Cortina 2800E

Ah, come to think of it, if there are new'ish looking plugs already installed in the engine then that's where the set of plugs went! I know I used an old set for the painting of the engine so might have swapped them out. Pretty sure I included the old plugs in the original NGK boxes, but I was in such an rush to get everything together, plus there was so much stuff my memory is probably a little hazy! As for the fuel pump rod, that's a weird one because I definitely remember seeing it. It was located near the black painted fuel pump (last seen on a piece of cardboard on the roof), and in fact, it was pretty much the last thing I needed to fit to the engine to get it in a state where it should be capable of running (minus the exhaust!) I simply ran out of time in respects to trying to get the engine running, so priority was switched to getting it sold before I had to come back to the USA. I was bummed about that as I really hoped to at least hear it running again. Ah well, c'est la vie. LOL! And you did a good job of painting it orange! It was so clean, which made it much easier to repaint as I didn't have to spend forever removing grease/ oil/ rust and all the normal gunge that would be present on 30+ year old engine! I repainted it as I think an orange engine in a yellow engine bay may have been a bit too much, bordering on Fisher Price colour scheme there! I always planned on having the engine blue as that was the colour Ford painted their muscle car engines back in the late 60's/ early 70's, and it was the colour that I painted the previous 2.8 V6 engine. Oh yes, Sam, when you do get the engine running don't be worried about the smell! The first few times the paint gets hot it will stink for a few days until it settles, then all will be fine. I painted a couple of other engines, including the 1500 lump in my old Fiat Uno, and when I first started the engine with fresh paint I thought I'd get high off the fumes - lol!

Found some pics of when I painted the engine. Looks like I didn't do much masking! Pretty sure I just removed some brackets, cleaned the engine (it was already very clean as Martog had painted it before I got it), roughened the surface, then painted it blue. I think I used an old water pump to act as a gasket on the front (or maybe that was the spare?) I probably stuck on the old rusty valve covers to cover the valves and cylinder head. Here's some pics of it after it was painted:

Hey Sam, Good to see you making progress with the 'Tina :thumbup: Martog, yes, I removed some of the parts to paint the engine blue. Mainly just the brackets if I recall, then masked up all flanges and bolt holes. I still have pictures of doing that somewhere on my hard disk. Sam, there definitely was a fuel pump rod, and yes, there is a spacer for the fuel pump too. They were all in the spares, and I can remember that the fuel pump and rod was on the roof of the 'Tina on a piece of cardboard, along with a set of spark plugs. That's no use for you now though! They will be SOMEWHERE within that mountain of spares! Also, one of the starters would stick, that may have been the starter I refitted. I used to just give it a whack and it would then start working again. Not very technical I know, but it got it working after sticking! As per Martog, I'm looking forward to seeing (and hearing!) the V6 fired up :thumbup:

Cheers everyone, glad the Yank Tank meets approval! Yes, it's a 1986 Chevy Monte Carlo SS - one of the GM "G" Body Platform cars (separate chassis and RWD). The Monte SS came with a 305 ci (5 litre) V8 with approx. 185 bhp and 220 lbs/ ft torque. Not exactly big muscle territory, blame emission regs and unleaded fuel for that. The 305 V8 is a sleeved down version of the infamous Chevy 350 small block (they're actually externally identical), and pre emission regs the 350 would be pushing out closer to 300 bhp. The state I live (Florida) has no emission regs, so it's actually possible to pull out the strangled 305 and drop in a warmed over 350. Maybe in the future! Sheffield Cortina Centre is correct in mentioning the GNX, which was the Buick (Regal) version of the G Body platform. Those came with a 3.8 litre turbo charged V6, with the GNX being the last version of the model with the highest performance package. They could actually out accelerate a Corvette from the same era! The earlier versions were the GN (aka Grand National) with the same 3.8 litre turbo V6 with slightly less power. The other cars sharing the platform were the Oldsmobile Cutlass and the Pontiac Grand Prix. Out of the four models, the Buick GN/ GNX is the most valuable and sought after (as well as the fastest), followed by the Monte Carlo SS (one of the most popular), then the Olds Cutlass and lastly the Pontiac Grand Prix. All pretty much represent the last of the old style RWD Yank sporty cars before everything went FWD and V6. My Monte SS might not have brute power, but it does have that lovely rumbly V8 soundtrack :thumbup:

By the way, the car below made it slightly easier for me to say goodbye to Tina. This is the car I now own in the USA, awaiting my return next week. Assuming the country doesn't implode before then after voting in Trump as president...

