Went to get some needed parts from my previous '82 which you propably know by now. Got a lot of useful stuff, interior parts, seats (from a Mk3 Escort, but they won't be the final seats), carpet, a huge piece of steel incl. the pandhard rod mounting point mentioned earlier, bonnet releaser etc etc etc. It was the last chance to go get those, because at the same time the guys were slicing the wreck. Noticed also that the 5 speed gearbox will be a very difficult task :-/

13.2.2002

Fixed the oil pressure and the other lights. They were all badly broken, had to take some signs from the '82. The '82 doesn't have a handbrake nor the sign, so I had to fix it with tape and some red paint. Luckily the charginglight was in a good condition, since the '76 has the orange bolt sign, but the '82 has a normal red battery icon :-)

14.2.2002

Fixed the two gray paintings in about 15 minutes :-) Started to empty the engine bay, removed everything else but the steering gear and the exhaust. Tomorrow I'm gonna get the engine+gearbox out, and get everything cleaned during the weekend. Didn't even find any strange wirings or anything else that shouldn't be like it was. The only thing that seems to bee rusted a little more than it should be was the battery tray, but really not a surprise. Lot of oily s*it everywhere, ofcourse. The R/F strut mounting seems to be a little broken.

Highlights of the day

Found the instrument panel lightning adjust (I've been wondering why the lights are so dim :-)). The alternator has still the original Ford -sticker on it :-)

15.2.2002

Today I removed the driveshafts and engine+gearbox, and washed the engine compartment. Also took them apart and washed the engine mountings. Found nothing special. A lot of hard rust in the front, but all it needs (at this point) is some grinding and paint. There has been propably been some problem with the battery some time, because the battery side seems to be a lot worse then the other side. Propably too high output from the alternator and has caused 'boilin' in the battery or somethign.

16.2.2002

The enginecompartment is now painted and it needs only some cleaner to scrub a couple of places and then it's ready to be waxed. The color and/or the paintjob is nowhere near the original, but will do for now. Painted also many other parts. The biggest thing done today, was 'making' a gearbox. I have the 1.3/1.4 gearbox from the previous Fiesta, but because it's many years newer then this car, I cant use it 'as is.' In these cars pre '80, the inner CV-joints are slightly different, so I had to take the differential gear from the '76 1.1 gearbox and put it in the 1.3/1.4 gearbox. The 1.1 final drive ratio seemed to be 4.06 which makes ~4500rpm @ ~105km/h. The gearbox I'm gonna use, has 3.84. Also modified the engine mountings, so that the engine/gearbox can be now moved up to 13 millimeters to the left.

17.2.2002

Engine and gearbox are now joined and ready to install. Nothing else done today. Headache and increasing frequency of the f-word. Had to clean the 'carage' because I can't use it on weekdays. Next week I'm gonna take it easy, maybe just fix and modify the wiring and do some other easy things.

20.2.2002

Got some parts today. Second-hand 54mm calipers from a Sierra and new 239mm vented discs from Escort mk5. The calipers are almost bolt-on, the disc diameter just needs to be machined 4mm smaller. Got also 20.64mm brakecylinders (Sierra) to the back and a new 22mm main cylinder from a mk1/mk2 XR2. The main cylinder doesn't fit the original servo unit, but that's not a problem. Ordered also a set of Mk2 XR2 springs, will need propably mk2 front shocks too. Hopefull more to tell about the front brakes tomorrow.

22.2.2002

The engine is now there where it belongs. Started to make the exhaust.

23.2.2002

The exhaust is done now. The rear part is unmodified 1.4 Mk2 rear pipe. The front was made of Mk2 1.4 frontpipe, but had to be modified a_lot before it was okay. The support of the engine is done differently in Mk2, so it didn't fit at all. The silencer was cut of and thrown away, and some other mods had to be done too. Unfortunately I didn't take a 'before -photo' :-/ Also connected the gearlinkage, dismantled and washed all the 4 cv-joints and fitted the driveshafts. Some wiringwork was also done. Tried again to fit the Sierra 239mm brakes, still some problems. Installation of the Mk4 Escort i radiator also almost done.

