MK1 Rs2000 project

[freakytate]

Hi guys

Ive owned my Mk1 escort for about 6 years now, only this week started to work on it. I am going to log my progress in this thread.

This is my first ford, normally a VW lover

I bought the car as a bare shell, Mk1 Rs2000 Avo shell

I got her rolling and parked her up

This is the photograph used by the previous owner to advertise for sale


The car had been 'restored & painted' ten years previous to me owning it iirc and dry stored

Always knew I wanted to get it on the spit to have a good look at it underneath and paint underneath as I had seen a little not so great welding in one or two areas....

Right so I have got Escort to my unit and on my own jacked it up bit by bit onto a spit I made a few years ago for this project





Here are a few photos of the underside....














Day 1...

And the mission begins.....

I think that if Im going to do this I may aswell try and do it properly. I will be doing almost all the work myself apart from welding, have a friend who is quite handy with the mig

First of all I am taking the underside and chassis back to bare metal and then am really considering epoxy mastic and painting on top. seeing as it took me so long to get it up on spit I really havent got it in me to take it down and send for blasting so Im doing it the hard way, grinder, wire cup a bit of painstripper in areas and a wire brush!

Started to strip underside to bare, boot floor areacfirst to get the feel for it...






Underneath the poorly painted floor the steel is solid, shitty welding but all solid :-)

The only issue I had was that it needs to go back to bare metal to allow epoxy mastic to work. The boot floor was covered in etch primer I think, grey in colour. It is really hard to get off, doubles the work! am looking into something to strip it off a little easier

Well this is as far as I got on day 1.

[Bigfish]

looks a fantastic base to start with. are you restoring to original or do you have some other plans in mind.

[freakytate]

To be honest I wanted to keep it totally original at first. Body work wise im keeping it standard. Engine I was toying with a cosworth but cant afford one and dont want to cut tunnel for t5 or touch bulk head. I have been thinking of putting a zetec in, would look real nice with a bda rocker cover and a valver under the bonnet. It will give me some everyday useable power..... I can always change back to a pinto if I wanted to sell or show as an original example. want some fun first ;-)

[i want a rs2000 mk1]

Nice looking project you have there mate, keep the photo's coming

[evans2822]

Another South Welshy Nice project

[Stevie]

many years ago i fitted a cossie engine and box in my mk1 and didnt need to fit a bigger gearbox tunnel
nice project keep the pics coming

[freakytate]

many years ago i fitted a cossie engine and box in my mk1 and didnt need to fit a bigger gearbox tunnel
nice project keep the pics coming

how so? what box did you use? my tunnel has had a little bit of persuasion i see in the past :-(

[Montyman]

If it's a genuine RS, I'd stick with a pinto. They can still produce good numbers, especially in 2.2+ guise.

[freakytate]

If it's a genuine RS, I'd stick with a pinto. They can still produce good numbers, especially in 2.2+ guise.

was my initial plans, got bit excited with engine choice....sticking with pinto again now though. would be nice to have something more powerfull in for bit of fun, especially if its an easy straightforward swap back to pinto

[freakytate]

Right I have made a little more progress with the underside, I am having trouble getting into the small narrow area so i am on the hunt for a sandblaster to finish it off before I can epoxy it. not sure what colour to do the underside.... any suggestions?

Underside to date.....






and also started to build my axle....

I have got an english axle and have acquired some group4 half shafts and big bearing semi floating hubs...

Gave rs2000 axle casing a clean and painted it..


Back to bare...


Painted up nice 'n' black....


Cossie scorpio granada vented rear calipers and escort mk3 front vented discs with mk2 mania brackets... little bit of fettling to get them to fit the axle and calipers but all gone together ok now...

I had to make some 11mm spacers for the calipers to fit over the disc and centralise it. I have 13" mex steels but were rubbing something chronic on calipers so had to trim the calipers down a bit. I feel that if i had a deeper heigh (top hat) then the calipers would have fitted under the wheel without rubbing or spacers but never mind its all good now...

Here is axle assembled whilst trial fitting wheels and calipers...


and after tweaking I painted calipers hammerite smooth gold as it was close to the original cosworth colour, I think it looks pretty smart....

[freakytate]

fully assembled minus diff

[freakytate]

Since my last post I have been collecting parts and doing the odd bit. I have got hold of a 2.1


The guy selling it said it was running good but was going xe in his kitcar. According to the paperwork it was rebuilt in late 2011. Got engine home and stripped it down. I want to know exactly what is in there and its condition.

I'm learning as I go along here but im learning reasonably fast

So this is what I discovered...

I measured piston to deck height at 1.87mm which was alarmingly huge. I personally think it has thrown a rod at some point and instead of fitting cossie rods back in it they used pinto rods hence the large deck height

94mm v6 cast pistons, which I make to be 2139cc
Big valve posted head, 44.5 inlet, 38 exhaust
unidentified cam with markings HG z1063/2
standard pinto crank
Lightened double dowelled flywheel
Beztec ignition and distributor

Block has some markings too...
3333 7a12 hand stamped by dizzy area
205
HG63529
On sump mating surface has RBRBB

After asking some questions and emailing certain people the man himself Mr Harvey Gibbs replied to me saying that this cam he used to use in his 175bhp pinto build. This excited me a bit as the block also has HG stamped on it & the head some markings too

Some pictures of the engine being stripped down....





