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.