Hi all, The mk3 Cortina 2000E with the modified grill used to be mine. It was very hard to let it go after owning it for 26 years and 9 months, but emigration means that I couldn't justify holding onto it any more. I was hoping to try and get he engine at least hooked up and running (especially after swapping engines in early 2015), but time was against me. It was also being kept in a rented council lock up that had doubled its rates since 2009 so I would be literally throwing money away if I kept in any longer. In fact I already had as I was out of the country for over a year (I was hoping to return temporarily much sooner - but my plans didn't work out that way) so I really had to cut my losses. Worse still (for me), I reckon there was only approx. 2 days of work to get the 'new' engine fully hooked up and running. I just simply ran out of time :( Anyhow, I'm really glad that Sam is the new owner as he's a really genuine and really nice guy. I really hope he can get her completed and on the road quicker than I could. That shouldn't be too hard, as I'd owned her for over 27 years and hadn't driven her since she was a standard 2.0 litre Pinto engined 2000E way back in 1990! With regards to the (modified) grill, I did this way back in 1991/2. And no, I didn't do it because of the extortionate current prices that GXL/ GT pre-facelift quad lights and grills go for. You have to remember that back in the early 1990's, Cortina mk3's were still in banger territory, and I picked up a slightly tatty and damaged square headlight grill for a pittance from a scrapyard. I probably paid about a tenner for it. Around the same time, I also picked up a GXL grill and quad lights, and I think I paid approx. £15 - 20 for those back in the summer of 1990! I always liked the quad headlight mk3 'Tinas hence wanting to retrofit a set to my mk3. The quad lights were a straight swap with the two rectangular 2000E lights, after removing two small blanking plates, and a small bit of rewiring. The GXL grill, however, wouldn't fit because the mounting points were in different locations. Thus, as I had the spare 2000E headlight grilL (I always kept a good original if I ever modified anything), I decided to see if I could modify it for the quad lights. Using a saw (not sure how to describe it - it was like a wire blade tensioned between between a deep 'c' shape saw holder) I was able to cut out most of the square bezels and part of the slats. My original plan was to make some kind of light bezels to supplement the modified grill, but like many of my plans this never materialised. However, even without custom bezels, it did look good even if I say so myself! Thus to sum up, the Cortina as you see it uses GXL lights fitted with a modified 2000E grill. I had kept the original 2000E rectangular lights and grill if I ever wanted to revert back to standard. I also had a standard GXL grill that at some point I was going to tweak to fit. I never did this. And Martog, I remember driving all the way up north to collect the engine from you, and meeting you at your workshop one freezing cold afternoon about two years ago! And it was fun lifting it into the back of my mk1 Fiat Uno with just the two of us! Sure, the back of the Uno was a little on the low side with a 2.8 V6 Colongne sitting in the boot, though don't forget my Uno was modified and has uprated suspension and a 1500 engine from an X19. It drove home like a champ :thumbup: Anyway, I look forward to seeing Sam get 'Tina up and running and back on the road :thumbup:

There's a pressed steel intermediate plate that fits between the C3 bellhousing and engine. Otherwise no gasket. If you are getting transmission fluid leaking from the bellhousing, it's almost certainly the torque converter seal leaking. Mine was and I replaced the seal when I had the engine and gearbox out for swapping over. Have not yet run the engine to know if it was successful or not. You can get a C3 seal kit here: http://www.bearingkits.co.uk/FORD-C3-AUTO-GEARBOX-SEAL-KIT/276.htm That's where I got mine from. Price was reasonable and delivery was quick.

