Sunday 7th September - A new toy to make life easy!

After my recent exploits underneath the Cortina and getting covered in crap, I had decided to look into 'car tilters' or 'rotisseries'. The bottom side of the car is actually in very good order and still retains its original floor pans. 
However, it also has a lot of flakey paint and grease which will need a good wire brushing and de-greasing. I really don't fancy laying underneath the car and doing this job, so I decided to look for something to make life easier. 
Two days after making this decision, I found a rotisserie on ebay. Even better, it was already set up for a Mk1 Cortina. I contacted the seller and we came to an agreeable price and I collected it on my way home. 

So today, I had a bit of free time and decided to set it up. The  seller had made some printouts for me, so it was easy enough to follow and put together. It's absolutely ideal and my initial fears about space were unfounded. 

This really will make life easy and speed things up somewhat. Spinning the car on its side will allow me to get at all of the floor and also remove the front suspension and clean and re-bush that too. I was very lucky to find this marvellous piece of equipment and the beauty of it is, I can always sell it once I've finished with it. 😊

 

Sunday 31st August - Fuel tank removal (One of them anyway!)

I had a spare hour or so today, so I decided to quickly remove the fuel tank on the Lotus Cortina. It didn't actually take long as most of the 'lip' that connects it to the boot floor had rotted and was missing anyway! I think I undid a total of about four bolts and it came out! 
As you can see from the pics below, it was in very poor condition indeed and is only fit for scrap. 

Whilst underneath the car I noticed that the some kind of 'shield' was fitted to protect the tank. It's almost like a sump guard, only for a petrol tank. Bearing in mind that this used to be a rally car, I think years and years of wet mud had been getting stuck in between the shield and the tank causing it to rot out. (See tank shield below)

The other odd thing was that when I went to disconnect the fuel lines from the tank prior to removal, I found that there were no fuel lines attached any way! 

What my car does have though is an additional fuel tank in between the rear wheel arches. It's actually a Cortina Mk1 estate tank. 
Now, when Fords were having these cars 'homogolated', whatever extras were fitted to the 'works' rally and race cars, had to be offered for sale to Ford customers as well. So it looks like whoever owned this car from new, requested the additional fuel tank. (I'm not surprised, the standard Mk1 tank only holds 8 gallons!)
I have a picture of one of the tanks from a works car in a book and the tank and the mounting bracket are identical. (Although the filler neck is in a different place. (See below)

This is a fantastic period addition and I've already been offered good money for it. However, its part of the cars history and will be staying put. I wouldn't mind betting that there are very few cars left with this set up, if any at all! 

Saturday 30th August. Work begins!

 Pushing the Lotus Cortina off of the trailer and into the garage the previous Sunday hadn't been difficult, but hadn't exactly been easy either. It was evident that some of the brakes were partly stuck on and my visit to the garage this morning had revealed that two of the tyres had gone soft as well. 
So, I jacked the car up, got it on axle stands and removed the wheels. The wheels are all genuine Lotus '881A' steels, so that's good. Not so good is that they have fifty year old Dunlop 175x13 tyres on, so they will be removed at a later date when I have the wheels refurbished.

I then removed the front brake callipers and was happy to find that theses were the correct 'P16' and 'front facing' type as well. I also checked the struts while I was at it and was pleased to find that these are the correct 39cm struts as opposed to standard 41cm Cortina struts. (A lot of Lotus Cortina's were robbed of their 'sporty and upgraded bits' back in the day, so I wanted to check if anything was missing)

I then moved onto the rear brakes and found that these were a bit more challenging. None of the brake pipes to the wheel cylinders wanted to come undone, so it was a case of cutting the brake pipes to release the fluid and then using a hammer to knock the brake drums off. Once again, I found that the rear drums and shoes were the correct type for the car. 

While I was underneath the car and already very dirty, I decided to remove the exhaust. This needed a bit of brute force in the form of hammers and an angle grinder and promptly disintegrated while I was attacking it. In fact, it left so much rust on the floor, that when I picked up my spanners, their silhouette remained! 

