Saturday 5th September. A startling discovery!

 My good friends Graham and Dave came up today to see if we could finally fix my Green Cortina. I still cant seem to cure the popping that I'm getting on the over run. 
Graham is a proper qualified mechanic and has spent a good deal of his life working on cars, so I was grateful to have a bit of expert knowledge available. (No offence to Dave, but Dave's like me: self taught!)

The first thing we did was to blank off the remote brake servo as this takes its air feed from the same pipe as the breather box from the engine. This made no difference. 
Then we removed the pipe from the breather to the inlet manifold and just left the breather pipe floating free. This did exactly what I said it would do and the test drive resulted in blowing oil out of the dipstick tube. (I'd tried this before and seen the result)
It states in the workshop manual that the pipe from the breather box needs to go to the inlet manifold and the inlet manifold will the suck the gasses from the breather box and distribute them evenly back into the cylinders to be then expelled via the exhaust ports. 
While investigating this Graham noticed that the outlet in the centre of the inlet manifold had been welded closed. (See below)

With this being welded up, somebody had then drilled and tapped another hole in the inlet manifold and then added another fitting in the top of the inlet manifold. (See below)

The issue with this is that the hole had been drilled between inlet ports three and four, so therefore the gases aren't entering the inlet manifold centrally and so cannot be transferred equally into the four inlet ports.

This would also explain why, when I've taken my spark plugs out after a long run to see what colour they are, the front two have always been a sooty black and the back two have always been a lean white!
Because the front two are getting hardly any air, and the back two are getting too much. 

Now, whether this will be the cause of the popping on the over run, I don't know, but it certainly isn't right and needs addressing. So, our work finished there and then and will have to resume once I've bought another inlet manifold that hasn't been bodged or butchered. (Four years I've had this car now and I'm still finding bodges on it!) 

It was still a good day though as I hadn't seen Graham for a good few years now, so it was good to have a catch up. 😊

Sunday 23rd August. Period Steering wheel!

 Whilst the suspension legs and front springs are away being refurbished, I've been very limited as to what I can do with the Lotus. 

So, I decided to try a different steering wheel on the Green car. The Lotus Cortina was missing its original steering wheel when I bought it, but there was a period after market steering wheel in its place. I already have a proper Lotus steering wheel to fit onto the Lotus Cortina, so I thought I'd try the after market wheel on the Green car. Sometimes, these aren't interchangeable due to being different models, I.e Pre-aeroflow and Aeroflow. (The steering columns are different)

The first fitting revealed that the bottom of the steering wheel boss was making contact with the column shroud. However, after adjusting the shroud, I found that the after market steering wheel fitted perfectly. 

It certainly looks better than the 1980's Mountey steering wheel that was on there and I'm very happy with the result. Success! 😊

Sunday 16th August - Battlesbridge Breakfast Meet.

 After yesterdays busy exploits, today was a time to chill, so we headed down to Battlesbridge. The weather had cooled quite a bit, so it wasn't as uncomfortable as it had been recently. (I don't deal with the heat very well)
Karen and I arrived there fairly early (as usual) and headed straight to the gazebo for some coffee. Before long we were joined by my Triumph mates Peter Silk and Gavin. 
We sat talking and drinking coffee for some time, before having a wander around the cars. My favourite car was one I hadn't seen there before and was absolutely beautiful. It was a Mk2 Consul estate. There's not many of these about now, mainly because there wasn't many of then built in the first place. Ford Motor Company wasn't making their own estates when the Mk2 Consul was being produced and the conversion to estate car was given to Abbots of Farnham. 

I even managed to find a picture that was taken inside the Abbots workshop which shows the conversion process taking place. 😊

Another estate that caught my eye was a Ford Anglia estate. Quite unusual these and one of a very few estate cars that had only two doors. The only other 2 door estates I can think of from back then is the Ford Escort and the Vauxhall Viva. 

Time was getting on and we had to make a move as I had to call in to my friend Keith's to collect some parts for my LC. I had been a good morning though and it was nice to just sit around chatting to friends. We need to get some more of these meets in, because before you know it, Autumn will be closing in and another show season will have passed. 😢

Saturday 15th August - Getting legless!

After my very short couple of drives around the crescent in the LC, I had a feeling that all was not well suspension wise. I took measurements once the car was back on level ground in the garage and found a centimeter difference between the nearside and offside springs at the back of the car, and a 2.5 centimetre difference at the front. 
The 1 centimetre difference at the rear is nothing to worry about really and can easily be ignored, but only if the front is level. 2.5 centimetres doesn't sound a lot, but its amazing how much it can affect the steering and handling. 
So, todays task was remove both front struts and strip them down in readiness to take down to Gaz Shocks in Basildon. Everything came undone easy enough as it had only recently been fitted up!
I must admit to kicking myself, because I should really have got these done while they were off the car for eight months, but hey ho!
By lunchtime I had both of them removed and stripped down and found that one of the inserts was virtually seized. I also found that one of the springs measured 33cm while the other measured 31cm. 
That will be why the car wasn't sitting level then! All I need now is to get them to Gaz so they can totally refurbish them. 

Wednesday 12th August - A vast improvement!

 Saturday morning I had spent a couple of hours or so of my valuable time making a second throttle bracket for the Lotus Cortina. The first one was the correct shape, but the metal I used was too flimsy and was flexing more than I liked when put under pressure. 
The second version that I made was built from thicker metal, but to my disappointment still flexed under pressure.
Whilst browsing online for something totally different I came across a much better version to what I had designed and built. I decided that the 'not cheap' asking price was worth the risk and would hopefully save me wasting any more of my time. 
Today, the said item arrived. It came Kelvedon Lotus and they must have now decided that I had spent enough money with them to warrant giving me a couple of free stickers. (I purchased a full set of brand new brake pipes, plus other goodies from them previously). 

My garage is immensely hot by the time I get home from work, but I resisted the heat and went straight out there to fit this new work of art. I have to admit, it's a much design than my one and the 'flexing' I was experiencing is now a thing of the past. Two very good results so far this week then! 😊

Tuesday 11th August - A very nice surprise!

 So, Monday morning I started making phone calls regarding a replacement radiator for the Lotus Cortina. I was hoping to find someone who actually had one in stock and I wouldn't have to wait for them to make it. Some of the lead times were 4 to 5 weeks!
Eventually I admitted defeat and placed an order with Coolex of Nottingham who promised no more than a week and a half. This would have been around 12pm that I spoke to them and said I would be eternally grateful if they could do anything to reduce the lead time. 

So, you can imagine my surprise, and delight when the new radiator arrived the very next day! I opened the box to make sure that all the fittings were in the right place and that they hadn't just sent me any old one they had laying around, but everything was as my specifications. Even the overflow pipe fitting being on the driver side. 

Without any hesitation I went straight out into the garage to trial fit it and make sure all was well. I can safely say that it was and within half hour I had my new radiator fitted. 
I'd been a bit disillusioned with some customer service recently, but this was breath of fresh air. I know who I'll be going to with any radiator issues in future! 😊

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! 😊