Race Engine Forum UK

Unfortunately due to the weather progress has slowed, as it is very difficult to feel your fingers when the temperature is hovering around freezing all day.
Also my little electric fan heater packed in the other day.
I hopefully will have the car on the road in Stage 1 level of trim by start 2014. I will keep this thread as up to date as possible along the journey. I too like to see projects step by step, it really gives you a proper idea of what you have to go through along the way.
This is my second major project, my first was a 1986 Fiesta XR2 which i unfortunately sold years ago when i ran out of funds, but i am glad to report this car is still on the go and raced regularly in and around Brands Hatch & Lydden Hill.
Very busy with lots of projects at the moment, maybe i might start a different thread with other projects including a X300 Jaguar, Series 1 1/2 E-Type 4.2 and my soon to be daily driver again Alfa 156 GTA.
Glutton for punishment.
The box of bits that seems to be piling up for stripping and cleaning is getting very large, so i really do think i need to get myself in gear and invest in a blasting cabinet.

First of all i would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year.
To business, unfortunately i didn't get to work on the car as much as i would have liked due to bad weather, illness and in-laws.
Please see below some of the finishing touches i made to repairing the rear passenger side arch.

A few more pictures of progress, next step is cleaning to bare metal, treating rust with Kurust and rust inhibitor. Will then prime and spot, seam weld new panels into place. Hopefully i will be able to move onto other panels soon and getting car ready for paint.

So a quick update on the progress, i had a whole weekend to carry on with the car as the wife was at work. Unfortunately i didn't make the progress i wanted to due to the bad weather but that is the way it goes.
I will upload pictures tomorrow but to summarise
- Rear arch was cleaned up ready to spot weld on lip to allow spot welding of new outer arch repair section
- Rear arch inner lip was rebuilt and spot welded in place to accept outer panel
- Outer arch repair section was punched with holes to allow the panel to be spot welded with a MIG torch
- Lower rear corner panel repair section was fabricated and fitted on inside of panel
- Outer lower rear corner repair section was punched (really great little tool which is handheld and easy to use) with holes to allow panel to be spot welded with MIG torch
- Slight rusty areas were treated with rust removing gel after cleaning up with wire wheel
- All bare metal was then painted over with paint to help prevent rust forming, this will be cleaned up later when panel is fitted
(Still got to cut out all the sound deadening from inside rear quarters as it very much like builders foam, but i have to remove as it will probably catch fire when i come to weld on panels)

I then focused my attention on the front of the car where i noticed that the front of the passengers sill behind the wing was corroded and a hole was found.
Therefore i had to remove the front wing, however to do this properly i had to remove the complete dashboard to allow access to the door mounting hinges.
- Front passenger door was then removed to gain access to back of wing where spot welds had to be drilled out.
Unfortunately my spot weld drill was absolutely useless so i found myself using a 8mm drill, so i will have to come back and weld up all the drill holes.
- Once the front wing was removed i started to clean up the inner wing areas and lower front section of sill, i have parts on order so all this rusty poor will be cut out and replaced with fresh metal.
I was quite pleasantly surprised as i was expecting to see a lot of rot behind the wing but, it is really in good condition for an old ford.

After removing the wing i think i will also do the same to the other side and i will try and keep the wings so i can bolt them on and off, as the long term plan is to fir fibre-glass front wings

The only parts that now need attention on the passenger side include rebuilding the wind drip rail and i need to tackle a lower chassis leg which has had a very poor repair at somepoint. Then i just got to do the same on the other side.

Pictures to follow

an interesting catalogue Will, evident skill and careful thought going in to it..

thanks for taking time to publish it and please keep doing so!

G

Thanks Guy, its my pleasure.
I quite enjoy keeping a good record as it lets me see where i have come from when it is finally finished.
To be honest i don't really think i ever want to truly finish this car as it will just be a development fun tool for many years to come.
Also i have never followed or even found a full in depth Capri track project which surprises me, so i wanted to be able to provide so others can see which direction i took.

So please see the pictures as promised

Few more pictures, showing how involved it is to remove a wing correctly.

I should be able to repair the wing mountings so that i can convert the wings to bolt on/off rather than spot weld on. I have found that i can buy fibre-glass wings relatively cheaply now i have found a supplier so i may look into this?

Will

Hello, Firstly I really admire you dedication to take on a basket case in a small garage with what looks like limited resource head on....well done!!. I really hope you complete it, many fail when the reality of the work load finally dawns, which usually doesn’t take long. As my old Machinist instructor used to say "BE COMITTED"
I know how it is I've spent months and months endlessly shaping tin and welding and grinding and setting fire to everything including myself on old fords in similar states. Stick with it and when it's painted its all down hill from then on trust me.