Sunday 24th August. I finally take possession of my dream car!

 When I was a small boy, we had next door neighbours named John and Margaret. John loved his fast cars and one car in particular always had me rushing to look out of the front window when I heard it coming up the street. (Which also led me to being told off by my Mum for messing up her curtains!)
I loved the sound of it and I loved the look of it. I've loved them all my life, but never thought I'd ever be able to afford one.
They have always been way out of my price range and the only way that I would ever be able to own one was if a restoration project was to come up for sale. The trouble is, they are so desirable, that when they do come up for sale, they get snapped up straight away.
This time though, I'd had been lucky. I was told of a car in Harwich and made arrangements to go and look at it the same day that I heard about it. A deal was done and finally, finally, I had my dream car!

The object of my desire? A Lotus Cortina Mk1. A very special car indeed. The first 'Fast Ford' and one of only 3,306 Mk1's ever built. A famous car that was responsible the demise of the Mk2 Jaguar in saloon car racing (The Jags couldn't keep up with the Lotus!) and also becoming infamous as one was owned by master criminal Bruce Reynolds and used on reconnaissance prior to the Great Train Robbery. (In case he needed to make a quick getaway!)

So Sunday morning I drove up to good friend Colin Wake's place north of Colchester where we jumped into his Land Rover Discovery, hooked up his trailer and made the short journey to Harwich to collect the Lotus Cortina. 

We loaded the twin cam engine first as it was out of the car, and then loaded the car backwards onto the trailer as most of the weight was in the boot. (Cylinder head, radiator, starter motor etc.)

The car has been used for rallying in its past, hence the black bonnet, wing tops and doors. However, it's also been off the road since 1977 which will present me with quite a challenge in getting it mobile again. Being built in 1966, it's only actually spent 11 years on the road, although it's still close on 60 years old, so there's a lot that will need replacing. (Plus, I suspect those 11 years were quite gruelling!)

We had a good drive from Harwich to my place where upon arrival, we had to move my other cars out of the way, so that we could get this one in the garage. 

With this done and after some lunch and a cup of tea, we then loaded my four door Cortina onto the trailer as due to my lack of space, this is now going to live at Colin's for a little while. 

Now as much as I love Cortina's, four is just too many. Parts for a Lotus Cortina can also be ridiculously expensive, so I've made the decision to sell the Zetec Cortina and the Nissan powered Cortina to free up space and also provide some funds to restore the Lotus. 

It was a brilliant day though and I now finally have my dream car. I'm over the moon! 😊

Saturday 23rd August. An MOT pass.

 This morning saw a very early start as I had an MOT booked at 07.40. I booked it early as I wanted to get out and get back before the bank holiday weekend traffic built up. I had had also had a little bit of an over heating problem while test driving it previously, so that was another reason for not wanting to get caught in traffic. (The electric fan wasn't cutting in, so I'd used the manual override)
However, I'd given the radiator a real good flushing out since then and I had no such problems whilst driving to the MOT station. 

The MOT went well and a clean bill of health was pronounced with no advisories. I celebrated by taking the rest of the day off. 😉

Sunday 17th August - Battlesbridge Breakfast meet.

It was another beautiful day today, so attending the Battlesbridge breakfast meet seemed like a good idea. I had had to work the day before and then had to do some work on my front driveway, so chilling out and doing very little seemed like a plan.
It was a very good turn out and I met up with good friends, Gavin, Peter, Keith, John and Rachel and even Dave Maton and his wife Kerry joined us as well. Karen and I went in the Zetec Cortina just to give it a run out. 

As usual there were some great cars there and we even found a Nissan SX200. (See below)

This has the same engine as I have in my race car, 1964 two door pre-aeroflow. (The CA18DET 16 valve, twin cam, turbo engine)
I was hoping to catch the owner so I could see if he had any dump valve, or blow off valve fitted, as I think that's what mine will need, (My car still makes the 'Turkey Gobble' noise from the turbo.) but unfortunately I didn't get to see him. 

