Suspension kit hasn't still arrived, some other stuff in the same order aren't ready yet. But of course that's no problem since my project still is as it is. And speaking about it. Today I finally got pissed enough for the chassis work not to progress (Nothing has happened for ~1˝ month now) and towed the car home. We'll see how the welder acts tomorrow morning when he comes to work - we work in same place - and notices that the car ain't there no more. I expect him to be pissed as well :-D

This time I had a friend with Nissan Almera tow me, and no problems. Well, it's only 8 kilometers or so. Though had to stop once to operate the windshield wipers :-)

When we arrived at our garage, had to get something else to the other end of the rope. There rest of the way was slightly icy and as you can see, not something you wanna try with 2wd. So another Nissan to the rescue, this time with 4wd. It's no surprise there was no problems.

So, at home we are again. Guess I'll just have to learn to do all that shitty bodywork job my self :-/ Hoping to get some help from some people <3

Went to practice some welding today, but didn't quite manage it. First I installed the gas bottle to the migger, and didn't get it to work. No matter how I turned all the knobs, nothing happened in the pressure regulator gauges. Then I made a phone call and found out I've taken a wrong bottle from where the car was to be done. So I had to go back and get the right one. But that didn't still help me. Now there of course was gas and pressure, but shit god damn! Now the gas leaked somewhere and I couldn't figure out where the problem was, and I thought f it, and decided to go get some new gaskets tomorrow and try again.

I fitted the new wheels to the other side to see how they look. And they looked just fine, almost as should_be_there as the Mangels's, but they looked like a problem too. As I've mentioned before, the ET of the rims is 33 and that's supposed to be the best there is for this car, and the tire size also should be just fine. But no way Hosé. The front wheels stil come waaaay too out :-(((

The ET33 is now obviously something that works with XR2 but not with standard models. Since there seems to be no way to find any decent rims for this - and also because I like these now - there is only one thing I can do now. I've tried to avoid it, but seems it's quite impossible. So. I'll just have to get some wheel arch extensions :-/ Of course first thing that came to my mind, was to use XR2 plastic arches, but I soon realized that they fit nice only with a complete XR2 body kit and that ain't an option atm. So I'll just have to get some universal stuff. Using Golf 2 pieces is a bit lame - because of the 'easiness' - but I think they are something to I'm gonna look after now. Very easy to get and cheap too. Didn't wanna go there but .. :-/

But there is something good in that bad too. The right front wing doesn't have to be replaced now :-) There are no dent or holes or anything on it, just the wheel arch has 'blown' because of the incorrect rim/wheel before (see photo above). So, no I'll have to cut it off anyway and fit those plastics, so there is really no reason to replace it completely.

Took a closed look at the things done already too. I can't figure out why the left rear wheel arch has been cut that wide open, but won't still be a problem since the new sheet is big enough to fix that. Left front wing has been somewhat 'fit installed', almost as good as it's gonna be. Ain't still welded in yet. The left sideskirt is in it's place and it's completely done. I also took a closer look at the right sideskirt, and I really don't know if I should try to replace it. The one that was in the left was really strange - no rust, the fitment was just weird - and didn't fit so well with the front wing so it had to be replaced, no doubt about that. But since the one in the right doesn't look bad and there is really almost nothing to complain, I think I'll just leave it as it is. Of course I'll have to clean it out to see the truth, but ain't gonna replace that if no real reason can be found. The right rearwheel arch has to be fixed anyway. It's not that bad, but the whole right rear corner is made of filler or something, and it's all included in those parts I've got for the R/R job.

Those are the biggest issues to work out, replacing the front floor panels will not be that big of a problem since nobody can see the result afterward :-D There are also some smaller things to work in the chassis, but I don't know the words in English and can't find out a way to explain them, so I'll just leave them out at the moment. You'll see as the work progresses. And at this point I'll tell you that there will be corners cut, and I'll propably know it my self everytime I'm doing that, but it's the result that counts :-D

Then I started to fix the front skirt, and that was almost making me nuts before I got it all sorted out. I'm gonna weld it just over the old onem and this is where the corner cutting starts. And this is also where the fun starts too. When I tried the new skirt, I couldn't believe my eyes. I know these 'not Ford original' metal parts may require more or less fitting, but look at it! Over 1cm too wide on BOTH sides!!

