Saturday 8th August - I finally drive the Lotus!

 Todays main task was to finally drive the Lotus Cortina out of the garage and hopefully round the block a few times. I still had a few things to do on the Green Cortina first though and being my only show car at the moment, this has to take priority.  I had carried out a compression test on the car just to see if I had a head gasket problem. The engine had been rebuilt a couple of years ago and to be honest I can't remember re-torquing the cylinder head. 
So I had carried out a compression test and re-torqued the head during the week, so this morning I just had re-fit the rocker cover and air filter and then carry out another compression test. The results of the two tests can be seen below. There's not a great deal of difference, but they are at least within 10% of each other now. Plus it rules out any head gasket issues. 

My next job was to re-fit the rear bumper again. I wasn't completely happy with the finish when it was hydrochromed, so the guy who did it offered to do it again free of charge. It looked much better this time as you can see.

Next on the list was to make a thicker throttle bracket for the Lotus Cortina as the previous one I'd made was a little bit slack. I used thicker metal this time and although it still flexes a bit, it's better than it was. After prepping the car I was ready to start it and it fired up no problem. I spotted an initial water leak, but this was only a loose jubilee clip. With this tightened the dripping stopped. 
I then drove it round the crescent a couple of times. It drove great and sounds great too. However, lifting the bonnet revealed that the repairs my mate Gavin had done to the pin holed radiator hadn't taken and it was spraying out water and it was also  leaking engine oil from somewhere. How disappointing. 😔

I quickly got the picture I had been waiting to get ever since I bought the car, (see below) and then put the car back in the garage. 

Further investigation revealed that the oil leak could be a crankshaft seal, and after speaking to my engine my engine builder, we've decided to sort the rad out first, then the car will be going to his workshop for investigation and repair. 

I was very disappointed, but the at least the test drive revealed that the brakes, clutch etc are all fine and it's only these bits that need doing. (it will need a rolling road session though to set the twin 40's up properly. 
The main thing is though, I have now driven my dream car, the Mk1 Lotus Cortina. And I loved it! I will persevere and I will make this car this great again. Watch this space! 😊

 

Sunday August 2nd - Cortina Mk1 OC National Day-Stratford Racecourse.

I was hoping to be able to take the Green Cortina to this event, but with Thurston Engineering letting me down, I ended up taking my every day car, my Peugeot 308 estate. Karen and I decided to repeat last years plan of booking somewhere to stay for two nights and travelling up to Stratford Upon Avon on the Friday night. So, Karen collected me from work Friday afternoon from Hockley at 3.30pm and we drove straight to a farmhouse B&B that we had booked, arriving at 6.40pm. 
Saturday was Karen's day, so we just mooched around the town looking in shops and just chilling out with an ice cream in the park. It's a beautiful place with plenty of lovely old buildings to admire and it made a nice change not to be working on cars for a change. 

Sunday was bright and sunny and we arrived at the show location around 09.30am. Already there were some beautiful cars there with more arriving through the morning. As well the Cortina Mk1 Owners Club having their national day there, so did the Lotus Cortina Owners Club, (Of which I am also a member) the Mk2 Cortina Owners Club and also the Ford Anglia 105E Owners Club. So there was plenty of cars there to look at. 

There was also a lot of auto jumble stands there, although I never bought anything. There was only one thing I was looking for and that was a bonnet catch for my Lotus, but I never managed to find one. Once we'd finished looking round the auto jumble we moved onto looking at the cars and there were some really lovely cars in attendance. My favourite car was there as usual and as usual I couldn't resist getting (another) photo of it. (See below) 

There was a also a couple of Mk1 saloons for sale, but despite being tempted due to my troublesome pair, I managed to resist and keep my hand in my pocket. The yellow car below was well priced at £6K and the White car priced at £9125. Both pretty good prices, but I've got enough to do at present. 

A car that would have tempted me if it were sale was a Mk1 Cortina GT estate. A very rare car in itself, but also in one of my favourite colours of Goodwood Green (Same as my four door) with a Sherwood Green flash. (The Lotus Cortina Green) I must admit, I really like the Sherwood Green flash and I'm now thinking about having one painted onto my four door. 

I couldn't leave without looking at the Lotus Cortina's and there were some gorgeous examples present. Looking at these just made me want to get my one on the road. These really are a special car in my eyes and have been my dream car since I was a kid. I've been a passenger in one, but I've never even driven one, so I need to change that soon. 

With early afternoon approaching, we decided to make a move homewards. We had well over 100 miles to cover and it was starting to get very hot as well. We'd had a lovely chilled out weekend and will be looking to do it again next year. Hopefully in a Cortina! 

  

Monday 27th July - The Lotus Cortina awakens!

 I had my engine builder coming round tonight to assist in the re-generation of the Lotus Cortina. I had carried out a few jobs in readiness of his arrival: Put petrol in, fully charged the battery and made sure there was a spark at the distributor etc. 

I had also filled the engine with 20/50 Valveoline VR1 engine oil and so the first job was to pump the oil round the engine. We did this with the spark plugs out and soon had enough pressure to fire the engine. 

It seemed to not want to go at first, but then we spotted that the ignition wire had fallen off of the coil. With this replaced the old girl fired into life. 

What a moment! This car had been sitting in a garage with the engine removed since 1977, so this was the first time it had been running for

 49 years! Amazing! 

