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Thread: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

  1. #41
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Sill done, its time to fit the strengthening in prep to remove the floor.
    Noticed the crack in the door frame at the bottom of the window pillar some time back. I understand this is common and is a stress crack. So it makes sense to sort it before placing more stress on the body when the floors out. It was longer than expected once the paint was stripped back. LH side checked also and is fine.
    So the frame work is done and it feels like so positive progress at last. Hopefully I'll be cracking on with floor removal as time allows over the next week or so.

    spent a bit of time at the end of the day cleaning up in the bottom LH corner of the windscreen where the dash panel etc meet up. Some paint blistering there that whilst its a pain in the arse to get in to clean up, fortunately proved to be nothing more than surface rust. I've discovered the last spot weld that joins the dash panel to the lower windscreen was never made and so have approx 5cm unfixed section. Along with the unsealed section of tunnel to floor, I'm thinking the Ford workers hadn't got back in to the swing of things in early Jan 1977 following Christmas
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Been a while, but progress has been made, just no time to update as I went along. So now sat on hol in Thailand I'll catch up :-
    Back in Oct 17, first off tunnel out as I may be able to save it to reuse, followed by removing the floor in sections.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    I've cut the floor up to the rear join and then drilled holes for plug welding later, before grinding the spot welds off from underneath, as I think this would give me the best finish as the spot welds are all over the place. Drilling first meant the metal was a bit more ridged during drilling.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Nice thing about removing the floor it exposes various problem areas that are tricky to get to. I also marked up where the cross member, seat belt anchor points and the seat supports were, very useful later on.
    IMG_0637.JPG


    bottom of the Left side A post is in good order
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    getting there...will be cool when completed...cheers mark

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Great looking car and love the write up too

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Finishing up getting the floor out and removing rusted areas.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    And those rear sections (don't know the correct name for them)
    LH side is original, the RH I repaired earlier in the thread, so more work being undone, but for the best.
    I put a strengthening plate on, but not sure its really needed. I wont be using the jacking points due to the side skirts.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Not sure why some pics attached in the wrong orientation..... moving on.

    The floor (rear) to boot (front) panel join cleaned up from below rather than drilling out the spot welds, as mentioned earlier.
    Seen from below. That hole was cut out and a section welded in before fitting the floor panel
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    Last edited by Zakspak; 14-01-2018 at 05:58.

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Turning attention to the front now. I want to keep the patches to a minimum and also keep the construction in the same form as original, such as floor pan to front bulk head join with floor on top. My lower bulk hear, foot well area was in a bad way as you may have seen in prev pics. Lots of poor patches. My solution was cut across a line and get a piece of steel cut and folded to fit full width. I can then cut out as required later.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    With the floor out you really have access all areas. I've been able to get up into the underside of the dash panel, the tops of the side splash/kick panels and all around the bulk head to clean up and paint. I also did the bulk head heater panel repair and bear metalled the dash panel. I had some drilled hols in the dash that i'd put in, in the past but wanted to fill them so I did this with the Mig and a block of Brass.
    I was also able to get in to the RH inner A post to tidy up the repair I did right at the start.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Thanks 5tox and madragon/mark, its taking far longer than I'd planned but time has been limited. Still I'll keep plugging away.
    More to follow later
    Cheers p
    Last edited by Zakspak; 14-01-2018 at 06:32.

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Next up the floor panel arrived from TJ Motorsport. Its a big box !
    I got the one with all the brackets pre fitted. I think its worth it in time saving alone. However note it doesn't come with the seat belt lower anchor points, you have to save them from your old floor. I had to remove the LH one for the second time as I'd fitted it to the previous inner sill repair panel.
    So I had a day of prep.
    I measured off and marked up as cross reference where the rear seat cross member should go (supplied) and the correct seat belt anchor holes. This all takes some time and you need to double check every thing. I could then use all these points as datum's against similar marks on the car for fitting and alignment. I've taken lots of pics, and measurements of the original metal work as I've gone to check against also.
    I drilled the plug weld holes for the inner to outer sill joint. However as I'll explain later, that was not necessary at this point as things changed but I wasn't to know. (it's not a major)
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    The day of placing the panel in the car.
    Having done all my prep, various repairs, cleaning and painting, including carefully cleaning back the contact surfaces of the Outer sills top and bottom, rear panel and chassis rails. Note here, my car like many has had repair outer sills fitted back in the day.
    I've previously fitted a new RH outer sill, a fair few posts back. So care was taken to clean back to the original outer sill faces not repair panels on the LH side. The RH had been fitted against the datum of the original floor.
    It's a 2 man job, not because its heavy, its just awkward. I put a sheet of thick cardboard to help protect the dash and make the panel slid a little easier.

