Light at the end of the (transmission) tunnel.

With the engine bay repairs completed it was time for the engine modifications. It all started with an ST170 engine from a 2004 Ford Focus...

When fitting a Zetec engine into a mk1 Escort a number of modifications are required. The engine comes from a FWD Focus, and we're putting it into a RWD Escort. As such the sump fitted to the engine originally is the wrong shape and would foul the crossmember in the Escort. Several more engine parts need replacing too.

Cue this quite expensive bundle of parts from Retro Ford. The flywheel is a Zetec item, machined to accept the Pinto clutch. Also pictured are the engine mounts, water rail kit, oil pick-up pipe and dipstick tube.

They are all pretty nice items. The sump especially is a quality piece of kit. There are cheaper options available to those wanting to do this conversion. A modified sump from a donor car made to fit might be slightly cheaper, but this sump does look the business.

These engine mounts sit the engine in just the right place in the bay. It was always going to be a tight squeeze. At this stage it wasn't yet clear just how tight it was going to be, but more on that later.

The water rail assembly streamlines the back of the engine and allows valuable bulkhead clearance over the standard items. Bulkhead clearance is something that is perhaps always going to be in short supply when trying to fit a bigger engine into an older car. Clearance in general is in short supply. Why make life easy for yourself?

So, old sump off and removal of old gasket!

After a nice clean up of the old sealant from the block face and journals it was time to fit the new oil pick-up pipe.

A special bolt (part of the kit from Retro Ford) replaces a stock bolt and provides support for the new pick-up pipe.

I was pretty pleased with how this all went together. When things go together smoothly it's an exciting time in any build. Visualising the first drive before the engine is even in the car. There's still an awful lot of work to do.

With that all tightened down and looking decidedly mechanical it was sump fitting time. 

Following the supplied instructions the new sealant was applied to the journals and not the block face.

Then the sump slipped into place..

  and the initial engine build was complete.

The Ford Type 9 gearbox is a pretty good choice for this conversion. It's found mostly in Sierras and later Capri's. The bolt pattern is the same on most Ford blocks/bell housings, which is handy.

The clutch fork can be seen here with new bearing in front of it. It is possible to go for a hydraulic clutch conversion. It's more expensive than the cable option. Benefits would include lesser pedal effort and possibly more reliability but the cable is a pretty simple set up really. It's not sophisticated but there's not much to go wrong.

Gearbox and engine are introduced to one another. Off they went into the engine bay smoothly without a care in the world.

Unfortunately that isn't quite what happened. The engine and gearbox had to have a temporary separation in a series of attempts to try and fit the two into the car. It turns out that with a standard gearbox tunnel the combination of Zetec engine and Type 9 gearbox simply will not fit. I had read that the fitting of a Type 9 gearbox into a mk1 Escort would only require minimal tunnel massaging. So I massaged minimally. Then I massaged slightly more. However this is when a Type 9 gearbox is added to an earlier engine thus leaving the location of the gearbox largely unchanged. Zetec conversions actually move the gearbox back a bit.

The solution to this is to chop out the existing tunnel and put a new, larger one in. So out came the angle grinder and sure enough..

The engine is now sat in place with the gearbox attached.

The next post will include details of the tunnel modifications and the making of a nice new gearbox mount! 

Bodywork and paint

To say that bodywork takes quite a while is a bit of an understatement. Templates, cutting out the steel, welding it in, preparing it for paint. All of these things take a lot of time.

In the last entry I detailed what my plans were for taking care of the rust problem in the suspension turret. The above and below photos give an idea of the size of the strengthening patch needed, albeit covered in a bit too much filler at the time of the photos.  

The adjoining bulkhead area received the same treatment. The existing lip section of the bulkhead had all but rotted away and a past owner of the car had used a fair amount of filler to provide a temporary solution. After stripping away the old filler, new metal was welded in, then filler used to smooth it out.

Next up was primer.

Followed by a lovely bit of blue!

 

I opted to use a cellulose paint with an acrylic lacquer. The results are pretty good in my opinion. Although I'm sure a professional paint sprayer would find fault with the finish, I'm happy with it.

The lacquer adds the shine in the sunlight. It just needs a bit of a polish up and then it'll be done and onto more assembly.

Hopefully the next post will see an engine between those wings. 

The mk1 Escort Begins

Why would a young man who already owns two cars need another? A few years ago a colleague of mine began talking about something he'd seen on Top Gear and then paused and asked me 'Are you into cars?' as if he needed my consent to continue with his story. The reply I gave seems silly to me now. I said 'Yeah, a bit.' Almost instantly I realised that what had come out of my mouth wasn't actually accurate. I was into cars but up until that moment I hadn't really considered myself a 'car guy.' My enthusiasm for cars, bikes, engines and all things automotive had always been present. The trouble is that as a hobby it requires lots of time, money and space. Those three crucial elements, until quite recently, had never presented themselves at the same time. If truth be told, space is still an issue, there's not an abundance of time and the money involved in joining the mk1 Escort game is alarming to say the least... but no great thing ever starts with 'so there I was in my comfort zone...'

