1972 Mk 1 Escort daily driver project.

After I gave her a polish last week. needs a wash again now though :( 

Max Photobombing...at his best :P

Finally some interior shots
Front seats with sheep skins off...MINT!

The dash in its current state...still has a long way to go

the original dash. needs to be pulled apart and cleaned up...although I'm thinking about doing the RS conversion


rear seats. also MINT!

Now for the rust :( 

Yer ill definitely have my hands full. 
My mate who's house its living at, and who is also helping me, his and my birthdays are both in June, so i told him i wanted to have it ready by June...unfortunately i don't think that is going to happen now :( but i am going to try my hardest to get it done by then. 
I still haven't stuck my head under the car to look how good or bad the front suspension is in regards to bushes etc etc. 

well today i put the car up on stands so i could get ready to start re bushing the suspension. I decided while i was there i would try the one original 12" wheel i had, on the front, as it has only been on the back...while i had the front wheel off, my mate says to me "those brake callipers looks pretty big" and without thinking about it, tried to put the 12" wheel on the front, with no luck. The wheel did not fit over the callipers. so at some point (i think) someone has fitted bigger brakes to the front of the car. i had a look at the rotors, and although they are rusty, there is loads of meat left on them, and same with the Pads. they look new...anyway here is a couple pics of the callipers if someone could tell me what they are off that would be good :) 
 

 

WELL, there has no news on the house as yet, but it turns out that my mates uncle had organised the real estate agent to come around to value the house without, talking to my mate. He basically called Gareth one morning, and said, can you please clean the house up, there is a agent coming to value the house. Basically was given 6 hours notice. Anyway, Gareth had been on the phone to his father and his uncle, and is fighting to keep it. 
As for the car, I finally got the last ball joint to crack, after heating it up, hitting it, breaking a ball joint splitter, hitting the back of my hand with a hammer which bled quit badly. it was actually Gareth that got it for me.SO now the whole front suspension is out of the car, sway bar included. I have all the new parts ready to go back in (bar the tie rod ends). Tomoro I'm going to clean all the sway bar brackets and washes up on the wire brush. The sway bar is getting cleaned up and getting sprayed red. 
once i have the front finished, the back will be pulled apart, and all the bushes replaced up back. plus a set of lowering blocks. 
when i finish the suspension, the car will be taken down to Geelong to get the rusted floor replaced. basically once the floor is done, its a matter of rewiring it, putting the interior back in, doing up all the tail lights etc etc, the car will be just about done. 
As for the engine, i need to replace the front and rear mains, do the timing gear up, plus a few other bits and pieces. I am pretty keen on keeping it with the original 1300 engine, but a lot of people have told me that i should put at lead a 1600 in, just for the extra oomph. i would also love to go manual, but a new engine and a manual conversion maybe out of my budget. I have a 32/36 carb ready to go on the engine, plus some extractors. is it worth going up to a bigger engine if I'm driving it as a daily? or should i keep it an original?

just a couple questions....
 
1, why the single piece tail shaft? 
 
2, the radiator, is it just larger? The one in the car looks nearly new, i know the coolant inside it brand new, plus a new thermostat and housing on the engine. Is there a way to tell the difference between radiators? 
 
3, how do u go about putting the hole through the firewall for the clutch cable? 
 
Ive already been sourcing a lot of stuff through Mike, he is very good. Im heading back there this week hopefully to get my tie rod ends, so might need to talk to him then. 

Your MK1 should already have the tube for clutch cable (mine did). Have a look at the base of your booster bracket, there should be a short tube with a rubber bung in it. 
 
MY BAD 1.6 radiator  does not  mount up the same.
 
The 1.6 manual gearbox is a different length and has a bigger mainshaft than the BW35 auto. So you need the 1.6 tailshaft. Auto and manual bellhousings are not the same.
 

  
 

Panko Thinking about it, i might already have the bigger/manual radiator

 
 I doubt it. The MK1 radiators are the same regardless of auto/manual. The MK2 is where it changes with heater lines for the C3 auto, none for the manual.
It's all explained in the ford, gregory's, haynes manuals etc. Do you have any manuals to reference? Cheap as chips on ebay, very much a necessity.

oh yep cool. grab a mk2 one aswell to cross reference. H

looking good mate. is that a standard ratio rack? i put a quick rack in all my escorts. i prefer the feel. in my opinion its one of the best things you can do to a esky (for the price)

Nice work Panko. It's a tidy looking sedan

thanks mate. TBH its better that i thought it was when i bought it (in some ways) and worse than i thought in other ways lol. 
 
i was looking more into getting bits for the manual conversion, and it definitely doesn't have the clutch cable hole in the firewall :( so when i take it to my mate to put the new floor in, i might see if he can also modify the fire wall for the clutch cable. 
i also found in the boot, there are some nasty gaps happening in the spare wheel well on the left hand side where the original sealant (i guess thats what you could call it) has rotted away and needs to be re-seem-sealed. again, i might see if my mate doing the floor can going over the car and seem-seal it anywhere he can find needs doing. 

