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RichardJ

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Everything posted by RichardJ

  1. I do like the old Consul Classic, especially in its ultra-rate Coupe/Capri version. In my opinion, that and the mk3 Cortina are two of the best looking cars Ford UK made.
  2. It's a shame, but it's better you put your hands up and step away now, rather than start work on it and find yourself in well over your head. I'm sure you'll have no problem selling a 2-door shell. Looks like it has lots of the original features that get binned over the years - tombstone seats, boot floor coverings etc
  3. Don't you need the ignition key itself to remove the barrel? I seem to recall that you need to insert the key to slide the barrel out, I may be wrong, though. Anyway, I can also vouch for Craig on the re-keying front. I picked up a NOS glove box lock with two spare keys, and Craig (Sheffieldcortinacentre) matched all other locks to it. I now have one key for everything, rather than the 3 different keys I had before.
  4. I had an old second hand fuel tank a while back that had some kind of additional breather pipework on the filler neck. Was exactly the same size and shape apart from that. I've no idea which model of Cortina that came from, as I always thought there was only one style Cortina tank used in the mk3,4 & 5.
  5. Nice car - you can't beat a PFL 2 door GT :thumbup: Is it a '72 model? What sort of restoration "level" are you looking to go for, full concourse?
  6. Britain is the ninth biggest manufacturer in the world. Our engineering has contributed to race winning F1 cars, the manufacture of the world's biggest ever airliner (A380), and massive leaps in the advancement of medical technology. Yet, all anyome ever says is that "we don't make things anymore" I think part of the problem is that the next disposable X-Factor "winner" gets more press coverage than our scientific/engineering triumphs.
  7. I wouldn't be surprised if they have changed the design of the Eezibleed to a much cheaper setup. I remember having one when I was 17 for my old Metro, and can't remember having any issues whatsoever - the spare wheel powered it perfectly, the seal round the MC was nice and airtight, and bleeding the brakes was like opening a tap amd just letting the fluid run out. I got one about 5 years ago when I was doing my Nissan, and none of the caps fitted the MC so I had to use their "universal cap" which is basically a plastic disc with a rubber band around it. That leaked like a sieve on anything other than a completely flat tyre powering it, and even then I needed a second person to squeeze it onto the MC, defeating the whole purpose of a one person bleeding tool. There is just so much less to go wrong with the vaccuum ones, and they're a lot more universal in terms of fitting.
  8. I've used both Vacuum and Pressure bleeders, and would agree that the vacuum ones are easier, and potentially a lot less messy. The problem I found with the Eezibleed was that it only really worked well if you used a nearly flat tyre to power it. Anything above about 10psi, and the master cylinder cap seal would fail and spray brake fluid out the sides of the reservoir - not good for your engine bay paintwork. The vacuum one I used looked like a cross between a grease gun and a syringe, and basically sucked the fluid out of the bleed nipple on each brake caliper/cylinder. Worked really well, but you have to be more vigilant in keeping the fluid levels topped up in the master cylinder, as unlike the Eezibleed, there's was no external tank keeping the fluid levels topped up. I also like the fact that it operates at the wheel end, and not the nicely painted engine bay end, so any drips/spills are a lot less scary.
  9. Why are you flushing the whole system through, are you moving from Glycol to Silicone? Otherwise, what JohnnyBoy says is more than adequate for changing the fluid.
  10. With the right oil, the pinto and gearbox should be fine working in temperatures or between -4 and -6 which is probably what you'll be looking at. I think in a live axled, open diffed car without traction control it would be grip that would be the biggest obstacle to overcome.
  11. Tromso would probably be the easiest place to get to that is north of the Circle, as it is a major city with a decent road network connecting it to the rest of Norway. It's also pretty "warm" by Arctic circle standard and the temperature is normally above -4C even in the depths of winter. it does have lots of snow, though. I would have thought a Cortina would just bout be up for that journey. You'd just need to "winterize" it a bit e.g. studded tyres/chains etc. You'd also need to go with a similar minded person to swap driving duty, as you're talking about 1,000+ slow miles just in Norway alone spread over quite a few days. Even then the drive up to Tromso would be a bit like something out of Ice Road Truckers, only in pitch blackness for a lot of it. You could always take the easy option and go in summer to see the midnight sun instead of the aurora. That said, I saw the aurora in Iceland in 2012 and it was something else. There is a lot of luck involved in what you see, though. If there's been a large solar mass ejection, the sky will literally burn with bright reds and greens arcing across it. Otherwise, it will be be a very dim ghostly pale green that photographs well with a long exposure, but isn't that impressive to the naked eye. If you're determined to see the aurora, make sure you are going in the "right" year. Solar activity has a 10 year cycle that last peaked in 2014, and we're currently at the lowest point, so you'll be lucky to see anything more spectacular than a dull glow on the horizon for the next couple of years. It won't peak again until 2023-2024, so might be worth setting that as your target date for the mission.