I also noticed as you can see above that the small end bearing doesnt have enought clearance for the piston, not good!

I have bought some cossie rods now so I dont have to deck the block so much, bringing the pistons up 1.5mm will help my compression ratio I do think

[freakytate]

I have got hold of a set of dellorto 45's on pinto manifold but I have also started fabricating a set of GSXR750 throttle bodies, if you can why not...

I have respaced them from the original 80mm between body centers to match a pinto @ 102mm between intake centers.



I did this by turning down some 14mm aluminium bar in lathe
Overall length of spacers is 50mm each
Spacers are 10mm diameter at either end for 4mm stepped up to 14mm diameter x 42mm (50 overall)
There are 3 spacers for the 4 bodies
2 spacers were drilled enough to clear m6 bolt
The third spacers was drilled and tapped from either end with m6 thread
Ordered a few stainless m6x170mm allen hex head bolts offa ebay
I drilled the last throttle body that the original rod threads into (you will understand when youve got them in front of you) to clear the m6 bolt shaft. I then ground a drill to flat bottom and drilled into throttle body to countersunk the allen head to match the other side. Both stainless bolts thread into center spacers to secure all four bodies together. The stainless bolts look so much better than a threaded rod that most people settle for, no unsightly nuts & locknuts at either end of tb's either

As for the other bracing angled bar on opposite side, I got some anodies aluminium angle from b&q and cut, drilled & shaped in to fit the new spacing (see picture)



I have yet to finish them, I need to make a fuel rail, inlet pipes and extend throttle linkages for new spacing.....





Trumpets arent fitted yet just pushed on for picture :-)

To be continued....

[freakytate]

Last thing to report today.....

As I said previously I want to sandblast the underside in places I cant reach with DA sander. I have bought myself a funky compressor



Borrowed me a sand blaster
Started building a blasting tent in my unit so everything else doesnt get covered in shit...






Started blasting today but no pictures as of yet. More updates coming soon

[freakytate]

Got some more done on the throttle bodies & inlet this week. managed to get a few hours on the lathe....



Mocked up against head...


Turned the inlet tubes down today, also tapered the insides from 38.5 to 45 at throttle body end




Still not finished but getting there...





I hope I have left enough room between top of bodies and fuel rail against rocker cover?
Need to make a start on the fuel rail next

[R5COS]

looks a good base to start with

[freakytate]

A little more progress with the escort, nothing groundbreaking but progress.

As I wasnt having much fun with my small sandblaster I sealed off the unit and had a mobile blaster in to finish off the shell for me. I was quite nervous as I have heard a lot of horror stories about how aggressive it can be and not much left after they have finished, he even warned me himself. Went ahead anyway, in for a penny....

The noise it made was like a jet taking off (up to 600cfm!) and it made a huuuuge mess, a lot more than I anticipated....





It took me longer to clean up than it took to blast it. I mean 2 hours to blast and 6 hours to clean up and still dust everywhere. Should have done it outside! (next time).

When he arrived it turned out it was one of my good friends brother in law, which helped. Any flat surfaces and panels were a no no but he did as much as he thought was safe. Underside, engine bay, boot and inside was done.

Considering I wasnt expecting much of the shell to be left I was pleasantly suprised. Its tidier than I thought!



Plenty of filler was removed and it stripped the etch primer just as I wanted



Inner wings and strut tops etc solid, no issues


Some old filler covered rot at bottom of heater bubble, nothing too exciting


The front of my tunnel was pretty shitty from previous repairs, I was expecting this....


Underneath was okay, only issues were from previous poor repairs and a few small drill holes in tunnel..


Sweeeeeet....


All in all quite pleased. On with the repairs.....

P.s I was a nob and forgot to take dash top off, it sustained some damage!

[Turboman]

Looking good keep up the good work

[PSweeney]

how much was it to blast if you don't mind me asking

[freakytate]

Its about £280 normally pal, It was my mates brother in law so cut a deal with me.

[Erikmex]

Your names not Lyn by any chance is it, I recognise that vw

[freakytate]

No mate not lyn. Not even close. The bus is straight from the states / cali so no one else has owned it in this country, you may have seen it at the vw shows if you go?

[Erikmex]

No probs.....nice Mk1 you won't turn back.

[freakytate]

Cheers, its the way forward

[cossymax]

Looks like your doing it properly. If its a genuine car keep the pinto. Cracking work your doing and a good base to start with.

[freakytate]

Cheers cossymax, Im trying to do it properly considering its my first ford proper restoration, well its got all the type 49 gubbins and is rs on log book so theres hope. Its probably had more new heads and handles than triggers brush mind

Im toying over colour options, have been for a while, its not an easy decision. Decoded chassis tag today and its originally electric monza blue. I'm liking sebring red, monza blue or modena green. I dont think il be going for the rs stripes just plain.

Any suggestions / opinions on your best colour thoughts?
How can you tell what the original factory colour was or if its had any colour changes in the past?