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! 😊

 

Sunday 2nd August - 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. 😊