It's been a long time since I posted anything about my own cars, and as I stated in my Mk1 project topic, my KF2 TX3 Laser has been seeing more action than either of my Escorts of late.

I bought it June 2007 to take my X Pack Mk2 off daily duties, after it almost became an X Pack sandwich. The price was right, it had 12 months reg and had been in the same family since it was 11,000kms old. In spite of having a lot of kms on it (317,000), it appeared to be in good shape and a very honest car.

These pics are from it's listing on eBay. It didn't sell after two attempts, and I later saw it in the Trading Post at a reduced price and with the 12 months reg.



Shame about the HUGE dent in the rear quarter!






And the engine bay was a little grubby.







The TX3's first club outing was RSOCVic's DECA Drive Day in August 2007. It was stock as a rock...




...including the suspension!




That'll do for now. I'll post some more later.

Has the engine been rebuilt at some stage ? I am curious as to how long one of these engines is supposed to last under normal driving conditions.'

Looks like a bit of cheap fun, what mods have you done to it and what does the future hold for it ?

The car I wanted for a while was the turbo 4wd version of these ended up just having hatches

Hi Damion,

It's still on the original engine and gearbox! As far as I know the head has never been off and it recently ticked over 325,000km.

After DECA I thought I would finally take the plunge and start doing sprints. I had wanted to for years but always thought my car(s) weren't up to the task.

So I set my sights on the Melbourne Cup Day Sprint at Sandown in November, run by Ford Four Car Club. But before I did anything, the standard springs had to go and were replaced with a set of off the shelf Kings (thanks Wozzah!).



I also had a 2inch cat-back exhaust fitted, bought a basic bucket seat and four point harness, fitted some bonnet pins, and picked up a set of second hand 16x7.5 inch DTM Fin rims with Falken Ziex tyres.

The seat of course required custom rails, so I made these up to solid mount it:







Four bolts and it's out. I use the standard seat for daily use.


Some pics from Sandown:









The springs made a huge difference, but the Falkens were horrendous! [xx(]

Still not up to 'current spec', but I won't bombard you with it all in one go. More updates to come (if anyone is actually reading this! )

Sounds like alot of fun and less risk to the Escorts. No rust either making anything easier to do. Go the new cars!
Looking good simon. Show us more!

JP

Is that one of Just Japs seats? Have been looking at getting one of these for my car but don't know anyone that has one, what are they like?

Nothing wrong with a newer car to take the strain off of an escort

Alastair

There is nothing wrong with these old TX3's. My brother-in-law had one. Was a beaut little thing, nice and torquey (for a 1.8) and good fun handling. Was a shame it got golf balled in one of Sydneys hailstorms and written off a couple of years back. His had over 300000 km on it too. They must build those engines good. Our KJ2 Laser is still going strong too (touch wood!) after 320,000 km, still on the original engine, box and clutch too. Great cars I reckon.

Thanks for the replies. Most people cringe when they hear the name Laser, but I don't care!

Stairsy, I bought the seat from eBay. Highest bid was $51, and shipping was $72! Still a cheap seat in any case. I don't have any complaints about the build quality, but the back height is possibly a little low. Still, for the odd sprint it's fine for me. When I win Lotto I'll throw a Sparco in.

By the end of 2007, the monsterous dent in the rear quarter was starting to annoy me, and there was a little rust in the lower section of the front left guard. With Small Ford Sunday fast approaching, there was no better time to look into getting them sorted out.

I sourced a good second hand guard, had a chat to the panel shop across the road from work, and for $500 they repaired the rear quarter, fitted the new guard, resprayed the entire left hand side of the car, went over the whole car with a touch up brush, and resprayed my front wipers black! Bargain.


So it was looking pretty good for SFS, but my luck ran out the night before when I arrived home with a side wall puncture in one of my 16s. Bugger. Ahh well, they were crap tyres anyway.

So Niscort, who was over from Tassie to attend SFS, drove the TX3 on stockies to SFS for me (I drove the X Pack), and kindly swapped the 16s back over for display purposes.





Yes the air inlet in the front bar looks d!ck!e, but function took precedence over form at the time. It is currently being modified and integrated into the bar a little better. I'll post pics once it's done.

Thanks again for all the feed back!

Nice lil fun machine there Simon. I've always had time for those lasers, as the BP motors were a tidy little unit, and the body is darn close to a later model escort I reckon.

Wow, you have done a great job of cleaning it up. Looks great.