I'll have another crack at this as somehow I managed to lose my last post.

Had a mixed day yesterday.

After a long week of preping the bottom end, cleaning out ring lands and oil passages, I was all set to assemble things.

First thing was to gap the rings. F@#K !!!! Something was clearly wrong. Huuuuuuge gap. Check the box and it was the wrong size...

Checked the order/invoice and yep. I must have got it wrong??? Not quite sure how, was sure I ordered the right part, oh well. It meant the parts were covered up again and a new, double checked order was put in for the right size.....

Anyway, I had the morning spare so went to work on something that had been bugging me for a long time.

The handle on the rear hatch had never worked. I finally got a key to work however then the handle still wouldn't turn. Stuck shut. After lots of swearing I finally got it apart and found the problem. The cam from the lock barrel had broken off, most likely from someone trying to force the lock.

I had hoped the door lock might have had suitable parts to canabalse however unfortunately they are different.

Lots of googling later, (I now feel like a locksmith) and it appears that an old ford E83w may share the same internals.

Anglia and escort are not a match.

My other options (if I can't source a new lock barrel) include either removing the cam part so I can reassemble and the install and handle and it will work (but won't lock), or retro fit another 'T' handle from another make or model.




To be continued......

Yep that's called agricultural casting!
I haven't ported a Kent in ages so the only thing I remember is to not touch the bottom of the port, in effect your creating an eccentric tube raising upwards slightly, depends on how far you want to go with it, most of all, have fun..

I've never bothered with the escorts as unfortunately I don't do as many klms as I'd like.

Deano, not a real problem on well used heads as the seats have been pounded into hardness to a point. On a rebuilt machined head the only drama you'll get is to adjust the tappets like twice a year instead of once. Having a pinto running on unleaded with 'soft' seats never caused a problem so I'm saying all the propaganda and hype back in the day (1987-92) was rubbish .!

Must admit, porting a cast iron head is tedious, noisy and dirty. My last pinto head i ported I thought to weigh the excess swarf which came to about a kilo, that's the stuff I could reach as a whole load went behind the bench !

You've prolly doubled it's bhp rating just by tidying the ports up😎.
Gimme an alloy head any day, so much easier.

Nice work there, good radius funneling inwards...
Although you might want to get the burrs back out again and rough up those intake ports as polished ports cause fuel drop out and poor driving apparently.
Race car and drags is different story as they are at high revs , no time for fuel drop.. exhaust ports is anything goes..

Hope the rings are correct this time, almost time for engine build therapy lol

Been a busy week and struggled to find time to make it out to the shed. Still I'm 95% there.

Started up first go and ran for a bit with a quick spray of brake cleaner so that's encouraging. 👌 Certainly more than incould ever get from it before I pulled it from the car.

I'll hopefully get it back in the wagon and finished off in the next few days.

Fingers crossed, I'll have it running by mid next week.

Shaun.

Excuse the chaos in the shed. It's well and truly due for a tidy up now!

I'm sure you can use a generic trailer M/C for the car, I did that for an Anglia once, $27 at the local trailer heist shop

It's always something with old cars.

Was hoping to have it running however I found the carb was stuffed. Bought another only to find when it arrived the seller had sent me a mk2 escort one and not a mk2 corty. The linkage is different, different id size and then standard air cleaner won't fit. So.. have try number 3 hopefully in the mail.

At least the engine bay is looking more complete.

Next will be tank flush, getting the brakes finished off, clutch slave and a maiden voyage.

Shaun