Lagoonblue's MK2 1600 deluxe

[LagoonBlue 133]

I was in work related training at other end of the country for most of the week so not much work could be done.

However in the background I have started refurbishing my steering shaft. Bearing surfaces at both ends of the worm gear were pitted, the right way to fix this would be to reground those but I had to settle for the next best thing.

 

To start with I bought 7mm (R3.5) round inserts for hardened materials, closest match to the right radius I could find. Since the inserts were meant for an end mill there were no holders available.

So I made my own. Just some whatever hot rolled mystery steel. Right and left handed. There is a pocket for the insert which is attached with a counter sunk M3 screw which is in turn secured with a small cantilevered bit of steel.

 

Since my car is fitted with a steering lock I had to remove a reinforcement collar to release one of the bearing cups. Luckily the shaft fitted in the lathe.

 

After this I started machining the bearing surfaces.

Speed and feed had to be kept at VERY slow rate. Surface quality was surprisingly good.

 

Machining the other end. All setups were done with a 4 jaw chuck which was a bit of a pain to clock in. There should be plenty of meat in the worm gear and I did not remove much so reducing the amount of shims should be enough. If not, I should be able to stack extra shims behind bearing cups.

What might however be an issue is that since the worm gear has been welded to the shaft there might be some angular error between the seats. I will find out when I have new bearing balls to test with.

Another issue could be reduced hardness of the seats but by the feel of it I did not go through the hardened layer.

[LagoonBlue 133]

Madness is not just a band from Camden.. It can also be something like this..

 

This time I will be recreating 3014E-13K413-B Guard (rear lamp socket). Some time ago I was lucky enough to found a tattered original to use as a pattern.

First I needed to make a jig to create the folds;

Does not need to look fancy, just some scraps thrown together. Routed 6mm x 1,5mm slots give material somewhere to go.

 

 

2mm book binding board (fairly stiff cardboard) and self adhesive decorating film. Could not find ready surfaced board locally but this will work just fine.

 

Pressing the folding grooves. Moderate pressure is enough.

 

Cut to size and outer rivet holes pre drilled. Edges I touched up with a black marker.

 

And the finished piece folded and mocked in place with one clip (should be two);

Looks the part and should last as long as the original, I imagine that would be two weeks tops

[LagoonBlue 133]

I've been parts hunting again.

These 8" shoes are getting hard to find reasonable priced;

QH brake shoes sold on Ebay for MK2's do not seem to be the correct type if going by the picture. Shape is all wrong and position of the lining does not match these. Might still work but I will not be the one to try.. These set me back 48€ +postage.

 

I already had an NOS Quinton Hazell QRS1266 idler arm;

But this one popped up for sale at an fair price of 30€ +postage and it had the rubber dust boot that was missing on mine.

 

These are the dimensions for the dust boot if any one needs them;

Some universal ball joint boot rubber might be made to fit in a pinch.

[LagoonBlue 133]

Back to the steering box.

I needed new bearing races so bought the overhaul kit from the chap that sells them in Ebay, on the pricey side but the quality was top notch. Bearing races are made to order and not available from anywhere else to my knowledge.

Assembly was mostly done as described in the workshop manual.

 

Since mine has a steering lock I first had to weld the reinforcement back in it's place AFTER sliding in the upper bearing race.

Eh, not my best work but will do. I wanted to keep the current as low as possible.

 

Piece of angle iron with hose clamp keeps the bearing balls from escaping during assembly. Decent vise is a must for this job.

 

Did not lose a single ball! Though I did practice beforehand..At this point it is important to keep the shaft pressed down when installing and removing the steering column tube or there will be a right mess. Also remember to mount the column in the right orientation.

 

I needed a thicker spacer over the upper bearing since I had to machine quite bit of material off both bearing races on the shaft.

Luckily I had "couple" hard disk drive spacers on hand, very accurately machined. Made of aluminium instead of steel but so is the column flange so should be fine.

 

New spacer. Little over 0,5mm thicker if memory serves.

 

Shimming was a real pain. I tried the official method but the result was always too tight (bolts were correctly torqued);

 

In the end I shimmed by feel, decent preload, no slop and moves smoothly. Also note the felt upper bearing, I had a new one but that was way too tight. Since the original felt was in good order I re-used it. There is a small washer under the felt that acts as a stop. No idea why Ford went back to felt for (most of) series 1 cars, probably cost related.. Also series 1 shaft is of different length and has a finer thread compared to series 2. 

 

Setting the rocker shaft drag. Series 2 wheel since the original is being worked on.

Measured in the center position as that is the tightest.

 

Back together and epoxy primed. Bare aluminium would of looked nifty but black is how these were.

Top coat will be done after a fortnight or so.