  12. I had similar problems to the above with one of the flaps seized. Wasn't too bad to open up the (fibreglass) box and refurb it as the red coloured glue holding both halves together on mine had long lost all of its strength, so it was just the rivets and edge clips holding it together. Being fibreglass, it was also really easy to reassemble any broken bits with epoxy, and then just spray it back to black again. Self adhesive closed cell foam is the way to go for replacing the disintegrated foam pads inside. Just don't use open cell foam whatever you do, unless you want to be refurbing it again in a few years. It's well shielded from sunlight, so you can use most foam types e.g. neoprene or EPDM, just make sure the adhesive is reasonably weather proof as it will get damp/wet at some point. The trickiest part I found was detaching the heater box from the control lever thing under the dash. The rod of the control flap is meant to just slot nicely into the arm and be easy to just pop out again, however after ~40 years of damp and dirt, they had well and truly fused together and become one. Trying to remove the heater box with this having happened is what actually caused most of damage to mine.
  13. That's a good idea. Whenever I've tried to fix things like that, I always end up taking away the clearcoat from the surrounding good paint. That's a good way to protect it.
  14. The mk5 sender unit I picked up as a replacement had a filter on the end of the fuel pickup pipe. It was in a sorry state and looked like a cork jammed on the end of the pipe.
  15. I'll fill out a v888 form and see what happens. Watch this space...
  16. Sorry to hijack, but can you still get the previous owner information and vehicle history from the DVLA, and how do you go about getting it? Thanks Rich
  17. It looks like the estate version has lots of storage room in the back, too. Shown here to be perfect for kidnapping scantily clad models :unsure: You've gotta love 1970's advertising material.
  18. Is the adjustable controller normally directly linked to the car's speedo in the Corsa B/C? Just wondering how it is controlled in those cars, and whether you could use the speedo output from the gearbox to automate it at all.
  19. It looks a lot better than the ED-209 copy that Kalashnikov also unveiled this week: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-45282805
  20. If the bolt is properly tightened up there should be a very high clamping from the chassis mounts onto the metal tube of the bush. There then shouldn't be any movement of the metal tube around the bolt at all, as it should be well any truly clamped tightly in place and immobilized. All the "movement" should happen in the rubber of of the bush, as it effectively stretches and twists between the two metal surfaces (the tube and the metal shell) when the arms moves. That's why is really important to only fully tighten the bolts when the car is on the ground at normal ride height, so the bushes are in a relaxed unstretched/twisted state at normal ride height. Otherwise you can end up installing the bushes in a partially twisted state, and they then get over-stretched when the suspension moves and the rubber tears or becomes unbonded from the metal.
  21. This is advertised as a power steering rack, but looks like a normal unassisted one to me: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ford-cortina-mk3-4-5-power-steering-rack/323378955928?hash=item4b4ae34698:g:j8wAAOSwn6dbWtGT Can anyone confirm, please? Thanks Rich
  22. Looks like this car has resurfaced again: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ford-Cortina-Mk3-V8-Drift-Drag-Race-Project-Show-Car-Escort-Monster-Wide-Arch/163168393234?hash=item25fd981812:g:5zkAAOSwdcZa6Ytc Maybe, in order to sell, the price needs trimming ever so slightly....
  23. Where abouts are you? There must be someone nearby who can lend you a proper spring compressor. I've heard it is possible to change the spring using the weight of the car to compress it, but you're risking damaging your car, teeth and life if the spring slips off it's mount, or the car slips off the jack. Are you sure the springs arem't standard V6 ones, rather than pinto?
  24. There's probably specialist products to use, but I just use a bottle of Isopropanol and a roll of paper towels for this sort of thing. It is pretty good for degreasing things covered in light oils and road dirt, and provided it hasn't been contaminated by water is safe to use on electrical items as its a very poor conductor of electricity. It's also fairly harmless and unlike some of the more aggressive solvents is safe to use on most plastics.
  25. Ok, I just checked again. On one side, the hole on the mechanism for the door pull rod is pretty much the same as all the others - about 7mm diameter On the other side it's quite a bit smaller, about 5mm diameter. Very odd. Is there meant to be a difference between driver and passenger sides, or were the door locks revised slightly at any point in the cortina's life?
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