Taking the Cologne V6 out.

Last Saturday was engine out day for a friend's poorly Cologne 2.8i (with early EFi setup) in his early 1971 Cortina Mk3 GXL. After a rebuild oil pressure was lost, possibly by the faulty NOS oil pump so the engine came out and he'll inspect. I guess we'll put it back in next year.  It was sitting on 2.3 mounts and mounted to a V6 HD Type 9. First things first we started with an EPIC bacon buttie, loads of crispy bacon with a slice of fried bread in between and a mug of coffee.

Joe had done a really nice job on the instal and consequently everything came apart without too much fuss, manifold lower bolts were the only awkward ones to access.

The inlet had to come off to disconnect the injectors as the multi plug was cut and soldered during installation due to bad contacts in the plug but with three of us there we soon got everything disconnected.    

We didn't start work until around 2:00pm so were losing daylight by this point, tea breaks included we managed to get it out in about 4hrs but by this point I thought we'd have to re-bolt the mounts and drop it back to alter the straps which we had tied off bit long. You need to give yourself enough room to get over the slam panel. When securing the hoist it's worth having the handle on the balancer the other side as it makes turning it easier I think. 

Things I learnt; You need enough clearance for the slam panel so dont tie the straps too long, you can get a v6 over the slam panel the last couple of inches (using actual muscle power rather than the crane) but my back now tells me cologne engines are HEAVY. Possibly the finest lesson; Joe's Mum makes the worlds best bacon butties, but future bacon sandwich testing will be required (and appreciated!!!) to confirm this as fact.

On the way home my high-beams failed, I cleaned up all the contacts and the earths and which appears to have helped.

Cortinas & Zombies. Artwork again.

What would be cooler than driving a V8 Cortina in a Zombie Apocalypse, if your companions were a samurai sword wielding girl and a AK47 toting chimp with a penchant for chain smoking cuban cigars? Not much that's what! 
South westerners might notice Bristol's Clevedon suspension bridge in the background. Does any of this make sense? Not really! But I had a laugh painting it.

Incidentally I drove my mates V8 engined Cortina last weekend and I'm still on a high from it, so much was the case I didn't even take a video or any photos at the time. What a total cop out.. I'll have to arrange another trip out. I have ran a V8 before & I enjoyed the sound and the torque of it but now I can see what the fuss is about, yes a V8 Cortina is something I need now. I might have to put that idea on hold for a few years though, it looks a much bigger (expensive) job than the V6 conversion which I already have mounts for.

Here's the bay this past summer. It's now got Edlebrock Rocker covers and associated fitting kit from the states, also an oil catch tank for the breather. I used to clean the breather fire trap out on mine every few months and it felt like it went a lot better afterwards but Joe's system is better.

Making the engine mounts / bellhousing adapter is a skilled job that I'd struggle with.

I did try on some wheels while we were outside, but they were a bit wide for my ride. They did look cool, offset has a bit more poke on the front of the Mk3 so I am guessing with my old boaty suspension it'd be catching tyres.  Odd thing is they looked fine on Joe's car but his is lowered by an inch so maybe that makes it look better (it is parked on a hill in this pic so leaning quite a bit the opposite way and opening up the arch gap..) He's having the Atlas narrowed so he can get some 8 inch wide rims on the back which we agree will look awesome.
Main things is I do want some new tyres, mine have plenty of meat on them but they are a bit old. I'll be putting some new rubber on the spare set of wheels I have when I've saved a bit more.
Weather has been frigging lousy again for working on cars this week its proper bitter outside so tools are like ice cubes at the moment. Winter has officially set in. As mentioned previously I'll get some pics up of the past couple of jobs at some point. 

Anyway.. Here's a couple of the characters from the Zombie painting so you can see how they are sketched and painted.

Sketch then inked

 Colour & Tone

Some more artwork.

I seem to have had a really busy few months and just had very little time to do anything for fun but I managed to get on with some more art this last week.

As far as my real Cortina; I need to take some photos of the last few jobs I have done, the weather has been pretty bad so I haven't taken any photos or had to abandon work when the rain starts hammering down. I'll update hopefully over the weekend.