When you first got the car in your wildest dreams did you ever think that one day, you'd be putting exotic goodies from a company like GRP4 in it?
I still pinch myself at the thought of it and just laugh the cost off 🤣

The joys of not having kids I suppose, I can waste money on cars instead! 

Oh i forgot to put it in the last post, my car is a December 79 build so the bloke counting definitely took some time off!

Yeah all these goodies are becoming the normal to build a Escort these days.
Those roller top mounts are possibly the best for a decent road car and track. They've been my choice for well over 30yrs, tho I've always used orig Cortina mk2 roller tops bought from my wrecker scrounging days. I'm
now down to 1pr spare!

Inserts, yes Gaz ok cool. Is anything stopping you getting inserts for a Celica (also Gaz) if you've not bought escort ones yet, they'll be about 40mm shorter tho you'll need to cut a section of the tube out to work. It'll give about 2in more drop travel which is handy for a lowered car.
UK RS struts are actually Capri mk1 and are slightly shorter so a couple of packing washers will be needed to bring them up enough to be tightened ..

Yeah the plan has been to run with Capri / UK RS style strut inserts and space them, I had no idea about the Cortina MK2 came with rollers though, wonder what the discussion was in the engineering department to not carry them across to the later Escorts?

Has anyone used these ones in the past - how much lighter does it make the steering? They advertise as a lighter steering but since its been years since I drove the car I probably wont know the difference. 

They do lighten up the steering feel since you not fighting the rubber being contorted by twisting as you turn. Put it this way, if you're installing a 2.4 Qrack it'll feel like a driving with a standard escort rack , it's not much improvement but it all helps, plus when your out power sliding the steering will be more precise, not quite power steering but close !

Bit more garage time today, picked up some lower arms ahead of fitting the front struts so I could get the sway bar and everything fitted up and ran into a snag.


 
The arms went in a treat but there is NO way the wide sway bar mount and bushes will go on, first the bushes are for a smaller diameter sway bar (mines 22mm) and second it seems like the bracket is WAY to close to the edge of the bar. Not sure if that's normal but the sway bar will definitely bind on the bracket when cornering, there just isn't enough clearance on the inner radius.
 
 

My solution is to dump the wide bracket, I need to order new bushes anyway because the ones in the kit are useless. So I've ordered standard width 22mm white line bushes and I'll clean up and paint the standard sway bar bush brackets and run the standard width bush on the wide bracket body mount. This means I'll still get the castor from the mount without the headaches of those brackets and bushes.

Also brains trust, should there be a metal bush for the end of the sway bar that goes between the washers and through the rubber bush on the control arm? Can't remember if there should be one there and the workshop manual doesn't specify. Pic for reference.

Ok... I think I have discovered the root cause of all the issues here. 
 
This double wide kit I bought from a small ford shop here in Aus (not Yesterford someone else) is NOT suitable for a standard RS / MK2 sway bar. You need a twin-cam sway bar to make it work - hence why the bushes wouldn't fit. 

Also when I was fitting it I was REALLY skeptical about the positioning of the lower control arms, they looked way to far back. So much so that I thought I might have had them the wrong way round, so I checked the part number and verified that they were on the right side. 

So down the rabbit hole I went and I found the original supplier of those mounts, which explicitly state they're for a twin-cam sway bar.... So now I have a choice, scrap the mounts because unless I get a twin-cam sway bar they're useless and go back to the standard mounts - or chase down a twin-cam sway bar... I think I'll just go the path of least resistance here and go with the original mounts.

Yep, as I suspected - went out to the garage and did the old eyeball test. Completely out of whack.


 

 
No wonder I couldn't get anything to bloody fit properly!

Brains trust answer option;

I did know the TC swaybar is more square at the front and it's shorter if you stand them threads down, cross bar up, by about 1 in. You could simply (?) cut the plates and relocate to be more forward, at least half inch more than factory position. And also move the plate inside one hole width, that'll bring the outer part of the bush to where factory has but the double width is inside (more to radiator).

Brains number 2,
there is meant to be a crush tube in the outer bush , it might be still attached to the swaybar rusted in place. Worst option is make them up from a piece of table leg tube or something like that. I can get the dimensions tomorrow if needed or someone will chime in with size. If you make them a couple mm shorter, it'll tighten up the location, like having nolathene bushes installed without the hardness

Option of also getting a swaybar made to order. Especially as you probably don't want to start hacking into the car now its painted so nicely.
We have Selby here in Nowra and they have made a couple for me.
And yes they have a bush on the ends on the threaded ends of the bars.