 

Not a hard job to do but certainly a fiddly one. Takes lots of time and must be done as cleanly as possible. I did consider putting this back together in a kiddie pool or something but in the actual assembly all the gubbins did stay where they were supposed to.

[LagoonBlue 133]

A new high (or low?) in pedantry..

 

I dislike using U-clamps in exhaust connections but apparently so did Ford, in series 1 at least;

Part number105E-5270, and I will need two as aftermarket front section comes in two pieces.

I did not have anything at hand to copy but luckily one was offered for sale on Evil Bay, let's just say at somewhat optimistic Lotus prices (and I believe the correct Lotus Part would be 118E-5270)...

But knowing that the required diameter is 42mm and bolt is UNC 3/8" -16 I could deduce all the needed dimensions from pics in the listing.

 

I started with 3x20mm mild steel strap;

 

Next a quick bending jig was cobbled together;

Radius is slightly smaller, about~39mm to allow for springback.

 

Pressing the "wings";

 

Temporarily splayed open to press the stopper tab;

 

Next a hole was drilled to both ends and the other side was made square with needle files. Then the clamp was fitted on a 42mm diameter socket for final tweaks; 

 

Painting together with the steering box;

 

And one of the finished parts;

I have my doubts on how long the paint will last but that is how they came from the factory.

Sure I could of bought something similar (though 42mm is a hard size to find) but where's the fun in that 

[LagoonBlue 133]

I had to take a small break from Cortina. My daily ride developed a nasty rattle as the fuel tank heat shield mounting bracket had failed, not a huge deal but when fixing that I found both sills to be rotten under the plastic covers  MOT will be in next moth so I needed to sort this out now.

 

Originally made of 2mm steel but even that will not help if there is moist muck trapped between the sill and cover. As these will be hidden there was no need to make 'em pretty. 

Might be time to start looking for something more modern.. Also did some much needed cleaning, sorting and other chores around the property.

 

However I did get at least something for the Cortina;

No restoration is complete without these  (And the dashboard hula girl!). Though admittedly might be a little early still.

[LagoonBlue 133]

This time it was my brothers POS Peugeot 308..

Failed it's MOT with a broken spring. Not too bad of a job to change (even with my widow maker spring compressors and had to do both sides of course) but seems a bit weird that the first step to change springs is to remove windshield wipers. Strange lot those French

 

While cleaning I came upon these leftover bits;

Top one is the early type indicator canceller but with the lower one I had to really rack my brain to remember where it came from.

 

 

It's home is here, clips on a groove about midway of the steering shaft. In my defence this is not mentioned in any of the literature. What it does is anyone's guess, mine is that it quiets down resonances. Easy thing to sort out at this stage, only had to take out four bolts.

 

If there is anything I have learned over the years is that if you find a somewhat reasonable priced part that you want, buy it! Might not be available forever.

 

So I went and bought these reproduction badges, compared here to originals;

 

Straight from Australia. Key chain I added to get combined shipping which ended up being overall cheaper than just the badges alone.

Quality of the reproductions is very good, not absolutely spot on perfect but very good. Grille badge dimensions are ever so slightly smaller and boot badge is made of cast zinc instead of aluminium but that's splitting hairs and I am very happy with these. And certainly in better nick than my any of my originals.

 

[LagoonBlue 133]

One more badge..

New old stock, also all the way from Australia. Insert might need some fresh glue. Think I am now set badge wise.

 

Cleaned and greased my speedo cable. Does not need much, light coat will suffice.

 

And the washers at the clock end go in like this.

 

More recent purchases;

Also bought another distributor not pictured here. Exhaust manifold is for S2 but should fit, I already have one but nice to have another as spare (and was cheap). Same goes with the steering wheel, spare is nice to have.

 

And the big ticket item;

Yes, yet another transmission But this has the missing piece of the puzzle, a decent main shaft. Overall in surprisingly good shape and not monkeyed around with. I will likely use most of this when rebuilding mine.

Just not the tail extension;

Must of been QC;s day off, that's some porosity  Honestly should not matter here but looks nasty.

 

Note the original dark green colour preserved under all the grime;

Nigh impossible to take a good photo, seems darker in person. Perhaps a shade darker than British racing green
 

Another matter is when I have time to sort through all the bits, work has keeping me busy lately.

[LagoonBlue 133]

Going to be light on content this time around..

 

But first, after taking apart multiple Motorcraft distributors I feel confident in saying that the only difference in these is the points cam.

Well, and the markings on the distributor case of course. On the left is my original and right is another one from possibly an 1300. Quite bit of difference in the phasing.

Generally it's a bad idea to mess with the governor weights and springs on these but I took great care to keep all the bits in order.