I have one piece of constructive criticism though be it a little too late; if you can at all avoid it try not to be tempted to remove metal that does not need to be. I defiantly would have tried to avoid welding in that whole arch repair section (from poorly made pattern panel suppliers no doubt). I find that rule of thumb is to only remove what needs to be removed in Tin terms. I know it’s difficult to access inner wheel tubs in most cases, but if you'd have only removed what was rotten you could have cut sections from the pattern arch and stitched them in. It would save having to do that huge arch weld right across the rear quarter which would surely distort it no matter how hard you try not too. You would then have avoided seeing the seam from inside the boot too.

Keep up the good work

Nix

excellent 1st-hand practical advice Nix

G

Hi Guys, thanks for the advice.
I pretty sure i can stick with it, when i was at university i completely restored the shell on a XR2, however i do remember having issues with arch repair on that.
The last few years all my spare time has been spent repairing and keeping some old cars running. Without it i think i may lose the plot, i am never happy unless i am tinkering.
At the moment i am trying to juggle quite a few cars, so if i start getting bored of one i can move onto the other. I believe this to be a great idea as it allows you to get a rest from doing particular work.

A little off topic now but I have an Alfa 156 GTA that is my daily driver which i am constantly upgrading( i will setup a separate thread when i have time), i also have a Jaguar XJ6 X300 which i have been rescuing so my Father can use for Wedding Hire. We also have two Jaguar E-Types in various states of repair(although i get an experienced welder in for these) and i might have another Classic (TBC) in soon that i will have to keep upto scratch.

Back on topic however, i have some other vehicle parts and accessories that i have been able to sell, which should give me some much needed cash to buy some more repair panels.

Just thought i would give another update after the weekend.
Luckily this time i had the help of my wife who is interested in learning important restoration skills.
We cleaned up the inner wing area to get a better view of work that is required, however this opened up an area which someone had filled.
You will see from photos that the top of the inner wing need patch panels to repair. Not the best of jobs but it will be mostly hidden from view so i not worried.
The inner wing drip rail required quite a bit of work and i took the opportunity to strengthen it a little as the wings will be bolted on in future, my wife likes the idea of fibre-glass wings so that is a bit of a relief.
i also decided to give the front headlamp bowl a little clean up, however again it was obvious someone had filled full of filler!
Luckily i do have some repair panels left over from my old car so these will be put to good use.
To finish all the work we gave the bare metal a paint over with cheap paint to stop metal rusting up.

A few more pictures showing progress of rebuilding inner wing drip rail.
I took the cheaper option of fixing this up my self with DIY repair panels as the replacement drip rails are very costly, which i just cannot justify
I am still wanting to make sure this restoration lasts a good few years, so i am contemplating whether the car will be dipped after all repair work has been carried out. Failing that i may blast clean the shell ready for paint.

So after spending the weekend with my wife getting on with the project, i was asked why are we going to race this?
After a little time i really couldn't answer with something sensible. After a little discussion we have come to the conclusion that indeed putting in all this hard work in order to race would be pointless as it is going to get bashed up.
So we have decided to bin the rules and regulations which were the initial idea for the car and now we are just going to try and make the best car we can for trackdays and generally having some fun in.
At least this way i am not governed by any rules so we can now also look at the idea of different future engine ideas.

We have come up with a short list of engine ideas, but i not really at that point yet so at the moment they are only dreams.
- First off is keeping the 2.0 Pinto Engine as is with maybe a little tweaking at least so we can get the car driving. Then maybe rebuild as a fast road/track engine
- Second idea is to keep it Ford and fit an Essex 3.0 V6 (don't really like this idea)
- Third idea is to go down the route of Rover V8 as many parts are available and it is a lightweight engine compared to the standard pinto
- Last idea is to go down the more modern route of fitting an Alfa 3.0 V6. This is mainly because my daily driver has one and i really like it as an engine. My younger cousins who are studying Engineering may also give me a hand with wiring this up with individual throttle-bodies using some sort of Megasquirt injection setup?

As the initial idea has changed for the car now, we will spend a little more time to make sure everything is done as well as possible at least while we still can. Hopefully once done we wont have to do any repairs for a very long time.
I am also now looking into getting the car dipped or even sandblasted once we have finished the repairs to the shell.

I knew it would go this way, so much so I nearly suggested it!

Engine? A GC Fiat TC of course!

G