That's looking very cool. I really like those 405 wheels too. Are they 14", and how wide? The offset looks perfect.

If the nuts are only grabbing by a few turns, you will probably be able to get longer wheel studs so they grab properly and then get nuts to suit.

thanks guys for that. 
come to think of it, cos the studs are pretty short, will i need to put longer studs in for any alloys i might fit? 

cool thats what i was hoping. cheers dude. 

Crazy day, but some more success!
well today was the day Cal and I had decided to move the escort to its new home, Cal's house. 

The day started with the car being booked in for a wheel alignment. Cal managed to get the indicators going, FINALLY! I take it to the place to get the wheel alignment done, but they were not able to do the alignment due to the rear wheels sitting too far in from the guards, and the guards sitting such a long way down over the rear tyres. SO i called 3 or 4 other places to ask if they could do it, but all of them said no, due to being booked up from there i decided to take the car back to Gareth's, where Cal and I measured the alignment ourselves. TO our (well mine anyway) disbelief, it was not too bad. approximately 14-15mm toe out. i was expecting a heck of a lot more than that. the only downer is the steering wheel being a quarter of a turn out 

once we loaded all the parts into Cal's Fairlane, we hit the road for his place, which was approximately 20km away. I (apparently) had half a tank of fuel in the tank leaving Gareth's house. well that was evidently wrong as we discovered about 4-5 km from Cal's place when the car ran out of fuel on me in busy traffic this was the least of my issues, because i could simply get a jerry can and fill it up that way. my big problem was the fact i didn't have a key to get into the fuel cap 
after going to Cal's workshop and grabbing some fuel, we returned with an XG dipstick, pliers, and 3 different screwdrivers, and so we set into breaking into the fuel cap. eventually the lock barrel fell out so we just access it with a screw driver...SUCCESS! put fuel in it, got the nearest BP and filled the tank all the way up, and off to Cal's place i went. 

Its in a good place now, its under a carport, well protected from the worst of the weather. was so nice to take it for a decent drive, although slow was nice to drive. can't wait to get it all finished and registered now, just wish i had a better income so i could hurry up the process :/
 

the little workshop we have setup at Cal's house. Usually there is also a Blue Morris 850 Mini in there in front of the white Mini

Springs in primer after being wire wheeled for about an hour or so. 

freshly painted

all the rear suspension components freshly painted. 

SO this is where i left you, with the back end of the car in pieces being painted. this is it back together :) 

 
This is how she looks now. got some tyres, painted the rims, the grille. removed the front and rear bars. Front bar is going to stay off, the rear is yet to be painted and refitted. 
 




I also got my hands on a set of genuine Hella Replacement H4 headlights, back from the early 80s. they were the last set available from the specialist that were still brand new in their box. the glass just needs to cleaned, they are a little frosty from sitting in the cardboard box for years and years. 
 
I had a free run of the garage a couple months ago, so i brought the car home for 10 days, and completely finished the mechanical side of the car. (so i thought........the plot thickens) i replaced all the brake lines, fixed the hand brake and got it working, serviced the gearbox, new fuel hose, fuel tank back in the car, and got it driving nicely. 
 

 
but then this..... :( 
 

 
that is transmission oil. yes it dropped basically all its trans oil. after i serviced the gearbox, and put a new main rear seal, and a sump gasket and filter, its decided to piss oil out the front. its dropping it from im guessing the front main. and this is where im up to.
 
the latest is, I have decided to rip both the motor and gearbox out, run a seal and gasket kit though the motor, and convert the car to 4 spd manual while the motor is out. I am still confident i will have the car ready for rego by xmas. (go ahead and laugh at me now) I still have a rusty floor pan to repair, and then the entire interior to rebuild, plus some electrical work. i.e., heater box, wiper motor, front indicators. 
 
WISH ME LUCK!

Pursuities look great Panko :) What size tyres did you fit to them?
 
With your gearbox, have you thought about a T9? You have an auto tunnel so will be just as easy to fit as a 4 speed, and rev a lot lower on the highway with your 4.125 diff

My saab rims are fine up front with 195/45/15
Yeah T9's are way overpriced here. They're cheap as chups in NZ if you know any kiwis that could get you one :D
I think those axles only came with 2 ratios, auto and manual. You must have a manual diff (3.9) in an auto shell
 

Panko It hit by only a few mm

Which is why dropping to 45 profile tyre will clear it. I got my tyres for $60 each albeit Wanli's. Better than modifying the guards imo

Ok ill try get some 45 profile tyres. Lucky you got em cheap. The reason i was told they can be pricey was because it was tyrepower that told me, that these days a lot of modern small cars these days run bigger than 15" rims, and even if they are running 15s, they are usually heavier than a 45 tyre would be rated to. Which i believe.

Ok, cool, ill try make it to SFS. If i dont get it to SFS, ill try get it to AFD. If i get it to AFD ill have 2 cars on display. My XF Ghia wagon and the esky

Hey mate,
 
yeah id spoken to a couple of panel shops, that do custom/oldschool stuff, and they suggested either folding it or cutting it. ill try the tyres first, before i do anything else.