Restoration: Escort mk1 2 door with a cool history
Greetings, so this is my "hello, im new to the forum and this is my great wreckeage of a car I bought to play with" post/thread.
I bought the escort in may 2019 and while doing reasearch to plan the project I fell in love with the forum support on pretty much everything about the car, so now, 9 months later , I decided to share what Im doing with it. Mostly because I want to make myself something like a diary on the work progress and also to ask for help when im at some dead point and dont know what to do. Also, with time I was able to track down lots of history of the car including manny pictures of it being raced , which is hella exciting, so ill post about that too, but for this thread to be in cronological order I have to start at the start.
So here's a little bit about the car
Im located in europe and was seeking a car to build up (pretty much since childhood years). It had to be from the 80's or older, rwd, fun to work on, no need for power but light (!!); that was what I wanted. So one day at work my friend tells me about this add on our local-used-cars-online site about a yellow ford that had a smashed roof, manny missmached-colour pannels, a welded in roll cage (!) and was appereantly complete. Never before have I considered an mk1/mk2 escort since there are none around where im from and mostly because they are way too expensive for an almost-still-a-teenager, so I was looking at starlets, 86', kadett's, mantas, NSU prinz...but this one was really cheap; it honestly seemed susspicious but anyway.I went to take a look with my dad (who thought we were really just taking a look...hes reaction when he realised I had money for it on me was worth just about the same haha). I knew straight away that I was taking it with me; the place we just entered was pretty shocking (positively, duhh), and when I asked the seller if I can check the car for rust with a screwdriver he laughed, but wasnt bothered at all; It was solid. The car was pretty much a bare shell with no front or fenders attached and I could see almost 100% of the places that usually hide rusty surpirses. We talked a deal, the price stayed but he threw in some extra parts like capri front struts and brakes...and also told me where I could find a perfect roof with all the needed pillars on it to fit directly on the car. Also; when I was checking the car my dad and he fell in a chat and he got a picture of our thinking and a good first impression. He told us he wasnt sure of selling the car anymore because people with no knowledge or just wrong ideas came to take a look at it and he got bummed out I guess. Luckilly my dad and I are handymen and one can spot another, which convinced him that we were no tyre kicking quitters and would go on to really drive the car regularly. After that he told us that he got the car from an Austrian guy who rolled it over on a rally stage. He came to him, brought the naked crashed shell and left with another one. The seller had manny escorts in the past so that explained how he could sell the car as "all parts included" while being from 5 different ones. For me though this was exactly what I have been dreaming off.
So, heres the add pictures and what I came to when I went for "just a look". I like to documment alot of what I do so ill be posting stuff here regullarly, so follow if you like and if you have any advice, they are greatlly apreciated!
Re: Restoration: Escort mk1 2 door with a cool history
it's in great condition really, me and my friends have quite some experience with rusted cars..nothing like some of the escorts i've seen on the internet though...., but this one is gonna be a plessure to work on
Re: Restoration: Escort mk1 2 door with a cool history
First things first, we went to get the roof. It was in the Istrian part of Croatia. When we drove up to the field the owner said "it should be somewhere there...I don't remember for sure anymore, it's been a while since we took care of this land..." Not what we excepted but it was really hillarious; somewhat sceptical about the "perfect condition" of the roof but it took no more than 5 minutes to find it and inspect it, it turned out it really was rust free somehow after being sat there for almost two years (!?)...Croatian dry weather... We brought it home and moved the car from my grandmothers barn to my basement.
Re: Restoration: Escort mk1 2 door with a cool history
Next move was the engine, it came as a full package;
A 1.6 GT Pinto engine from a Capri. The 1600 GT came factory equiped with bigger valves, tubular exhaust manifold and a 2.0 Pinto camshaft. It also had a better weber carburator then the standard 1.6 but this one came with double 40' IDF Webers. With it came the 52" 3.75 ratio Atlas axle and propshaft, all included.
The owner wanted to use the engine and tune it, but after opening it decided to leave it as is, the reason being it was in excelent condition and he felt like it should stay stock, so it was freshened up and put back together. The car it came from had only done around 63.000km. It did take a few months before I found time to pick it up because we live around 6 hours drive appart, but he aranged a transport to Vienna, which made it waaay easier. In the meantime we talked quite often and he told me and showed me some pictures of what hes doing (I guess hes quite a car-boy ), including starting my engine for me to see how its running. it was really nice making the deal with him and we agreed to stay in contact.
So far all the people I've talked to or made deals were really nice, so, like the English say; Happy days (is this the right use?) however...thumbs up for the Ford-enthusiasts community
Re: Restoration: Escort mk1 2 door with a cool history
This is very recent; spent the christmas hollidays with my grandparents in Germany and while there I got my hands on these two...
the type E gerabox; cost me 25 euro (!!!!) and a two hour drive, which was well worth it. I was sure something wasn't as it seemed but only the gearstick was missing. The gearbox itself was looking sad but only due to being stored in a barn. The oil was like new, the gears turned nicely and first had the correct ratio...could not belive it was the real thing (it was advertised just as an "ford gearbox" and the pictures were pretty bad, but there were some signs that I't could be the type E, thanks to Burtonpowers gearbox identification sheet )...Small gamble big reward.
The radiator was a bit cheaper than any other I looked at...sold as used but never actually built in anywhere, just a couple of storage marks, nothing worth a mention, so I ordered that aswell and now theres just few bits missing and i can start welding the engine bay, wich im really looking forward to
because the box was so dirty we cleaned it a bit just so we could put it in the car later when driving home, so some fun for the old boys. This is the last not up to date post, did some work on the axle this week and some on the car today, so will be posting that up soon
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