arch patched. Lower back edge patched with a not so good bit of metal. It was easier to install the whole patch to get proper alignment and then work on fixing the rot at the rear edge. Also started on removing majority of the warping from welding. Piece by piece getting there. I needed a break from all the patching and went parts hunting on couple (non-official) junk yards close by. Don't see too many of these Corsairs in here parts of the world. Empty shell of a 4 door series 2. Has had a good wallop on the side. Anything but the boot or bonnet are either rotten or bent So slim pickings these days as expected but i did not have to come back empty handed; Three boxes to harvest parts for mine. I do not know for sure but #1&2 are most likely from MK1/escort. #1 was attached to a pre-crossflow at the yard. I did some cursory inspection on these today. #1 is in the best condition but has been rebuilt at some point. Not necessarily a bad thing though. #2 is the closest match to mine but worst of the lot. It was half full of water (all of these were out in the open) Maaaybe i can salvage a synchro or two. #3 had some water in it also but most of the gears looked ok. Box looks weird as it's has a bulge on it's side so parts might not fit. Might be an Anglia box actually 100€ for the lot, but even if i can salvage couple gears (hopefully a mainsaft too) they will have paid themselves. And could not resist on snapping a pic of my MZ next to this Series 2. Stalled restoration but too good to break, i hope that it gets fixed before it's too far gone.

Thank you! Some of their smaller panels are tempting but when factoring in overseas shipping costs it's way out of my budget. At least gives me a reason to hone my skills with the mig.

And suddenly it's summer Managed to squeeze in couple days worth of work on the car. Another bunch of bits primed. I did not paint the PCV valve housing stem as per original since it's a quite tight fit to the block. For the top coat i decided to give one of those new 2K in a (multi use) rattle can a try. Not cheap but for the small stuff it's quite a chore to mix the paint and clean the gun after use. Colour as advertised. Was still little tacky the next day after spraying, i will give a week or so for these to cure and will see how tough the paint really is. As a general observation i find it peculiar that it took me less time to make a logging trailer for my mini tractor (about a day) than it took me to fix up these bits. Good/cheap/fast, pick two i guess.... That vintage coupler is made in England And here it is in use. Okay, back to Cortina; I stripped bare all my LH wings to better see what i have to work with. Well, the parts that were not totally past it anyway. And here are the first two joined together. Aligned them the best i could, not great but decent. Since i was not happy with my previous antenna hole patch i took the opportunity and remade it with original metal. Back end is rotten on all of these but that i have made from scratch before to the other side, lots of work but certainly doable.

Sorry for dropping off the radar again, been all kinds of busy on non Cortina related stuff and sadly will be for a while In the little time that i could spare i did start tin work on the spare wing. Antenna hole being patched. Ehh, not my best work but will do. This is trickier spot to work on than would seem at first, despite being very careful with heat the panel distorted in various ways. Maybe due to stresses from stamping releasing Goal here is to do as much work as possible before cutting either this or my original and make one good from the lot as neither is perfect. Will be quite a puzzle. Filler panel from the spare wing. This is fairly solid but had been man handled when the wing was removed. I had to cut out a small section (new patch ready to go in) so that i can get all the wrinkles out. Luckily i have couple rotten but straight spares to compare against. And as a small side job i cleaned the PCV valve housing and valve. This was absolutely full with gunk. Soaking on petrol was the only thing that could get it clean. Will need a quick sand blast and respray the next time i'm doing a bigger lot. You can still see the "tidemark" on the PCV valve shaft. I suspect that i was the first person to clean it For the PCV valve body i tried a new (to me) method of surface treatment. First the part was thoroughly cleaned and brushed , then i heated it with a butane torch to about 300°C and quenched it in clean motor oil. Looks as new. Having been stranded on the first real test drive on my bike when it's regulator conked out i now have a plan ready for the charging system on Cortina. I will keep the Lucas C.40 Dynamo but will replace the regulator with DVR3N-12-22A ( http://edsltd.ddns.net/products.html) hidden inside the original regulator housing. Despite Lucas RB340 being pretty much the penultimate in mechanical regulators it's still not as reliable nor efficient as a good electronic one.

Thank you! Well, the key word here is "years" I really hope to get more done this year. I just remembered that my block is 2737E (says so on the side) and without checking i suspect that my spare block would then be 681. Both have the narrow lobed cams but any later cam will merrily fit the earlier blocks according to the interwebs. Followers are also narrower on these earlier blocks. I think i will remove the cam on my spare block and thoroughly inspect it, if there's any damage i will get a new one.