    I'm not slick enough to caption the pics so here's the sequence :-
    1- Through the windscreen panel, back low, pushing the inner sills inward for clearance.
    2- Back of the panel rests up on the rear shelf so the front of the panel clears the dash
    3- Lower forward under the dash and as far forward enough the rear clears forward of the front of the boot/rear floor panel
    4- Slide the panel back so the rear strip slips under the lip of the Boot/rear floor panel
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Job done !! No ! Once the floor was in I saw that it was not going to be as drop in and weld as I'd imagined.
    I found I had a uniform gap of 25mm down both sides where the lower edge of the outer sill contacts the floor panel, and at the back 10mm between the up turned flange and inner panel, and the front seat supports wouldn't sit down regardless of the force applied.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Well, head scratching time and lots of measuring to check the shell was still straight and square. It looks like the floor panel is too narrow across the flat pan sections but how can that be as surly they are pressed in once piece. The other option was the tunnel had been squashed together some how ?
    I'd taken advice on this from a few professional people before going ahead with the floor replacement and followed that closely.
    I checked the tunnel measurements against my original and they were good to within +1mm -3mm, so that wasn't the problem.
    The answer is the bottom of the outer sill has to be adjusted to the floor panel with some careful hammer and block work. That means the RH outer sill I previously fitted need to come off and a new one used. The replacement outer sills have a different lower profile to the originals. Probably because they were designed back in the day to go over the originals as MOT repairs not restorations.
    That rear flange also needed some fine tuning with a hammer and block as well as some flexing of my repair panels.
    The front seat supports need to be adjusted on the outer end to shorten them.
    The support from Tim and TJ Motorsport, John at Magnum panels and Andy at Andy's Body shop was great.
    Next up fixing down and welding

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Some fine work going on there Zakspak. Keep it going.

    Fitting panels is never straight forward. I feel your pain. Maybe a certain amount of 'squish' occurred getting the panel in through the windscreen? Maybe mount a couple of scissor jacks sideways inside the tunnel a gently ease the panel apart. fasten each side to your inner sills with Cleco's before welding. Its just an idea!

    If all fails, would it be out of the question to split the floor panel length ways along the top of the tunnel? That way you could weld each half in, and then add a filler strip the length of the top of the tunnel. Granted, it would be a shame to cut a new panel though.

    Hope you get it sorted without too much drama, and keep us posted on your progress. It will be great when done!

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Outstanding work youg man, keep at it. Rome wasnt built in a day either.

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Thanks for the thought BeeRS.
    I considered jacking out the tunnel, but measuring against my original its fine to within +1mm -3mm Not too bad for a pattern part.
    Actually its all sorted. My body shop guy filled me in on the finer detail of the fitting, he's done 4 of these now. Once the panel is in and squared up, you then fit the new outer sills to it, dressing the lower edge to the floor panel.
    Personally i think the floor pans are a little narrow but its very difficult to quantify that, and how many cars that need a new floor wouldn't need new outer sills ?? Its just a shame I have to remove the RH outer sill i fitted and fit a new one. But hey ho, practice makes perfect.

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Sooooo :-
    Once the panel is in, I spent some time getting it all squared up to the various datum points previously marked out.
    This was a bit of a job as I had to do it alone which meant propping the floor up on lengths of wood. A second pair of hands would have been a real bonus. You need to get the best fit possible before committing to welding.
    Getting it right requires patience and time, with lots of little adjustments, clamping as you go, checking and double checking. Once happy with the position, its time to fix it down, but not welding it yet.
    It's bolted to the chassis rails and screwed along the front to Bulk head and rear edge to rear/Boot floor panel.
    During this process I jacked the rear tunnel up to contact the rear panel, without the cross member the floor panel can sag in the middle.
    The rear cross member is only press fitted to check alignment, not screwed in. The top inner sills are only clapped at this point, but you could screw them. However some dressing is needed so the clamps allow flexibility to do this.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Once happy with the position and bolted and screwed down, its "hammer time"
    (Old git moment..... that record always takes me to a night at the Chelsea cruise, hammer time belting out from someones dust bin boot speakers, whilst a 3.0L Capri, front breaks locked, burnt his rears out on Chelsea bridge, creating a smoke screen equal to any produced by a WWII battle ship. Probably one of the reasons why the police stopped it, but some great cars and good memories)

