Friday artwork.

Old school street hopper Cortina - lowrider culture was derrived by Mexican car modders. My Cortina design is not as cool as a proper old Impala and I've probably made a few faux pas with the paint job but Errando se aprende a herrar

End of the week arty bit.

Chocks away!!

Well D-Day has been and gone and I produced this - a Supermarine Spitfire styled Cortina Mk3 'rat look' Hardly a fitting tribute to the fallen but the sacrifices, on both sides, should not be forgotten.   

Symonds Yat Cortina Day

Last Sunday I made a trip over to Symonds Yat for the Annual Cortina Day and general Ford show.  There was plenty to see and loads of mates to chat to so I didn't take as many photos as I'd have liked.  It was my first time at this show and the car drove really nicely along those winding scenic roads in South Wales.  

I didn't prebook the car, as it was touch and go that I'd be taking the Cortina, I only had the car completed and running less than 12 hours before leaving the following morning... more on that later.  

Anyway, here are some pics from the show!

Joe's Rover V8 engined four door.  Sounded really
great.

Phil's Immaculate GT 2 door

My two door next to Buzzard's soon to be turbocharged Taunus 

Fiberglass, Cortina based Starcraft.  Kat and I would love
to own one of these, if we had the room. 

This Mk1 Cortina two door was running a 2.0l ST Zetec
with a supercharger.  It was perhaps one of my favorite non
Mk3 Cortinas at the show.  There wasn't anything I didn't like
about it and had a hankering for a Mk1 after seeing it.

Alasdair's Fantastic, totally original 1300L

An Xr6 Cortina V6 Mk5.  A rare model, my favorite Mk5
at the show.

Really liked these wheels.

Tony's recently restored and mint GXL 

After getting the interior back in and filling with fuel the other week I noticed a strong smell of petrol leading to the discovery of a few leaks along the main fuel pipe where it attached to the chassis rail. For some reason the plastic fuel line was replaced with a nylon braided flexi and forced into the chassis clips - it was from each of these clips the leaks had sprung.

  

Not having an accurate fuel gauge means (only reads from 3/4 to full) I cant usually tell how much juice is in the tank but as I'd just filled to the brim I knew trying to get the old hose off the sender without losing half the tank over the driveway would be fun.  The old hose on the sender and pump had gone rock hard and had no movement whatsoever so I had to clip at it with a pair of snips to get it off a fraction of a millimeter at a time.

I replaced the lot with a new plastic fuel line and silicon based unleaded compatible fuel hose at each end with shiny new petrol clips. I started by removing the fuel line from the pump backwards and held the pipe in the air to stop any pouring out, I then connected the new fuel pipe to the pump and routed a hard line under the vehicle working quickly at this stage to whip the old pipe of the sender and slide the new pipe over it whilst avoiding being showered by liquid dinosaurs.

  

Sorry, no photo's of this operation, I couldn't spare the hands. At one point my armpit was pooling with unleaded and I was getting as high as a kite on fumes, the camera was the last thing on my mind! It's straight forward though, especially if the tank is virtually empty.

I do not run an electric fuel pump or judging by the state of my old pipe it'd be literally spraying the underside of the car (and possibly a hot exhaust) with petrol when the ignition is on.

Please, check your fuel hoses regularaly as I have reason to believe that new unleaded fuels might be corrosive to rubber based hoses and this seems to be a popular problem experienced by people in the owners club, it could effect other vehicles too, check for dampness around joins and any cracking of the pipe on bends!

For anyone interest the chassis run of plastic petrol pipe on my Cortina has an ID (internal diameter) of roughly 6mm and an OD (outside diameter) of 8mm, the silicon/rubber hose needs an ID of 8mm as this slides over the plastic pipe, whereas the OD can be whatever you want within reason, mine is around 14mm and I bought four 13-15mm petrol clips which I was advised not to over-tighten.  Thanks to Graham, a look through those boxes turned up a plastic fuel line so I saved myself a tenner which was the admission fee to the show.  More of your old bits are slowly working their way onto my car.

New artwork Friday.

John Player Special

Floors, Cortina Mk3 Tombstone seats, matching rears.

The weather has taken a turn for the better this last week so I managed to get out and finish my floor off.

First job was to remove the sound deadening, which is an messy time consuming job to do, the bit over the transmission tunnel really didn't want to come off it put up a real fight but with a mixture of wallpaper scraper and careful use of a chisel.

I mixed up some Hammerite smooth white with some smooth blue and managed to get a reasonable colour match.  I have seen someone do the same thing to a MK1 Escort plus I like the idea of a hardwearing paint under the carpet - just incase of any leaks or spillage.  

You never know what you will find under the sound deadening - water and eventually rust creeps underneith but all the while it looks perfect as the deadening hides a multitude of sins.  I was mega lucky, when you consider how much I had to batter the scraper to get the sound deadening up it was really solid.  The slightly wobbly bits on the pans above the chassis rails are the caps Ford pop in there which are then covered in seam sealant - I've painted over this.  They must've used liters of the stuff on this car because it was everywhere and marginally worse to remove than the sound deadening.  Perhaps this is one reason it's survived so well?   

The next job was to get my Tombstones and rear seats in there.  I am really chuffed with the way it looks.  I do like the original seats so I'll keep them for the future but I think the Mk3 Cortina does look better with tombstones.  The headrest is about in the right place for me and they are more comfortable than the old seats.