Thursday 26th March. - Back to the Green Cortina.

 The new remote servo for the Green Cortina arrive today, so I decided to get it fitted. It's not a massive job and it's the same design as the previous one, so I can use the same bolt holes and I wont have to alter any of the metal brake pipes. 
The worst bit was trying to find the two bolts inside the passenger compartment that are situated under the dashboard. As you can see from below, the remote servo bolts through the fire wall. 

The whole job only took about an hour though, so once I'd finished I went into the garage and stripped down the hubs from the Lotus Cortina. I thought this would save a bit of time when it comes to Saturday and the heavy work load I have lined up. 

Wednesday 25th March. - Suspension legs!

 I managed to get a couple of hours in the garage tonight and decided to refit the suspension legs onto the Lotus Cortina.
Before I fitted them though I removed the front hubs and discs in readiness to fit new bearings and bearing races. To be honest the original bearings do seem ok, but I need to keep in mind that these could well be sixty years old and even if they aren't, they would have been coated in the same grease since before 1977. (That's when the car was last on the road)
With the hubs and discs removed, it did make the suspension legs a little bit lighter to lift (not a lot though!) and I had them fitted within a couple of hours. 
The bottom ball joints put up a bit of fight and I usually get a trolley jack under the bottom of the legs and jack them up to give me more room, but because the car is on a rotisserie, it's not possible to do it that way. 
it was a good nights work though and it knocks another few things off of my massive list of impending jobs. 

Sunday 22nd March. Steering linkage!

 I had another few hours spare this morning, so I thought I'd try and get ahead on the Lotus. Dave Maton is coming up next Saturday to try and help me get the Lotus back on its wheels, but there's a lot of work to do before that can happen, so I wanted to get a head start. 

The steering linkage was the next on my list and I decided to fit all new track rod ends. (There are four of them!) With fitting all new track rod ends, the tracking will have to set up at some point, but that's not important right now. Annoyingly, I also forgot to take pics of the refurbished steering linkage and track rod ends, so I'll use a picture of how it all looked just after I got the car. It will give you an idea of what it all looks like. I'm pleased with the progression so far though. 😊 

Saturday 21st March. -- Billericay Breakfast Meet.

 Today was to be another test drive day for the Green Cortina. I had fitted another set of idle jets since the last test drive, so I wanted to see if it had made any difference. 
I decided to stop for breakfast before I got to the Billericay meet this time as the cafe at Billericay is very good, but the queuing and waiting time for food and drinks is ridiculously slow. 
My cafe of choice this morning was the 'My Place' on the A127, but when I slowed to pull in my brake pedal seemed to stick, but then free itself quite harshly. 
I had noticed the sticky brake pedal feeling a few times recently, but nothing as bad as this morning. I suspect that my remote brake servo is on the way out.
 Once I had eaten I carried onto the breakfast meet with no further issues. When I got there I adjusted the tick over on the carb as I felt the engine was running too fast and also adjusted the air mixture screw to give it more fuel.

There were some nice cars at the meet, including my friend Keith's Lotus Cortina and a Mk2 Cortina with a turbo and injected Lotus V8 engine. This engine also has four camshafts and a secondary radiator in the boot as the radiator under the bonnet is not up to the job of keeping the engine cool! 

On leaving the meet I had to endure my sticky brake pedal again only this time it got much worse as I had to dab the brakes on on the A127, only this time, they stuck on and stayed on. 

Luckily a parking lay-by was very close by, so I pulled in and opened the bonnet. My suspicions were the brake servo, so I removed the hose that runs from the inlet manifold to the servo and a loud gush of air escaped out. With the air released the brakes then freed off and I was able to drive the car home. So it was indeed a servo problem. I'll get one ordered and fit it when time allows. 

Once I was home I decided to go and play with the Lotus for a few hours. I had fitted the front axle on Wednesday evening after work, so the next stage was to refit the anti-roll bar and track control arms.
This turned out to be a bit of a mission as I had replaced all of the bushes, and being an anti-roll bar everything has to be very taut with hardly any movement. 
After a couple of hours, everything was fitted and as it should be and now that I'm finally bolting things back on instead of removing them, I feel that I'm actually moving forward. 😊

Saturday 15th March. - More tuning and test driving.

 After speaking to a weber carburettor specialist about my issues with the Green Cortina, I was advised to try changing the idle jets to a bigger size. Being a twin choke weber there are two jets, a primary and a secondary. 
The standard sizes are 55 & 50, so I purchased two at bigger sizes. The first combination I tried was a 60 & 55. I then took the car for a long test drive. It did make quite a difference and the car felt happier a low speeds and the popping and banging on the over run reduced dramatically. 
I then returned home and decided to change them again. This time I tried a combination of 65 & 60. I went for another test drive, but to be honest it didn't really feel much different to the first run. (Although I didn't go as far)
The car is a lot more drivable though, but removal of the spark plugs showed that they are still quite white, so it appears the engine is still running lean. I think I'll need to having a chat with the carburettor specialist again to see what the next move is. 

Wednesday 11th March. - More progress on the Lotus.

 Every night for the past few weeks I had been concentrating on finalising the engine bay on the Lotus Cortina. The engine bay being finished will be a massive step forward as I'll then be able to start putting the car back together. (I'm sick to death of sanding, cleaning, de-greasing, wire brushing etc.)
Once I felt that the engine bay was acceptable, I gave it a few coats of etch primer and left it five days to dry and harden. I was quite happy with the result to be honest. (See below)

Once the primer had dried and I was happy with the finish, I requested the presence of a guy from work who used to be an auto spray painter. (Glen) He's the same guy who painted the floor for me and the quality of his work is very good. 
I was home a good couple of hours before Glen was due round, so I ignited the diesel heater in the garage to get it nice and warm and also stood the paint in front of the hot air vent to allow it to 'thin' before use. 
After checking over my work, Glen mixed the paint and then got down to the job in hand. 
He laid on a light coat first to form a barrier and give the paint something to stick to, and once that had dried he went full on with a beautiful coat of Ford Ermine white. 
We had a break while we let the paint fumes dissipate and then Glen gave it another coat. We still had some paint left in the gun afterwards, so we painted the front bumper irons as well. (For some reason they are black on standard Cortina's, but white on the Lotus Cortina) 
By about 8pm, we were finished and called it a day. I'm very pleased with how it looks and the temptation to start bolting bits back on this weekend will be massive, but I'm going to leave it a week or so in order for the paint to harden. I don't want to risk dropping things on the fresh paint and marking it. 
At last it feels like progress has been made. Since I've had the car all I've done is removed bits from it and made it worse and less like a car. I've even taken to looking at pictures of when I first bought it, so I can remind myself what it looked like, but now I feel that I'm finally moving forward. 😊

Last August when it looked like a car. 

Sunday 8th March - Another test drive!

With the ongoing tuning issue with the Green Cortina, I have been experimenting with changing the primary and secondary main jets in the twin choke carburettor. (32/36 DGV)
The standard jet size should be 140 & 135, but in recent weeks I had increased the jet sizes to 145 &140, then 147 & 145 and todays test drive would be with 150 & 147. 
The drive went well, but to be honest I didn't notice much difference since the last change of 147 &145.

 So, I've probably gone as far as I can go with the main jets. The acceleration is fine  and the car is very responsive, but I'm getting a lot of popping on the over run. The car also doesn't seem happy at lower revs and doesn't drive smoothly. 
I'll need to do a bit more investigating, but I'm definitely improving the car, so I will persevere. It did feel good driving it again today and it was a nice morning to find a cafe and enjoy a nice breakfast! 😊