And for series 2 they seem to have switched to plastic. My original box was hacked to pieces (VW fan adapted to it) so i restored a plastic one from my '69 parts car but now i can fix up a proper unit by combining all the bits and bobs from my collection. Sometimes i wonder if they built any two Cortinas the same

Not that i'm any expert in the subject too.. I remembered that i have another block on storage with a decent cam in it but after taking a closer look it was a 711 block so i do not think it will fit Would be better block to tune but i'm going with the one that belongs to my car. Of course a new cam kit would cost a bit but who's counting at this point and new is always new. Speaking of new, i finally bought the seals for the front and rear quarters; That should be it for the seals, i hope. Also bought the dynamo bracket that was missing on my car while i was at it. These feel like excellent quality seals, should plop right in. From a friend of the forum too if i'm not mistaken? Little actual work too; This was the stud that broke when i removed the (very broken) exhaust manifold. I protected the machined surfaces with an old rocker cover and thin aluminium flashing and welded a nut to the stump that was left. After couple attempts it came off. Trick was to wait for weld to cool and heating the head with a small torch. And lot's of penetrating fluid too. Really happy about not having to resort to drilling.

Not necessarily my cup of tea but i can always appreciate any vintage car. Though I must confess that i am a wee envious on the parts support on those bugs On the same note i am slowly warming up on the MZ, even took it for a short spin yesterday since we are not yet under full martial law. Was a bit nippy at +5°C but it ran fairly well, no major issues to deal with. Small side project, a rack for my rattle cans. These were taking way too much self space and were hard to get at. Took ages to cobble together as it fought me all the way through but that's just how these things go sometimes. Anyway the end result works well. And why do i have 4 cans of silicone even though i hardly ever use any Another side project, i took four of my spare starters apart and turned their commutators on the lathe at work. Has been years since the last time i operated a lathe but still have all my fingers attached Little more engine dismantling, I put a catch pan under the engine and turned it upside down. Nice big dent on the oil pan but i have a fixed spare for that. Innards seem to be all there. Oil pickup mesh might be little bent(?) but otherwise looks ok. Cam is past it, no surprises here. Now i am wondering if i should get a little hotter cam kit since there is no real differences on prices, maybe BCF1 or similar? But i am likely keeping the stock Ford carburetor so there might be some issues with that combination

Some odds and sods.. I helped a friend with installing glasses on his project. Some strange non Ford thing i believe Extremely good practice for when it's my turn. Was much easier than i thought, just keep rubber lubricated with dishwashing soap + water in a spray bottle and do the string trick (though we used electrical wire instead). It's definitely a two man job. Stripped the spare wing. Front has some damage and back end had a fair amount of filler. I have yet to decide whether to fix this one or the original, i will sort that out when it gets a bit warmer outside. Next i plucked engine out of the running jig; And installed it on a proper engine stand (was on sale for 69€) Block heater will definitely be deleted later on.. Stand is rated for 450 Kilos (1000 lb) but that feels a bit optimistic so.. Off with his head! Much lighter now and sooner or later it needs to come apart anyway. Only broke one exhaust manifold bolt in the process, manifold itself is a goner too but that i knew already and have another prepared. Now i can also see what's going on inside; One small scratch on number four cylinder.. And a sizeable step on the back wall. Cylinder four is the worst as usual but others are also fairly worn too as i can jiggle pistons quite bit in the bores. Beyond honing but that's no surprise, from the start i knew that it will need a thorough rebuild. This thing must of smoked like a chimney back in the day I do not have a proper bore gauge but roughly measuring with dial calibers the bores seem to be the stock 80.9mm so there should be enough meat left for oversizing. I bathed the upper part with WD40 and strapped a plank to serve as protection for now. Luckily the plague has not reached here for the time being but for when it does i rummaged around the house and found these; *all bought ages ago, i might be bit of a hoarder but not an a-hole. Should last me a bit this lot plus i have this social distancing thing well practised as i did it even before it was cool.. In the mean time i still have to go to work as usual (hands on job) even though it's not something i would call even remotely essential Well that was longer than i thought, stay safe out there!

Checked the door seals, they are the "budget" glue on type without the molded edge or clips. Profile is quite close to the originals (flat). Material seems to be some sort of urethane rubber (a bit spongy) instead of real vulcanized stuff which is understandable due to presumed volume of sales. All in all seems serviceable but might be bit of a mongrel to install. When i was compiling my order Burton had the molded type still in their catalog but with 0 in stock so i went with East Kent offerings instead. Now Burton has dropped the better type altogether in their catalog which is a shame. I still need to buy rear side window seals and with those my choice is limited as i think only one company in Australia makes them. Should really get that done while still available..