Simon's Mk1 Escort Project

[Simon]

A couple of other things purchased this week. A friend recently put his Mk1 Cossie project up for sale, and I have been acting like a bit of a seagull waiting for left overs! So I bought his 12V mini heater unit and fibreglass six dial dash top, which I will eventually have flocked. Thanks Nigel!

[Simon]

It’s been a while, but finally another update.

Some time ago I dressed back the welds on the heater plenum panel, but as I’d butt welded the infill panel and there was a fair amount of heat distortion after welding, the panel became quite thin in places resulting in a few hairline cracks. Oh well, live and learn!

Given that I had some “reshaping” planned for the heater plenum area anyway, I decided to cut the whole lot out and re-weld it on the bench, this time overlapping the panels and welding on both sides.



Once I was happy with it I tacked it back in place, but because I’d also shortened it up and altered the mounting angle to suit the slimline heater bubble I made a few years ago, the surrounding panels in the engine bay also needed to be altered and more infill panels welded in place. It’s looking like the changes will provide another two to three inches of space over standard which means I can sit the engine back a little further.





Once I’ve finished the plenum area, the gearbox tunnel will need to be moved back and then I can weld in a new recessed panel under the plenum. It’s probably a lot of work for not a huge gain, but it’s all part of the challenge and maintaining the heater bubble to keep it looking “right” has been the number one priority.

So that’s about it for the moment, however last night I couldn’t help myself and trial fitted the front panel, front guards and steel rear bubbles...

[PaulMK1]

Nice progress!

You're tempting me to get stuck back into mine.

[Simon]

Thanks Paul. I don't know why you stopped!

Some more progress from the last couple of weeks...

Transmission tunnel unpicked and removed. I was worried that the seat mount boxes (which I am reluctant to remove) were going to cause problems getting the tunnel out without hacking into them, but they weren't really an issue.



I've also given the welds on the heater plenum panel a quick going over. They still need a fair amount of finishing, but it should look O.K. once it's done.





I also thought I'd slot the engine and gearbox in (Ford/Mazda BP and MX5 5 speed). They're sitting high as I just wanted to get an idea as to where everything will sit, the shifter in particular.









As you can see the shifter is a long way back, so the plan is to remove the shifter turret, cut the two forward-most mounting points off, shorten the shifter rod, move the whole lot forward so the rear mounts now bolt up to the front, then weld a new mount to the back of the turret. This should bring the shifter forward 90mm and have it come up in a similar location as a Type 9 shifter.



And here's the tunnel cut for the shifter. The reinforcing panel on the under side of the tunnel also needed to be cut (as it would for a Type 9 conversion), but I'll box it up once I know the final shifter location.

[Anthony Tanzer]

Good to see it's progressing well!

[Simon]

Now Anthony, I can't tell if you're actually being encouraging, or just plain sarcastic! I suspect the latter!