This is my 1300xl 2dr mk1 that i plan to road register and take to the odd track day. this is how i brought my Mk1 back in 2013 its a reasonably long build but hopefully will be finished late this year or early next year, it was previously raced in a standard category and therefore the interior was stripped and a couple of other mods were made like heavier k-mac sway bar and 2L front struts.
just received a new rh sill and front panel off motorsport tools and hope to fit it soon
but for now am starting to mock up the rear and figure out what i need to weld to the chassis for trailing arm and watts linkage as well as seeing how much the guards will need to be flared. IMG_2885.JPGIMG_2886.JPG
decided that i want an adjustable watts linkage so have strayed away from those available for the escorts and in the mock up stages of a custom set up that allows adjustment of the rear roll centre.
Hopefully picking up 2l pinto in the next few weeks with a w50 celica gearbox setup and will begin mocking up the front end.
hoping to complete all the body work over Easter and to get the underside painted and get her down of the rotisserie. will try and upload as many pics as i can as i go.
I like the idea of carbon trims however i do not like the price that comes with them so i had a go myself heres a pic of my carbon fibre kick panel, just 5 interior trims to go. IMG_2608.JPG
found a couple of days over Easter to get a bit done.
removed the heater bubble and found the shroud rusted and a few pin holes. IMG_3093.JPG
cut out the rusted part of heater shroud from my parts car and welded it in, welded up the few pin holes and put some sealer on ready for some primer before i put the bubble back on. IMG_3115.JPG
attacked the driver side sill and floor pan, purchased a replacement sill so lots of spot welds to drill out. IMG_3101.JPG
have since fixed the rust hole in the floor pan and removed the sill ready for replacement. hopefully have the underside painted and watts linkage brackets welded in so i can get her off the rotisserie soon.
will post some photos of watts linkage during construction and will throw the drawings up if anyone is interested.
got the heater bubble welded back on and started tacking the new sill panel in. although magnum replacement panels are a good idea the fitment is certainly not perfect but i guess the cars vary so much as well. had to refit the door to check the sill was out from the body far enough little bit of bending to the panel and its all good. IMG_3165.JPGIMG_3168.JPG IMG_3169.JPG
Been a while since I updated this build thread, haven't achieved anywhere near as much as I would have liked but we can all say that have started the watts linkage assembly, have the aluminium mounting plates cut just need to drill some more holes will post photos of this when I do it. here is a shot of the diff brackets (now mounted on diff) IMG_3875.JPG here is the mounting plates sitting in place, these continue through the floor right to the top of chassis rails. IMG_4120.JPG also had the eyes reversed on the leaf springs, cleaned them up and sprayed them with some nice shiny black and cleaned up all the polly bushes. IMG_3876.JPGIMG_3879.JPGIMG_3929.JPG Also fitted strengtheners to the chassis rails inside the engine bay and patched up the fuse box hole in the firewall and neatened up a few other spots on fire wall. IMG_4073.JPGIMG_4074.JPG had a bit of a spending spree of late with buying an alloy radiator and alloy fuel cell, the fuel cell will sit in an alloy tray suspended through the boot floor. IMG_4062.JPGIMG_4114.JPG And my latest purchase (today) a fully rebuilt pair of dellorto dhla 45 carbs and redline intake manifold. the carbs are already set up for a 150 to 180hp engine so should be a good starting point. I also picked up a 2l pinto a while back for the total price of $0.00 the engine is fitted with larger valves, 1mm oversized pistons, double valve springs, piper bp300 cam and a lightly ported head. unsure on compression ratio but will be interesting to check out. anyway this engine and these carbs should hopefully be a good match although this could be an interesting car to drive on the street IMG_4164.JPG will post some pics of a bit of the bodywork i've had done reecently and some of the diff with the brackets welded on.
Haven't done to much since my last update unfortunately however i have now graduated uni and moved back home (where my car is located). mid way through last year i manage to get hold of a Toyota Celica 5 speed gearbox its not the standard W51 gearbox however it is a P50 which is impossible to get parts for however it shares all the same casings as the W51 so if it does fail it should be easy to replace with a W51 without modifications. there wasn't much cutting and shutting required to fit the gearbox as can be seen however a custom gearbox mount had to be manufactured.
However getting back onto the car these seats require seat mounts to be manufactured and anyway I do not like the look of the factory mounts, they seam rather flimsy. These mounts are lower and slightly more rearward than the factory ones, they are constructed from 30x3mm SHS with 100 x 100 x 3mm steel plates at each end to spread applied loads these plates have a hole cut in them the exact same size as the SHS to locate the rails. The bolt holes are reinforced with a 25mm bush machined from 4140 steel and welded in from the top of the rail.
