1980 MK 2 Escort - 4 Door

Hi everyone, been lurking around this forum for quite a while and as I got my first Escort last year thought it was time to say hello and show it off. I have been around small Fords all my life, Dad owns the orange MK1 Escort turbo that some of you might know.
 
Anyway here's mine it's a 4door MK2 Escort with a 2.0L Pinto engine. The compliance plates confirm the car is a genuine 2.0L Monza Red with Red interior build. From the codes it should be an auto but has already been converted to a 4 speed, which suits what we want to do with it. Overall the car was in good condition with just a little rust in a couple of spots in the floor. The heater bubble has already been repaired, but there was some front end damage when I got it and the motor had a terrible knock. It also blew smoke on start up so the valve stems seals were shot.
Here's how it looked when I first got it.

 

 

 
More progress piccies a little later
 
 

So shortly after getting the car home I began working on the front end damage. The engine had to come out to get a freshen up and the problems it had fixed.
Getting ready to lift the engine out, you can see the front end damage in these photos.
 


 
With the slam panel off, the front panel was removed by a combination of cutting the spot welds out and cutting with a grinder. The centre support for the slam panel had to be removed and as there was a poor attempt at fixing it. That was removed then there was just a little bit of tidying up to do before fitting the new panels.



 
 
 

Great work and I'm about to undertake the same repair as my RS2000 front valance is pretty beat up. Keep the pics coming!

hey mate, 
 
nice job with the panel, rest of the car looks really straight.
 
keep the pics coming

With all the welding done it was time to paint. There was a little bit of distortion even with only plug welding the holes where the original spot welds were. A seem sealer was applied behind all the  panels. The front was rubbed back and a small amount of filler used prior to primering.



 
For the paint we used was an off the shelf acrylic in Monza Red. The colour match was suprisingly good and the highlights were done in an acrylic black also.


 
The original grille was damaged so I got another off ebay and sanded it back before spraying it with the same black. The car sat like this for a number of weeks so the paint would be cured properly before buffing. The grille and bumpers went on so the car looks almost complete again. 
 

 
Now it's on to the engine!!!

thats really neat work mate!

The engine has actually been back in the car for a few months now.
We opened it up for an inspection, as suspected the valve stem seals were knackered so they have been replaced. The cam is showing some signs of wear (which will be sorted when we change to a lumpier cam later on) we did put in some new cam bearings. New water pump, fuel pump, timing belt, oil seals and gaskets all fitted.
The before photo.


The after photo


 
At this stage the engine is basically stock although it does now have a set of extractors and we ditched all the polution gear except for the carbin canistor. The carby is a 32/36 DGV as the original auto choke version was a bit suspect. It was on the Dyno recently and made a healthy 85bhp at the wheels.
 
 

A bit of biggish update with what's been happening to the car over the last few months. We actually drove the car down from Sydney for the SFS show at the beginning of the year. The car performed okay but we blew an exhaust gasket out so it gave me an excuse to install a set of extractors.

A nice set of Hurricane headers, ceramic coated and with a mandrel bent exhaust system fixed that problem.


The handling wasn't the best either, so we completely stripped the front end to install new shocks, springs, strut tops, etc. We discovered this cross-member. I have never seen a camber bolt kit set up on an Escort before. After  asking around we found that it was an aftermarket Kmac kit which had been installed at some stage.


Unfortunately the lower control arm bushes were so worn the camber bolts were actually bent so they had to be cut out. It also looked like the camber bolts are slightly smaller in diameter than the standard bolts so in case there was too much play we decided to make our own camber bolts.

I made several sets with the bolt hole in a different position so we can adjust the camber as needed.
 
Kmac strut tops were also installed. Along with stiffer springs, Gaz adjustable struts, a new steering rack and tie rod ends all supplied by SMCKA.


Whiteline make a nice heavy duty front sway bar and a strut tower brace so these have been intalled, almost! The strut brace won't clear the down draught carby so we will have to install that when the twin webbers go on.


Another problem we discovered was with the gearbox mount. As the car was originally an automatic, whoever did the manual conversion decided to just cut the original mount in half and just bolt it in. It was pretty dodgy so I had to remake it and weld some stronger bracing in.

 
The electrics had been messed with also. It looked like there was a large sound system installed as there were speaker cables and amp cables running everywhere. This all got redone and tidied up.

 
As the car is being converted into a weekend warrior I added in an isolator switch.

 
The interior has been stripped and a roll cage installed.




A set of race seats have gone in.


And of course some harnesses.

 
The cage and interior will get a lick of paint in the next couple of weeks, but for now the car is ready to hit Marulan  with the Small Ford Car Club at their track day.