Around lunch time, we called called it a day as we all had other things to do. It had been a great morning out though and thoroughly enjoyable. 

Saturday August 9th - Finally ready for MOT!

Dave Maton was free again this Saturday, so he paid me a visit with a view to finishing off the last little jobs on the race car. (I really should stop calling it that!) 
I spent time re-fitting and lining up the headlights, while Dave fitted the new seat belt to the passenger side B pillar. (Somebody had cut out the captive nut for some reason, so I had to weld in a new section to be able to bolt the seat belt in.)
Trying to line up the bonnet was the next job so that we could open it without it catching the scuttle panel, but we had no success with this. It appears that the bonnet hinge on the driver side is knackered and has a lot of play in it which creates excessive movement. 

 We had to give up on the bonnet hinge and instead gave the car a few runs around the block to test all was working. Unfortunately the electric fan wasn't cutting in when it should have done and the engine ended up getting a tad warm which then deposited rusty water all over my block paving through the over flow. The fan can be switched on manually though, so I will have to do this for the time being until I get time to find out why it isn't cutting in automatically. (I also need to find out why the temperature gauge isn't working!)

It does drive well though and is scarily quick! I think it's the only car I've ever owned That I'm frightened of! Despite these small issues, I've booked the MOT for Saturday 23rd August at 07.40am. I know that's early, but I don't want to get caught in the traffic with the auto electric fan not working. I also couldn't do Saturday the 16th as I'm working, so........ fingers crossed! 

Sunday August 3rd - Cortina Mk1 Owners Club National Day.

 This weekend was the Cortina Mk1 Owners club national weekend in the beautiful town on Stratford Upon Avon. Rather than get up at stupid O'clock on Sunday morning, rush up there for the day, then rush straight back, Karen and I decided to make a weekend of it and booked a hotel for the Friday and Saturday night.
I finished work on time on the Friday and we left around 16.45 to make the 150 mile journey. To our surprise, traffic was very light and the only hold up we had was a half mile queue from the M25 onto to the M40.
We had a lovely day walking around the town on Saturday, followed a by a lovely meal at a Chinese restaurant in the evening. 
Sunday morning, we were up early and arrived at the show ground (Stratford Race Course) at 9am. The Mk1 Cortina club always invite other clubs to attend and this year was no different with the Ford Anglia and Mk2 Cortina club in attendance. 

There were some lovely cars there and lots of my favourite model , the MK1 Lotus Cortina. (I still dream of owning one) It was great day and I even managed to buy some parts I was after from the auto jumble as well.
However, by about 12pm, the rain clouds were gathering and Karen and I decided to head home as we still had a long way to go and both had to go to work on Monday. It was a great weekend though and one we will probably look at repeating next year. 

Saturday 26th July. Billericay breakfast meet.

 Today was the Breakfast meet at the cosy cup cafe and a good chance to meet up with some like minded classic car enthusiasts. It's a good meet, but dear God! They need to get organised in that cafe. It took close on 30 minutes in the queue just to get to the counter to put an order in!

Anyway, good friends Gavin, Keith, Martin, John and Rachel were all there and one of my old work mates, Russell was there as well. I didn't get a chance to take many photos as I was too busy talking to people! There were some nice cars there though. 

I had taken the Green Cortina with me today for only its second run since its engine rebuild. I thought it was all going well until I pulled up on the drive and spotted some oil on the floor. Opening the bonnet revealed that oil was once again leaking from the dipstick tube, so the problem I thought had been cured.....hasn't. Very disapointing. 😑

Sunday 20th July. A bit of a washout!

 Today was the Maylandsea classic car show. Good friends Andy and Sharon were also going, so it would be a good chance to catch up. 