Just recently I trial fitted the bonnet and boot lid i will be using and will soon be confirming what doors I'm using and will be sending the lot off to the sand blasters.
Either tomorrow or Friday the panel beater will be coming to finish off all the panel work which should put me in a good position for painting very soon. And this week I will be ordering the rear brake kit (Grenada/Siera based kit) along with a few other parts I need.
Things should be progressing a bit quicker now so will have more regular updates.
Checked how how the carbon fibre will look and i'm quite happy with it and keen to get on with making the other carbon fibre panels. IMG_7925.jpg
Made the alloy fuel tank tray and trial fitted IMG_8221.jpg
Painted the boot the same colour as the dash board and am now convinced a made the right colour choice after painting the dash i was a little concerned. IMG_8231.jpgIMG_8236.jpg
Have since done a little more but need to compress some photo's, will hopefully get this done in the next couple of days.
In the process of cutting the hole in the boot for the fuel cell tray i managed to damage some of the paint under the car (pretty obvious this would happen but i was keen to get paint so didn't think ahead) so i thought i had best touch it up before she goes on wheels. this was fine except when i touch up the paint i notice the paint that was under the car had yellowed ofr some reason, only reason i can think of is the under body paint must have leached into the base coat. anyway this meant the whole under body had to be rubbed back and resprayed, 4 more layers of base and another four layers of clear, should be well sealed now!! IMG_8491.jpgIMG_8492.jpg didn't grab any photos of it resprayed but it came up well.
Now its time for her to go on wheels, i picked up a diff off a mate chucked some paint on it that was in the gun left over from another job and chucked it under the car (sounds so simple when put like that, actually took quite some time as factory spring hanger bolts that i had didn't fit the bushes inside the poly bush in the spring, however managed to drill them out enough to fit the bolts). the centre and crown and pinion from this diff will go into my rebuilt diff until i can afford and LSD, on that note any LSD recommendations out there?
The weekend arrived and it was time to install the dummy front cross member which i roped Dad into making for me through the week, i the process of finding the cross member bolts i also found my wheel nut to suit my alloys so i couldn't help myself i had to put these on the car also. so to answer the question above it will have 13x7 jellybean wheels initial they are a bit rough and require some work to clean them up but they were the right price! (not free this time though). in the end i hope to fit 13x7 minilites with polished lip and gunmetal centres. her some photos of here outside for the first time since she went to the sand blasters. IMG_8559.jpgIMG_8560.jpgIMG_8561.jpgIMG_8562.jpgIMG_8563.jpgIMG_8564.jpg IMG_8565.jpg At that point i started to feel like i was getting somewhere, than it was time to cut the front panel out,taking it away from that almost finished look! Man was this front panel hard to get out with the guards still on the car! the only thing that's going to be worse is putting the new one back in without bending it like i did to the old one getting it out. IMG_8566.jpgIMG_8567.jpg this weekend i will clean up all around this front panel and prep the new panel ready to go in and will hopefully get panel beater back for a couple of hours next week to fix the small ding at the passengers headlight, than back on with the front panel, make radiator support and off to paint.
Over the past 12 months I have also done the converted front struts to coil overs and installed the hub hardware IMG_5503.jpgIMG_5510.jpgIMG_5511.jpg
Test fitted the rear brake assembly on the diff before i painted it all up, trailing arm brackets will need to be welded on later but still unsure if i will even install these as seen some mixed reviews. Brackets are on the car so it wont take much to install them later. IMG_6161.jpg Painted the diff up and front cross member up IMG_6660.jpgIMG_6662.jpg oh and i bought a hoist and installed it in one of the last shed spaces we had available, although the girlfriend does now have to share a parking spot with the hoist Here's my daily on the hoist IMG_7829.jpg Another order of parts arrived from the UK, including velocity stacks, few gaskets, fuel pump blanking plate, adjustable GAZ rear shocks, chassis crush tubes for front cross member (decided not to install these as they may stop me from being able to register it here in tas) and vernier cam gear oh and some locking tabs. IMG_8253.jpg Also did some stickering on a mates race car, come out pretty good i must say. Strip is a concept from my mate which i drew up and cut out. IMG_6462.jpgIMG_6467.jpgIMG_6470.jpg
Bookmarks