    Using suitable blocks of wood, and mallets, that rear up turned flange was dressed to fit, along with a bit of bending/shaping as best I could of those 2 lower side repair panels I made, and once happy with the fit a couple of screws held that section in place.
    Then on to the inner sills. With a large block of wood and heavy mallet I was able to adjust them out a little. Not much, but I noticed once done the front LH section fitted nicely up against the A pillar, which is all original. Bearing that in mind I checked the RH A pillar in detail, and my lower part repair (from the replacement outer sill) is a bit narrow causing the gap in that area. So I'll fix that when I re do the RH side.
    The block of wood prevents the nice straight from ending up looking bashed and bent.
    I supported the centre of the floor panel along the tunnel with a long block of wood on a jack, to prevent it sagging/bending whilst in there welding.

    Then its welding time. Only for me across the panel front, rear, inner sill to A piller and that small side area behind the cross member as I'm going to replace my chassis rails.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    And to finish off, for now, fitting of the rear cross member. (Xmem)
    I've made a little mod here. I had 3 point harnesses fitted and I may want to use them again. In the past they were fitted with a nut, strengthening plate and bolt through the cross member. I've fitted the bolt to a reinforcement plate and welding that to the cross member and once fitted I added an extra vertical strengthener between the top of the Xmem and rear floor floor, similar to the ones at each end.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    To wind up for now :-
    The couple of repairs to the boot/rear floor panel along the rear floor join will be done when I take the rear inner arches out as access will be easier. Next up will be the front seat supports, followed I think by refitting the large tunnel I took out. That's going to need a little work before fitting. I could buy a new one but If possible it would be nice to keep some of the original car. After that its will be the outer sill replacement both sides, then the chassis rails..........

    Unfortunately I can't see a lot of action on the car over the next couple of months. One of the things that has delayed work was house hunting in 2017. All things being well, we hope to be moving at the end of Jan. So after finishing the floor to this point, I've fitted a shell skate to allow the move. The bonus is, a nice wide double garage. I'll have more room to work, and store all the car parts in one place. Currently all the wings, interior, glass etc is in my brothers spare room.

    I'll crack on as soon as possible of course, but got to keep the Mrs happy at the same time

    I'm considering putting the floor panel fitting up as a separate project for info, as I struggled to find any detailed report on how to do it. Would have saved me so much time had I not messed about with separate floor pans and sills early on.
    Watch this space, I'll be back with more asap. Cheers

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    just re read this again ! brilliant build thread love the amount of time you've taken to document and right it all up very informative thanks . I'm also looking to do a floor pan change on mine when I start it so your pics and info have been a great read source of info thanks

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Thanks Mk2-mad-ad, glad you’ve found it useful. I’ve not been able to do anything since December due to the house move but the new garage is getting set up slowly and I hope to crack on soon. It’s given me some thinking time to consider what and how to do next. Feel free to drop me a line if you want when you come to do your floor.
    Cheers

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    On the body skate. Ready to move. Jan 18
    Worth the money, its so easy to move. Like a big shopping trolley.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Feb 18.
    Arrived safe at the new garage after its first trip out in more than 20 years. Discovered the skate needs a little mod to raise the rear about 2", as the spare wheel well scrapped the floor as we pushed it on to the transporter. Fine in this current state, but the next time it's loaded on a transporter, it should be on the way to paint.
    Nothing else done, as I organise the garage, and sort the house. Hope to be able to crack on a little within the next couple of weeks.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Finally back on it. started easy with some paint stripping and rust cleaning and a coat of zinc primer (both rear quarters done)
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Got the Seat supports fitted to. Little bit of adjustment needed to both ends and the floor panel at the tunnel end (gentle hammering to increase the curved profile) to make them fit, but nothing as major as I had thought would be needed.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Also re visited the bulk/heater panel repair. I wasn't happy with how I'd finished it, so a bit of grinding back, a filler weld and some more grinding it looks much better and smoother now. Also removed the bulk head panel top flange. I put a little tack weld every 10mm just to prevent the panels opening up along the seam. Once the flange was removed, I hand finished the join with a file to get it smooth and uniform.
    This and the seat supports still need a coat of paint, but work over the last 3 days has delayed that.
    Really happy as I've managed the seat supports and bulk head work in a just 3 short evening sessions. Hopefully the new garage set up is making progress easier and better.
    New gearbox tunnel is on the way, so hope to get that fitted in the coming week, then possibly up on the "spit" and do the outer sills.
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    great work, will be an absolute cracker when finished