So with prices on the rise and only going one way I took the plunge. I bought this mk1 Escort recently and had it trailered to its new home.

For a car from 1972 it doesn't need much welding. Mostly because a whole lot of welding has been done prior to my purchasing the car. All in all it's really a pretty good, clean example with minimal work required to the body of the car.

The main areas I've been tackling so far are small pieces on the bulkhead. Underneath where that new plate is being welded in there was a copious amount of filler. Getting back to bare metal took a while. The plate will be shaped further and all the welds ground back and smoothed.

Under the arches all looks good and the car came with these 8 inch wide Alley Cat wheels.

This is perhaps the worst area on the car. The strut tops have been plated at some point, but there is currently a bit of a mess underneath which was hiding under a fair bit of filler. There's an area approximately 4 inches by 3/4 inch which all looks a bit like a rusty mess (covered in weld-through primer in the above photo). I plan to plate it. If the rot had been more extensive it might have been time for new inner wings but given the relatively small area of instability caused by the rust a sturdy plate should be sufficient. 

With the bank account recovering now and parts deliveries trickling in it's shaping up to be a fun project...

More soon!

Fuel's Gold

After upgrading the carburettor, exhaust and air filter the car initially went well. I had plans to have it properly set up on a rolling road to really get the best out of it but unfortunately it developed a peculiar stalling issue. The car would perform well under heavy throttle application and light throttle application but would really struggle in between the two. So much so that going along at a constant pace was impossible as the car would stall and then pick up again quite violently as the power dipped and then returned. 

Further investigation under various load levels revealed that the problem was intermittent - intermittent but happening most of the time as opposed to intermittent and happening only occasionally. This ruled out anything as rigid as ignition timing. The most obvious solution was fuel supply. Given that the newly installed carburettor was believed to be in good working order the fuel pump seemed like the next logical component to look at. 

The fuel pump on the Mini is driven by the camshaft and works by moving a small diaphragm up and down to pull fuel from the fuel tank and provide enough fuel for the carburettor to feed the engine. In short, it turned out that the fuel pump on my car had been replaced at some stage in the past - not uncommon, it is 20 years old after all. However, it had been replaced with the wrong pump. An aftermarket alternative designed for the 998cc model. The 1275cc engine originally came with the larger fuel pump. The aftermarket, smaller, cheaper pump is capable of providing just enough fuel for the hif38 to power the 1275cc engine but when I upgraded the carburettor size it demanded too much.

So it was time for a shiny new part! 

At around £50 the proper SU fuel pump wasn't the cheapest way to rectify the problem. I could have installed an electric pump for about £35. For simplicity of installation it's hard to argue with the mechanical option though.

The new part on the left is quite a bit bigger than the old one, which was quite reassuring when I compared the two side by side.

 Before I had realised the fuel pump was the issue I'd tried adjusting the mixture screw to no avail. It didn't solve the problem because technically there was nothing wrong with the mixture. The SU carb allows you to set the mixture at idle and then the profile of the needle within the carburettor takes care of the air/fuel ratio further up the rev range. The small capacity fuel pump seemed to perform fine when the car was idling. It gave a false impression of the fuelling overall though so a correct adjustment would have been hard to achieve. With the new fuel pump installed and a tweak to the mixture the car ran right again!

Now it's MOT time again. That came around quickly..

The Quest for Power

I'd always toyed with the idea of increasing the power a bit. The 1275 non-Cooper models for the most part came with the hif38 carburettor and quite an easy way of getting a bit more power is to fit the larger carburettor from the hif range, the hif44. To buy them new is silly money, luckily there are plenty around as they were used on many different vehicles.

To compliment the new carburettor, a new exhaust manifold, inlet manifold and air filter were purchased.

The difference in size can be seen here. On the left is the hif38, and the right the hif44. The simple theory of more fuel in, more exhaust gasses out smoothly carries on when the shape of the exhaust manifold is considered..

The replacement manifold, as well as being lighter than the old one, is also a better shape. The 'LCB' or 'Long Centre Branch' exhaust supposedly increases torque over the standard manifold.

Quality piece of kit!

As my car is a 1994 model with a catalytic converter I needed to make a piece to fit between the end of the new manifold's Y-piece (seen at the far end of the pipe in the above picture) and the cat itself. I used the flange cut off the old exhaust and bent and welded a new short section in to bridge the gap.

The new carburettor fully mounted up on the new inlet manifold.

All fitted into the engine bay nicely.

The next step is to get it rolling road tuned properly. It's running at the moment and certainly feels like it's got more grunt than it did before but to really get the best out of it the rolling road is next!