I need to get a rear silencer for my 2.8 V6 engined mk3 2000E. I'm pretty sure that when I first built the car, I used the center exhausts from the scrap mk5 2.3 V6 that donated its running gear, and the original rear silencer from the Pinto engined 2000E. At least I think I did, but as that was over 20 years ago I can't quite remember! Looking around at online sellers, the 2.3 rear silencer seems to have a different part number. Does anyone know whether the 2.0 Pinto and 2.3 Cologne V6 rear silencers are the same? And anyone know of a good supplier to get the correct rear silencer from?

Thanks Martyn - and so am I! The engine I bought off you looks to be a good one. I whipped the sump off and everything looked fine. The engine turned over with no issues and all seemed to be working as it should. When I took the rear bearing/ crank seal end cap off, the bearings looked in great condition. Fingers crossed it is indeed a good 'un! And just to update everyone, the old engine and 'box are out of the car. We took it out through the top in the end, and even with all ancillaries and radiator removed, it was still a tight squeeze to get the engine and box out in one go. It also needed to come out at quite an angle to clear the slam panel. All in, removing it wasn't too difficult. What held everything up was an almighty fight getting the C3 'box onto the new engine. After spending ages trying to work out why the bellhousing wouldn't slide right up to the crankcase, and why the crank kept locking, it turned out that the torque converter wasn't quite pushed in fully. Some more fiddling and it slid with a much more satisfying cluck onto the gearbox shaft. Now it was back in place correctly, but we'd run out of time. If all goes to plan, the engine and 'box will be back in this Wednesday, then the fitting of all the ancillaries can commence. Hopefully I'll get her back up and running again in the next couple of months. :showoff:

Thanks for the advice Mk4Savage :thumbup: In the end, I removed the main bearing/ seal cap. The old seal just pushed straight off after this! The newer seal was noticeably tighter, but it was easy enough to push into place with some firm finger pushing (I also used some brake cleaner to give it some temporary lubrication). I ensured that the seal was squarely in position, then I fitted the bearing/ seal cap. Job done :magic:

Faulty accelerator pump diaphragm perhaps? EDIT: Never had experience of the VV carb, so not sure if it has an accelerator pump diaphragm?

Just been reading up on the Cortina 2.3 V6 Haynes and Autodata manuals. The Haynes manual describes fitting the rear seal to the crank, then lowering the crank into place in the block and then bolting up the bearing caps. However, it does also say under "major operations with engine still in car" that the crankshaft rear seal can be replaced. It doesn't say how though... The Autodata manual says that the seal can be removed and replaced using special tools. Not a lot of help as the chances of me getting these tools are slim to say the least. As the engine is out of the car and currently upside down for me to work on it, I was wondering if I could do this: Loosen off all the main bearing caps, just enough to lift the crank a few millimetres. Remove the rear bearing cap (that also covers the rear seal). Lift the crank just enough to slide the seal off the end. Lift it again to slide the new seal back on. Replace end cap and torque all caps back up again. Does that sound feasible? Or is it not a good idea to lift the crank even a few mm with the connecting rods/ pistons still attached?

A 1969 Ford Gran Torino Cobra would do me very nicely :)

Got three mates coming to help so there will be plenty of hands on deck :thumbup: Good suggestion regarding the slam panel!

Hopefully a simple answer for this one. As a precaution, I'm changing the front and rear crankshaft oil seals in the 2.8 Cologne V6 that I am swapping into my car next weekend. Reading through the Haynes Granada workshop manual, it describes fitting the seal onto the crank and then lowering the crank onto the block. Then it describes fitting the caps to all the journals. I'd rather not have to take the crank out just to change the seal! Does anyone know if the Cologne V6 rear crank seal can be changed in situ? Without having to remove the bearing caps? Cheers!