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Thanks Jimmy,
    Zinc paint done and Tunnel is fixed in with panel “skin pins”. Work delayed by house stuff today but hoping to get it welded in tomorrow.

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Just read this start to finish. Great job mate. Love the fact you held onto it all these years and learnt along tge way. Very much like alot of us with our escorts.

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Update time. I finished the tunnel fitting some time back. It's plug welded , and put on a few 20mm seam welds at points where it seemed more appropriate for strength. I'm going to tack weld it on under side at a future point just to make it tidy and stop any chance to the edges bending/flexing. . No pics of the fitting, but it was straight forward enough. And the new one is in contact along its entire flange, unlike Fords work (see previous posts) The "skin pin" fasteners are a worth while addition to the tool kit.
    I've kept the "manual tunnel" top panel for future, as I'll use this to fit the gear stick hole as and when.
    As you can see from the pics, I followed the tunnel up with new strengthening inside ready for hanging it on the spit. Its prob a bit more than needed but better safe than sorry. The new strengthening also allows the doors to be fitted for sill gap alignment.
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    Last edited by Zakspak; 12-08-2018 at 14:03.

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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    And up on the spit, think by the end of May 18. This needed a second pair of hands and took a little time to make sure it was all even. Discovered the rear panel at the bumper mounts is not square. More of Fords 1970's "exacting" work. It throw me at first, but its not a problem, the spit seems to cope well with these tolerances. Initially left the skate on, but thats off now as it was in the way for the sills and made turning the car on my own a bit more tricky.
    Like the skate, a spits money well spent, or time taken to build.
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    Last edited by Zakspak; 12-08-2018 at 14:19.

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  42. #76
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Next, outer sills. Remember back when the floor panel was fitted, the big gap between the lower edge of the sill and the new floor.
    Well after a lot of looking, head scratching and more looking the penny dropped. The sills need adjusting to the correct profile. When they arrive they are too open and need the bottom section bending in to make them more of a box. Hopefully the pics show what I mean. Of course the box section makes much more sense as it's a stronger/more ridged form (like a modern pressed steel door lintel)
    The replacement sill is designed I imagine for repair rather than restoration, and so is profiled to fit over the original sills. Bending the bottom section in is easy.
    I lost a lot of time over the sill fitting, just trying to work out how to get the right shape. Ultimately it was fairly straight forward and required a length of 3x2, a hammer and some clamps.
    Note also I cut the forward ends off (pic 2&3). Re-profiling wouldn't be possible, and this allows for a better fit of the "A" post section.
    Here's the profile pics :-
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    Last edited by Zakspak; 12-08-2018 at 14:52.

  43. #77
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Out of time today now, but I'll try to finish this update tomorrow morning, time allowing. Both sills are complete and I've moved on to the next job.

  44. #78
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Hi Peter, I found your build thread after you posted on mine. read it from the start what a brilliant story and better build. thanks for your offer of advice for mine should i need it, i will defiantly be speaking to you more than once i think. if my build ends up half as good as this one i will be a happy man. good luck with yours, i will be checking back and learning more thanks for sharing

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  46. #79
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Cracking job and patience is paying dividends. Keep it up as it is worth it and great updates

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  48. #80
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    Re: 1977 Mk2 Zakspeed Escort. Rebuilding my pride and joy.

    Sills.....
    a little drawing i made for myself to work out what I needed to do to get the profile right. I'm after fairly nice door gaps all around. Reality is it's that bottom section that needs bending in. The rest of it can be done by tack welding and fine tuning with a wooden block and hammer. I wasted a lot of time trying to improve the whole profile before fitting.
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