How was I, a complete n00b going to get that done!? After omging a while, I took a hammer and started bending the ends 'shorter'. After banging a few times I started thinking, this can't be true. Then I realized we have another Mk1 (The '78 Ghia) here, and measured the front of it. And wtf!! The Ghia and the new skirt were a match, so my car is about 3cm narrower in the front!! Someone has crashed the front good sometime, and the repair had just started to show. While grinding the front earlier, I noticed the front has a lot of small, filled dents and stuff, but now it seems that it had been fixed in other ways too. Seems like someone has just cut away the damaged ends, bended them in and welded new wings to them. First I thought, no problem, I'll just do as I was going to do, hammer the new skirt shorter too. Fortunately I didn't start it before I realized something else. If I fix the width with the new skirt, the wings will go a bit more wider, and .. Maybe the wheels fill fit inside the arches then? Made some tests and that's the way to do it now. Don't know if the wheels will still fit 100%, but at least it will be much more likely now.

In these photos you can see how I'm going to get that 1+ cm hole done too, just by turning out the 'flaps' that are meant to be welded like ___||___ will now be bone something like ___-___. I can imagine you thinking now; 'Why dont you change the whole front end', but there's a good reason for that. I don't have one :-) It sure will now need some more welding and filling to do now, but the result will hopefully be wiser than having the front 3cm narrower :-) And of course the fitment ain't final on these photos.

After few hours I got it looking like this:

In the next edition I'll be cleaning inside the wings, try to make some small welds to keep things in their places and take a look behind the front skirt how that could be fixed.

Oh, one thing. About that filler used to flatten the front. With _no_ exaggeration, it can be found as thick as 5 millimeters :-D No photo of that at this point, but you might check this out and count the layers :-)

Got the front end done quite good imo.

Then things started to go not so good.

...but then came the day my friend came to take care of the welding business and quite a lot got done. The front skirt is done, the right wing is where it should be, that idiotic antenna hole is no longer there and a small rust under the bonned got fixed too.

The front corners will need some more work because problem with the front width. Also some rust issues have to be fixed too, got to go get some repair bits from the 1.1GX I have for parts. The left wing will not be installed anytime soon, because there is some work to do to get the 5 speed gearbox fit, and it will be a lot of easier to work around without the wing. The boot is also now patched, and the 'rear bottom' isn't there yet. The left rear wheel arch was a bit of a problem. As the previous guy - who was supposed AND PAID to do this - had cut it so much open and the replacement piece did'n fit that well. Those 10 bottles of beer my friend drank before this problem, propably made it a bit easier to cope though. In the lower left corner of the wheel arch there is quite a big shape difference, but what is filler for anyway :-D

The chassis is now almost there what comes to welding. There will be new 'floor sheets' for front seats - I have new sheet metals for that - and the right rear corner has to get some attention. We're not gonna replace the R/R wheel arch since it's not 'that bad', but the corner is so much out of order, fully made of some cement and has to be done. We'll just see how much we have to cut it open, maybe have to go up to the wheel arch. Oh. Nobody hasn't still looked under the car, there might be something to fix too 8-o

Got the suspension. OMG <3 When I adjusted the stifness of the front shock to about ~50%, I couldn't even pull out it anymore 8-o Front springs are 250lbs (quite hard, afaik?) and 170lbs for the rear. Also made a query of the OMP Rollcage, to find out if it's available in few weeks or does it take months as these things often do. Ordered a complete set of Fiesta S stripes/decals from fordstripes.com.

Stripes came. Nice. But the S for the boot is missing. They'll mail it afterwards.

Saturday, 12.2.2005

I just came from the garage. Had again 'some' problems with welding. Was going to make 10 dot-welds (to get the R/F floor tight so I can jack the car up to get other stuff done. Can't jack it with no floors, the chassis might twist), but after 5 I had to give up, it just isn't for me. All this made me think about everything there still is to do in that gategory. With those 'big things' that's not a big problem, I can allways ask my frind to do the weldings after I've done everything ready, but that will not be possible every time. There will be a lot of 'this needs to be done to be able to continue', just like today. And in those cases it's not a good method. I can't call him tonite 'could you come to weld the right side front floor so I can go on' and something again tomorrow.

So I really don't know what to do now. I've been thinking that maybe I'll just get rid of it and get me a Mk2 with a CVH engine (preferrably 1.6 ofcourse), bolt the suspension in it and drive around the track(s) next summer with it. But we'll see.

There will propably be no updates anytime soon.

Got me a Mk2, check out the link on the left.