I assumed you meant too short also, sounds like a win then!
Carry on.

As they say moments of idiocy are sometimes followed by a flash of genius ! After my "wrong shocks" moment earlier I came up with a great idea for the spacers.
 
So I had this really fancy bit of aluminum that was basically useless, until I noticed it had a really nice cutout in it that matched the bottom of the shocker perfectly..



 
I think you can already see where this is going.. So I threw it in the strut and the clearance was pretty good.. only about .5 of a mm all the way around.. 
 

 
And chucked the insert in and tightened it down...
 

 
A perfect spacer! It sits down in the bottom well and the shock fits in the recess and is supported nicely - job done! 
 

Well that was a mission, the downfalls of powder coating is that it makes everything a bit bigger.. which resulted in the top hats of the springs not wanting to fit down over the shock properly, so after some filing they slipped down and then the next issue became apparent - the top hat didn't want to slip over the spring properly which resulted in about an hour of swearing to get it to seat nicely.
 
 

 
One of them still isn't 100% snug but I'm counting on it seating itself fully on the first drive or so - it might need to scrape some of the powder coat off itself .
 
That's enough for today, I'll chuck them in the car tomorrow.
 
Far out..... I just noticed I didn't put the bump stops in...... Oh well Ill sort that in the morning 

I thought about gussets but ultimately decided against it because I may go coil overs at some point after engineering and I never planned on this car being anything more than just a spirited drive car. 

If I end up getting a panel van that car will be more turned up.

Also with cutting down the bump stops - these KYB ones are pretty small and fairly soft so I'll just see how they go, if the travel is crap once its on the road I'll cut them down, but this car isn't that low anyway, it still had a good amount of travel when it was on the road and only bottomed out on massive pot holes.
 
Here's my DIY bump stop kit .


 

 

 
Was a lot easier that time around and managed to get the top spring to seat with a little bit of elbow grease and a second pair of hands.
 

Yeah, I have the exact same gaiters for bellows idea, as long as the bump stays down , unlike escort ones that become stuck at the top.

I should've said weeks back that calipers will possibly hit the hub . I do like Capri hubs and cut a 45deg so there's plenty of gap.

MarkA your correct too, I bought sills from a shop in UK for a mk2 van but they swore I was wrong in ordering for mk1 coup, they settled down after a couple of pics between both vans.

It's the new generation of 'parts interpreters ' that's failing, we grew up with mk1 and mk2 so know plenty of stuff about them , I worked in a motorsport components shop, (Quickco) for nearly 20yrs so my brain is dialed in on them. Sad part is we wrecked a handful of RSs back when they were cheaper than a slab of beer and from memory a white 2dr with vinyl roof which must have been rare.

Love seeing a build of this quality coming together, your work is outstanding Mark👌
I remember there being a hurdle to jump, seemingly, every step when I put mine back together, kudo's to yourself and other forum members for nutting it all out.

martymexico
 Sad part is we wrecked a handful of RSs back when they were cheaper than a slab of beer and from memory a white 2dr with vinyl roof which must have been rare.

That makes me cringe... the one I regret was a Rallye pack, we paid precisely a carton of beer for it.
It wasn't just a Rallye pack though it had Volante's, factory air conditioning, FM radio, automatic, tow pack, the list goes on, even the mudflaps were Ford optioned. Someone had ticked every box on the order form.
We parted it out over a rusty plenum and rusty rear arches 

The ones that got away - car edition . I wish we could still get cars for a slab!