24.2.2002

I was going to make it startable today, but didn't achieve that. Especially the coolingsystem was a pain in the butt. The hose between waterpump/radiator took approximately 2½ hours of work, and the result still doesn't satisfy me but I'll see how it works. The mounting of the alternator is also as tight as in my previous Mk1 CVH. Electrics are almost done, a few wires and the distributor to do. Installed the inlet manifold and the carburettor. Coolingsystem still needs the expansion tank. Have to make new waterlines to it since the radiator doesn't have a cap and the water has to be filled from the exp. tank (different system thank orig Mk1). The original radiator fan won't do, I'll try a 9" universal.

27.2.2002

Made some more wirings, installed the distributor, fuel pump and did some other stuff. And then we were ready to start. First I ran the engine with the starter without spark to get oil pressures up and gasoline to the carburettor. And after connecting the coil cable, it just started :-D And it runs incredibly smooth, much less mechanical noise than on my Mk3 1.6 CVH etc. Also no other noises, not from the exhaust, not from the alternator (very close to the chassis) or anywhere else. The expansion tank is a slight problem now, since I had to make another outlet to it (different kind of radiator and water circulation) and it doesn't seem to fit anywhere :-) It heats up very slowly, propably because of the thermostat which is very cold because in the previous car it had some overheating problems due the 1.1 radiator. Now that I have the Escort Mk4 1.4/1.6i radiator, I can change the thermostat to a warmer one. Also the radiator fan has to be installed somehow. There are no brakes in the car yet and the gear linkage isn't ready so no testdrive today.

6.3.2002

After a few (?) days loss of interest, got something done today. Headlights and the hood are installed. Tried to adjust the gear linkage, but it's a terrible work to do alone, so only reverse can be found at the moment :-) Connected the clutch and accelerator cables. Installed a 12" universal fan, and finished the radiator mounting that has caused some laughters. Can not understand why :-) And even drove it today! Only about 50 meters and on reverse gear, but anyway :-)))

7.3.2002

The gearlinkake is now much better, all gears can be found. Still need some adjusting, R is now very hard to find. Front brakes are now done, the maincylinder still needs to be done. Also nothing done to the rear yet. Got 'new' rims from a Capri GT. Gonna paint them tomorrow. I'm hoping to get complete testdrive on saturday (Its thursday now).

8.3.2002

Bad news. The rims don't fit with the updated brakes. Sold them. With Escort mk4 original 13" steelrims there is about one millimeter between the brake caliber and the wheel, but they don't look very nice, do they? The 14" Miglia F5's from my Mk3 are ok, but they don't belong to this car. Borrowed one Miglia Jody 13" from a friend, will see about them tomorrow. Got the main brakecylinder installed, forgot the fluidreservoir at home so nothing much was really done today. 'A little system' had to be made to get the brake parts fit.

9.3.2002

After bleeding the brakes, it was time for a test drive. Runs okay, only the F/L brake makes some scraping noise. Propably the brake caliber isn't grinded enough and it touches the brake disc. It already 'came better' so it will propably go away itself. The front wheels adjustments have gone bad and the car doesn't really go straight very well. But I won't do nothing to that before I get the new springs. Also the weather is very bad today (snow, water, wind) so that may cause some strange behaviour to the car too, the roads are _very_ bad. The first test drive ended quite embarassingly, had to call my friend to tow me :-) Nothing mechanigal though. Just that I drove somewhere I couldn't get away from with my 0mm treadwear summertires :-) Now I'll just have to wait for better weathers to find out how the car runs and how the brakes are.

Late night update The weather became a bit better later today, took a ~60 kilometers testdrive. Propably some crap etc on the carb, doesn't always run so smooth. Otherwise ok. At +2 celcius degrees the engine runs quite steady at 86-89 degrees. The fan starts at ~84 deg, but the temperature doesn't seem to go low enough for it to stop at all. I'll try a warmer fan sensor, maybe 92/86? So the engine gets a bit warmer, and the fan/radiator can cool it to 86 (and less) to get the fan to stop?