We got there about 10am and the rain held off for long enough around to look around the other cars. (Only once though!) There was another Mk1 Cortina there which I hadn't seen before and also another favourite car of mine. 😉

                                        

Unfortunately , just after 12pm the heavens opened and it looked like the rain was here for the day. We suffered it for about half hour, but then decided to call it a day and followed Andy and Sharon back to their place for a barbeque. You've got to make the best of a bad job haven't you? 😏

Saturday 19th July. Dave Maton returns!

 Dave Maton returned today to hopefully finish the wiring on the race car. I had bought loads more wiring and also a gas powered soldering iron, so we were looking forward to getting everything working. A lot of the original wiring loom was missing, so we started from fresh which was challenging at times. 

We also had to fit a rotary switch with four positions on the dashboard because the original headlight switch layout was totally missing. (These are the moments when I wonder why I bought this car!)

Anyway, while Dave worked away at the wiring, I got on with fitting the seat belts. (It didn't have any of those either!) I managed fitting the driver side seat belt, but for some reason there is just a hole where the captive nut used to be in the B pillar, so I will have to make up a plate and captive nut for that another time. 

By late afternoon we had side lights, dipped beam, full beam, windscreen washers, and a hooter, so I was very pleased with the days work. 😊

Friday 11th July. New shoes for the race car.

 When I bought the race car I had been warned about the road legal ''slick' tyres on it. The seller said to me ' They're ok in the dry, but you'll soon find yourself facing the wrong way in the wet.'. 
Not being a fan of facing on coming traffic, I decided to look for something with more grip. The problem is, with the wheels being 13 inch diameter, there's not a lot of choice out there. 

Eventually, I found a reasonably prices set of 185/70 x 13 tyres from Oponeo and ordered them. I also ordered a 'Minilite'  style wheel from JBW, so that I had a spare. (Although it was silver, so I would have to paint it. 

The new tyres arrived and I took them to my local tyre man to have them fitted. He wanted to keep the slicks, but I brought them home as I plan to sell them. 

With this done, I made a trip to Halfords to seek out some matching Gold paint for the spare. I managed to get it close enough as makes no difference and so spent the afternoon painting and lacquering. With the new tyre fitted, it looked pretty good. Another job off of the list.😉

Saturday 5th July. The wiring marathon starts!

 Good friend Dave Maton came up today and brought his wiring and soldering iron kits with him so we could get started on the electrics on the race car. Being a previous race/track car, it had no rear number plate lights, windscreen washers, hooter, side lights or full beam! I'm eventually looking at putting this car back on the road with a full MOT, so all of these things need to be present and working. 

The first job on the agenda was the rear number plate lights. I didn't want a big bulky number plate holder, so I opted for some LED lights, which also serve as number plate bolts. I thought these looked quite good, so I was happy with them. A good start! 

Next on the agenda was sorting out the indicators. They did work, but diagonally! I.e. if you indicated right , you got the offside front and nearside rear working, and if you indicated left, you got the nearside front and offside rear working! 

Now I should also explain that this car has very little of it's original switches and dashboard left and just had a bank of switches for: Left indicator, right indicator, windscreen wipers, electric fan, and a blank. So, the two switches for the indicators were removed and merged onto an indicator stalk bought from car builder solutions. It's not ideal, bit it is a lot better than what we had. 

We then moved onto the headlights which were a bodged LED conversion. Luckily I had a pair of original Lucas headlights in stock, so these were going to be the replacements for the LEDs. Unfortunately while trying to convert back the original headlight set up, we found that somebody had cut most of the original wiring loom out and there was no wiring there for side lights or full beam either.

Time had now caught up with us and Dave had to start heading home, so we called it a day. I would have to buy lots more wiring and Dave would have to return at another point to help get the job done. Not a great start, but at least it's a start. 😏

Friday 27th June - The last Triumph leaves the stable!

 I had decided some time ago that my time with Triumph's was done and I was going to concentrate on my Mk1 Cortina's instead. I've had some great times with Triumph's over the years, but had got to the stage where I felt that I had done all I can do. I've met some brilliant people too and I'm hoping that they will stay good friends. 

