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.

Sunday 21st June - Battlesbridge Breakfast Meet.

Another lovely sunny morning, so we decided to head to Battlesbridge for a morning out. I wasn't expecting a big turn out as the annual classic car show was on at the Lawns in Rochford which is always very popular. Its popularity does have a down side though and sometimes it can take well over an hour to get in! Also once you do get in, they like you stay until the shows end at 4.30pm. Hence my preference to go to Battlesbridge. 😊

It was still a good morning out though and we met up with some friends for coffee as well. I had things to do in the afternoon, so we left around lunch time. 

Saturday 20th June. - Time to sort out the wiring.

 My good friend Dave Maton came up today to help with the wiring. This being an ex rally car, there had been a lot of additional equipment wired up. Wiring for spotlights, a map light, a floor mounted dip switch, plus numerous other things.
Dave set about removing all the excess wiring while I finished my throttle bracket and then set about fitting new battery cables in the boot. 
My other friend (yes, I have two!) Keith Halstead arrived to see how my progress was getting on and also, have a cup of tea. Suitably impressed with my home made throttle bracket, Keith finished his tea and let me and Dave crack on. By now, it was getting very hot in the garage, so we pushed the Lotus outside. (It's only the second time it's left the garage since I bought it.)

The original dashboard binnacle in the Lotus is absolutely knackered, so I'd bought another one. I was hoping to get this fitted today, but it needs cutting out so that the gauges can fit in. We'd also discovered that the temperature capillary gauge didn't work, (I tested the probe in a cup of boiling water.) so I have another one of those to find. 

Dave had managed to cut out and replace a lot of melted wire due to live wires being attached to the original loom, but with no relays. I do actually have a brand new loom on order, but there is a 14 week waiting time, so we are having to make  do with what we have. 
We did manage to get power to the ignition and we also got the headlights, side lights, brake lights and indicators working, so I was very happy with that. 
Unfortunately time caught up with us, and we had to call it a day, but we are getting ever closer to getting this car living again. Another couple of weekends should do it. 😉