Also might throw together a tester for making the necessary adjustments.

 

Now then, the reason for the lackluster updates recently (and I fear, for a little into the future) is that I had enough of my current job. I put in my two weeks notice and will start on another career at the beginning of next month. Unfortunately the new job will involve two hours worth of commute each day which will in turn eat on how much time I have to spend in the garage.

I do not know how universal this is but at least in my country I would advise against working in the NHS, especially when it's in restructuring phase. My job was to fix and maintain medical equipment (EKG,defibs,NIBP's and the likes) but when it's 80% of unnecessary and inefficient bureaucracy it ain't no fun anymore. Plus recently mostly due to my inability to say no I was voluntold to be a coordinator on a network changeover project, a field in which I have null interest in.

So it's back to private sector high tech for me 

[LagoonBlue 133]

Still recovering from a mild to moderate burnout courtesy of my previous employer plus settling in at my job, that luckily seems much more humane. On the downside is the small pay cut I had to take and the commute which does eat into my free time.. Yet small price to pay for keeping my sanity.

 

Anyhow I did manage to pop into the garage to do at least something.

This is part of my drivers side under dash wiring harness. Goal for today was to clean the two small on/off switches. One was the panel light switch but other (connected to black and a long Green/pink wire) was not to be found in any of the wiring diagrams.

 

Referring to old pics I managed to sort out that this was the test switch for dual line brakes.

Circled in red here. Silly place to put a switch, mine came with a broken rocker but naturally I had a spare.

 

That mystery solved I could begin sprucing up the switches.

Rockers were a bit faded but a quick polish with sponge and compound from a headlight restoring kit brought back the colour.

 

Nuts got a similar treatment.

 

Last step was to check that switches still worked, which they did.

Not much but still better than nothing, let's hope I can really get back into saddle sooner than later.

[John Mack 286]

Sounds like you're in a better place regards your job 

 

Good effort on the switches, that's commitment  !! 

[btboy 36]

Great to see progress however small! 
Well done you. I burnt out with my previous employer and now enjoy a very different and happy lifestyle albeit I have less free time. Sanity first. 

[LagoonBlue 133]

On 10/28/2024 at 9:00 PM, John Mack said:

Sounds like you're in a better place regards your job 

 

Good effort on the switches, that's commitment  !! 

 

On 10/28/2024 at 9:37 PM, btboy said:

Great to see progress however small! 
Well done you. I burnt out with my previous employer and now enjoy a very different and happy lifestyle albeit I have less free time. Sanity first. 

Thank you for the kind words. Won't be missing the stress 

 

Been a while since I last messed with the engine..

Ah yes, freeze plug and block heater need to go. There was no easy way to lever off the block heater so after having a think about it I removed the mounting screw at the center and threaded the hole for M8.

 

I welded a M8 bolt to my DIY Big Bertha™ slide puller and the heater element popped off with ease. Even remembered to collect all the bits from inside the block. Should I really want to I could re-install it but that is not likely.

 

Tried the same for the freeze plug but as expected it was too thin and the bolt just pulled the threads off. I made hole big enough to fit a bolt head and with a couple good whacks the plug came off with no damage to block.

 

With those taken care I removed the timing cover, chain etc. to remove the camshaft.

Tappets were a "bit" worn. No matter, I have new ones (narrow stem on 2737E blocks).

 

Now here is what I was really after. Camshaft lobes are also worn but that I already knew so had a replacement at hand.

Lobes are wider on the newer one but that should not matter.

 

What might matter is that the exhaust(?) timing on the new cam is slightly different.

I am fairly sure that the old cam is original to my car, part number is 109E MC24136

Part number for the new cam is 771M6250DA which comes back as Fiesta MK1, obviously still a Kent but whether it would work for me I can not say, need to do some more investigating.

 

[LagoonBlue 133]

I had a hard time figuring out how to remove oil pickup tube from my engine as it is pressed in quite tightly (as it should be).

Turns out that the right answer was here all along;

So I rummaged my stash of round bars, found a suitable piece that fitted inside the tube and with a pair of vice grips the pipe came off undamaged without too much of a fight 

Same was also done for the smaller pipe.

 

New tool day!

 

After following the used lathe market for nearly two decades I came to conclusion that no decent second hand benchtop lathes can be had for a reasonable price.

So I bought a new 220mm by 600mm minilathe from Aliexpress. Still a fairly big investment and certainly no Myford but better than drill and a file.

 

I cut a sheet of 4mm steel to go between the lathe and table as these things need all the help they can get rigidity wise.

Needs to be bolted in place, storage grease cleaned and an over all going through and alignment. That will take a good while plus I need to buy a bunch of tooling before I can really use the thing.

So far seems to be of better quality than I had expected.