So, word of mouth about my Triumph being for sale was passed around and pretty soon I had some interest. A viewing was arranged, which wasn't an easy task as the car was in Frating North Essex and the buyer was in Walsall, near Birmingham in the West Midlands. 
A deal was done and included in the purchase price was delivery to Walsall to be arranged by Colin Wake (The car was stored at his place) and myself. 
After discussing various options, we decided just to drive the Triumph up there with me following and then come home. It wasn't quite as straight forward as it sounded though as we were both working on the  required delivery day. So, Friday 27th June, Colin took the Triumph to Bury St Edmunds where he was working for the day and left from there when he was finished. I finished my work in Hockley, Essex around 3.30pm and then, like Colin, set out for Walsall in my everyday car, my Peugeot 308 estate. 

I caught some traffic around Cambridge (which is normal!) but other than that, I had a fairly clear run. Colin did good as well and unbelievably, we pulled up outside the buyers house within a few minutes of each other. We then enjoyed a cup of coffee and a quick chat before making tracks. We still had a lot of mileage to cover. 

The traffic on the roads was starting to thin out a bit and we made a good time. Neither of us had eaten since the morning, so a much deserved KFC bargain bucket was taken on at Cambridge services. We didn't hang around too long though and at around 10.45pm we arrived back at Colin's. I then still had to get back to my home in Leigh On Sea and arrived there at 11.45pm. (and I had to get up at 5am Saturday morning to go to work!)
We worked out that it had cost around £80 to deliver the car including Petrol for the Triumph, Diesel for the Peugeot, and KFC for us, so quite  cheap option. 
I had already covered 241 miles in my work day, so with the trip up to Birmingham, across to North Essex and then back to my house, I reckon I'd driven around 600 miles! 

As usual though, the Triumph never missed a beat and hopefully the new owner will be very pleased with it. This is the first time that I haven't owned a Triumph since 2008, but I do feel that I'm doing the right thing. So, goodbye Gertie2 and all the best. 😊

Saturday 21st June. - The Zetec Returns!

 I'd rang Herts & Beds Transmission on Friday to see if my Zetec Cortina was finished and ready for collection and Ian confirmed that it was. So, I persuaded a guy from work (Adam) to run me up there to collect it. 

Adam picked me up from my house at 5.45am and we got on the road straightaway. We decided to leave early as the predicted heatwave would have lots and lots of traffic heading to the seaside at Southend and we wanted to get back before the traffic got too stupid. 

We arrived at Baldock at around 7.15 after a quick coffee in the services and after a quick chat with Ian, we collected the car and headed home. The Cortina drove well and I had great fun in the tunnels. It makes a fantastic noise! 😊

We arrived at mine just after 9am and then decided to go for breakfast in the Oakwood pub. It had been a good morning and we had avoided the traffic. 

Adam left shortly after breakfast and I decided to wash the car as it was covered in dust from being in the workshop all week. It really is a great car and a pleasure to drive. My only remaining job on it now is to get the oil pressure gauge working and then it's pretty much finished. 

Wednesday 18th June - More seat fitting.

 Despite the heatwave, I headed into the garage after work today to continue with the seat fitting on the project car. I had already removed the race seat from the car, so it was now just a case of making up a frame for the Audi TT seat that was going in there. 
The race seat had just been bolted through the floor any old how, (I suspect I'm going to find a lot of bodges on this car!) so I found a more reinforced part of flooring that I could bolt my framework to.
It took some time to line it all up and then drill the one inch box section that I was using through both sides, but luckily I have a pillar drill bolted to my work bench, so that made things a lot easier. 
By about 7pm the passenger seat was fitted to match the driver's seat and I was very pleased with the final result. It had been very hot in the garage and I was absolutely saturated!

Black leather Audi TT seats. A bargain at £30, and local collection! 

The race seats that were in the car will now go up for sale and I should do alright on these as the company that sells them now have them listed as out of stock. (Listed at £349 the pair including runners and frames). Hopefully, I'll be able to move them on as they are now taking up space. 