As you can imagine I was very pleased. I've revived cars that have been standing for 23 years and 26 years before, but 49 years is definitely a fantastic achievement! 

Unfortunately, we found that the radiator was leaking slightly, so that's something else that will have to be looked at. Still a brilliant night though and I'm getting closer to driving my dream car! 😊

Friday 24th July. A free day courtesy of Thurston engineering!

 Today was the day that I was supposed be taking the Green Cortina over to Thurston engineering for a rolling road session. 
They sent me a long list of things to check before bringing the car over and I just happened to ring them on the Wednesday to query one of them. (It was to do with suppressors in spark plugs) 
Whilst on the phone to them, they then decided that they wouldn't be able to do my rolling road session due to 'staff shortages' and 'their equipment suddenly developing a fault'. What a load of old bollocks!

I pointed out to them that their check list that they sent me also so stated that I would still have to pay an hours labour if I should cancel the session inside a week. (£140 plus vat)
So I reminded them that I had booked a day off work out of my holiday allowance for today, so would they be able to reimburse me a days wages? What do you think their answer was? Yes, you are right. So, word of warning, if you need a rolling road session carried out, be very wary of THURSTON ENGINEERING of ONGAR. They are totally unreliable!

There is a guy who works in a garage near where I work who owns a very quick, fuel injected, Mk2 Lotus Cortina. So I went to see him to see if he knew anyone that could help. He didn't, but he did offer me the use of his gas analyser so I could see what my emissions were reading. 
So we got the car into his workshop and placed the probe in the exhaust. No matter what we did, we couldn't get the emissions down. I told him that I had been trying bigger jets in an attempt to reduce my 'popping' on the over run and he said that's probably why the emissions wont come down. He recommended going back to standard jets to start with and just adjusting the mixture. 
So, that's what I'm going to try. It's a standard engine with a standard camshaft and standard carburettor, so it shouldn't need oversize jets in it. It's just a shame that Redline tuning and Thurston engineering cant honour their bookings otherwise this would have been sorted by now. Very frustrating! 

Wednesday 22nd July - Hydrochromed bumpers collected.

 A short diversion today saw me collecting the rear bumper from the Green Cortina and the quarter bumpers from the Lotus Cortina. 
Normal chroming has become ridiculously expensive and the last quote I had to do these was £800! (I remember when I used to buy complete and running cars for that!)

I was put in touch with someone last year that did 'Hydrochroming' so I thought I'd give him a try. He did do a rear bumper for me before, but it turned yellow for some reason. To be fair though, he took it back and worked on it again and this time it came out well. 

Once home, I wasted no time in fitting them (Even though it was baking hot) and they really looked the part. There's nothing really wrong with the bumper on the Green Cortina to be honest, but it's an estate one. These have a small cut out in them so that you don't graze your knuckles on them when you are opening the tail gate. Saloon bumpers seem to be few and far between now, so it was good to finally get the right bumper on the car. 😊

Saturday 18th July. More electrical work!

 Dave Maton was able to come up again today and the plan was to investigate the wiring issues on the Lotus Cortina. Over the past few weeks I had replaced the dynamo and the voltage control box. (Another £150 spent!)
Dave spent a lot of time delving into the main loom and trying to find out why the ignition light wouldn't illuminate. Eventually, he had some success and managed to get it working.
With all the burnt wiring cut out and replaced, we were satisfied that nothing else would short out and that everything was working and so we set about refitting the dashboard and interior.
We even managed to finally fit the glove box that had been laying in the spares tray since I'd bought the car. 
All in all, a successful day. 😊

Saturday 27th June. A good start but a bad ending!

 Dave Maton came up again today to help get the wiring finished. I had started another job on the Friday night, but didn't get it finished as I was waiting for the paint to dry, so while I was waiting for Dave to arrive, I managed to get in finished. 
The job in question was the spare wheel bracket. For some reason my car had a standard one fitted rather than the Lotus Cortina/Corsair item. The standard one is 6 inches in length, but the Lotus/Corsair one is 7 1/4 inches. (See below)

Because of the wider wheel rims on the Lotus, the standard spare wheel bracket can't reach the centre hole properly and causes the wheel to lean inwards towards the centre of the boot. (See below)

So, I'd managed to find the correct bracket on ebay and re-painted it in the desired colour. With this fitted the spare wheel now sits where it's supposed to and provides a bit more space in the boot. 

By the time I had done this Dave had arrived and we started on the laborious task of cutting out all of the holes on the new binnacle. Although brand new, these are just a fibre glass moulding and you have to cut the required holes out yourself. The old one in the car had turned very very brittle and had cracked in the middle. (Plus I stuck my thumb through the end of it one night by accident) 

This binnacle has to house six gauges in total. Two have a diameter of 98mm (Speedo and rev counter) and four at 52mm. (Oil, water, amps & fuel) Plus it needs holes for ignition switch, headlight switch, wiper switch etc. Needless to say, it took a while to get this done, but it did look good when finished! 

With this done, we put the rest of the interior in and I was able to actually sit in the car for the first time since last August when I bought it! We probably jumped the gun here though as we hadn't tested the electrics at this stage. The previous week we had found three melted wires coming off of the ignition switch, so we replaced the wires with new  and couldn't see any issues. Unfortunately, there obviously was an issue, because the same three wires melted again this week ! 
Feeling absolutely deflated, we shut the garage door and called it a day. We will persevere again next weekend and get it sorted.