14.3.2002

Got 'new' 13" Mangels :-) 175/70/13 will be the tiresize for now. Gonna drive around with it tomorrow evening :-)

15.3.2002

On the road tonight. At 4th gear & 5000 RPM some fuelproblems. Think it'll take +200 RPM or so when everything is right. Speedometer error increasing after 50km/h. 70 @ speedo = 74km/h, 80 @ speedo = 90km/h real. 140 on the speedometer when 4th/5000 RPM. Fiesta Mk2 & 1.4 & 4 speed should take 165km/h.

20.3.2002

Started fixing the interior. I dismantled almost everything, only the dash was left. After removing the carpet, things started to look kinda sad. On the front there were old wet newspapers all around, and below them there was the rusty floor. Fortunately I found only one place that needed welding, and that of course the place were all the water had came in. The saltwatered newspapers had rusted the whole front floor, but it was hard everywhere else, so it looked much worse than it was. Also the terrible seatcovers were removed and LOL what I found :-))) The seats were still the original 76 S seats with that hilaroius fabric :-) I've seen them in some old brochures etc, and I was really happy to see that I was wrong when I thought earlier that they had been changed to some other Ford seats during the years. The rear seat was almost in 100% shape, just a little bit dirty. In the co-driver's seat the fabric was also 100% undamaged, but the seat itself was at the end of it. It was very soft and the mechanisms didn't work very well anymore. But the driver's seat. There isn't much to do with it. On the back the fabric is torn badly in 3 places, and on the seat there is some white paint that propably won't get off :-/

A friend of mine fixed the floor, and I started fighting with the neck rest to get the co-driver's seat eventually fixed. Note, the the neck rest on the photo is only for practice, since it was a real pain in the arse to get it off before I was told how to do it. More about that on the tips'n tricks when I get that done.

21-30.3.2002

After the floor was welded, I cleaned it completely and put some noise insulator plates (yeah yeah, terrible language :-)) on the floor and so on. I didn't want to spend that very expensive spraypaint here, so I just painted it here and there with red primer. At the moment I was doing this, I thought I had thrown the original carpet away so I decided to grab the carpet from the '82 and clean and use it. But then I noticed that it was gray instead of black that it should be in this car. So I just hoovered it well and painted it with black spray :-) This may sound strange, but seems to work just fine. And took only 3 spray cans :-) Later I found that I still had the original carpet too, but since I had already installed this 'new' and the original was in bad shape, I decided to let it be for now. The new carpet needed some modifications to fit, since the frontseat's rear mountings are a in a bit different place on '76 and '82 models.

The door panels got a new look with a touch of Autoglym intensive tar remover followed with black vinyl paint. The vinyls on the doors, above the door panels were left alone at this point. I'm going to give them something from the Autoglym program, but that's not important at the moment. Actually, afaik they aren't even original, so I'll propably remove them sometime. As I told earlier, the rear seat was almost perfect and needed only some cleaning and it was almost as good as new. And what comes to the front seats, I bought a pair of '81 (?) S model seats from Heikki Salovaara and installed the driver's seat as-is, and replaced the fabric for the co-driver's seat. Was a tricky job, but I'm glad I did it. The fabric isn't 100%, some white paint still on it, but will do for now. Read more about this in the tips'n tricks when I get that done. ATM I'm kinda looking for a way to get the other front seat 'original' too. On the front doorpanels there are these nasty holes someone has put up to fit some terrible speakers :-/ Can't do much about them. I'm going to put new speakers in there, but I'll use the old Blaupunkt speakercovers which came with the car.

Something 'technical' has been done too. I replaced the front springs and shocks with Mk2 Xr2 parts to get it going a bit lower. It came about 45 millimeters down and that was a bit too much but I got it fixed. And again, find out more on tips'n tricks. Mk2 Xr2 rear springs coming some day too.

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