(BB Race seats. Not very comfortable for long distance stuff!) 

Sunday 15th June - Battlesbridge Breakfast Meet

 It was another beautiful day today and so it was a good day for a nice chilled out morning. This would also be the Green Cortina's proper maiden voyage with its freshly rebuilt engine. 
I left early so that I would have a completely trouble and traffic free drive to Battlesbridge and as result, I got there early enough to be parked on the front row. 

The car behaved itself, other than the temperature gauge reading high, but it's always done that, so it wasn't a concern. (I've replaced the temperature sender, so it's probably the voltage regulator that needs replacing) Plus When I put the cylinder head back on I took the 88 degree thermostat out and fitted an 82 degree one, so I knew the thermostat was ok.

Good friend Gavin arrived in Triumph 2.5 Pi and other good friend Andy arrived shortly after in his Rover P6 2200. There were lots of beautiful cars there and the Ford Anglia was out in force. The Anglia was  another of my favourite cars when I was a kid, but boy, they are a small car. I think if I was to buy one I'd end up moving the driver's seat so far back, I'd be in the back of the car! (Like I used to be with my Mini's)

My Mk1 Cortina was the only one there, but only because my other friend Keith's Lotus Cortina was stuck in his garage due to the electric door packing up. 
After spending a couple of hours looking round the cars, we then decided to go for breakfast, which was a big mistake. We were told it was a 20 minute wait when we arrived, but then after 35 minutes noticed that people that had come in after us were getting their food while we were still waiting. When Gavin enquired where our order was we were told that they had lost our ticket and we would have to wait another 20 minutes! No additional free tea or drinks were offered by way of compensation or good customer relations and when the food eventually arrived it was poor. Needless to say, we wont be returning! 
By the time we returned to the show field most people had left because we'd been in the cafe for so long, so we decided to do the same. 
I got caught in quite a bit of traffic on the way home, but the Cortina handled it well and didn't cause any issues. I did notice a slight water leak when I arrived home, but this was rectified by tightening up the bottom radiator hose a bit more. 
I was pleased with how it ran. It did seem a bit slow when I first started driving it, but I need to take into account that I'd been driving the Zetec Cortina the day before, so it will seem sluggish compared to that. So I was pleased with how it droves and enjoyed my day out. 😊

Saturday 14th June. - Early start and progress on the project

 I had spoken to the chap that did my differential rebuild about my continuing oil leak during the week and he suggested I bring the car over to him so he can sort it out for good.
The only issue with that is that he is in Baldock in Hertfordshire and I was going to have to leave it with him for 4 or 5 days. Luckily, good friend Gavin agreed to follow me over there and bring me back, so we arranged a meeting in a lay-by on the A127 at 7am. Actually, Gavin rang me at 5.40am and asked if I was ready to go now as he was already awake. I was already up and about, so we re-arranged to meet at 6.30 instead.
Being this early, we didn't encounter any traffic and was at Herts & Beds transmissions just after 7.30. 

This Zetec Cortina really is a pleasure to drive now and if I can get the new project to drive the same as the Zetec, I will be more than happy. We then went for a coffee in Baldock services before setting off and again, because it was fairly early, we had a trouble free drive home. 

With the afternoon to myself I decided to finish off the job I had started during the week which was fitting Audi TT seats into the new Cortina.
Two seconds after starting welding I promptly ran out of welding wire! Luckily my local motor factors had a couple of reels in stock, so I shot down there and bought them. By about 4pm, my job was complete and I had a quick tidy up and put all my tools away.
I was pleased with how the seat looked on the drivers side, so I just have the passenger side to do now, which hopefully I may be able to get done after Battlesbridge tomorrow. The seats are not perfect, but they only cost me £30 and I only had to go to Hockley (Which is where I work) to collect them. My theory was that at £30, they were worth a punt and if I couldn't make them fit, or they were unsuitable, I haven't lost loads of money. Luckily, it looks like my £30 was well spent. 😊