Mk1 Escort | Mk1 Escort

March 19, 2019 General, Mk1 Escort Videos

Mk1 Escort Rebuild – Retropower Gordon Murray Episode 13

In this episode we get a catch up on progress with the car prior to it going in for exhaust fabrication

Here’s Episode 13:

Transcript :

”

coming back to the front of the car has

led me to think about one of the things

I’m quite proud of on this guy

we were talking last time about the sort

of parts that we’re getting done

elsewhere and almost straight after

filming the last episode the fuel tank

arrived so that’s a good place to start

fuel tank was designed by us and

fabricated by Bob at concept Racing who

we kind of give all of our sort of weld

porn aluminium fabrication if you like

just because he’s a pretty good at that

sort of thing

and so when we had the car bare metal we

fabricated a plinth at the bottom there

to sit the fuel tank on – we didn’t kind

of integrated the design where the fuel

tank was going to see it and we

integrated mounts into the shell for it

then we did the actual drawings for the

tank itself it’s a foam filled tank it’s

got a video tube type sender in there in

the middle of the top which has got a

float in the middle for the feed to the

gauge and then it’s got a drop-down pot

in the middle under here which drops

into a recess that we actually

incorporated into the body shell and

that’s only connected to the main part

of the tank via some very small holes

and that’s that’s sort of your main part

of your anti surge protection so when

when the tanks reasonably low on fuel

and your cornering hard or breaking

accelerating hard doesn’t matter where

the fuel sloshes in the tank that pot

will always have their sort of reserve

of fuel in it so there’s no interruption

to the fuel supply to the engine so that

pot then feeds this Bosch fuel pump here

basho 44 pump out the filter and then

out through these bulkhead fittings

which run to the front of the car via

the fuel rail and back again and then

the return goes back into the pot so the

fuels always being circulated in the

return of fuel feeds back into that pot

making extra sure that that pot always

has a reserve of fuel in it and then the

phone filling on the tank obviously

helps as well that just means there’s

literally like an open cell

fuel resistant foam that fills the hole

fills the whole of that tank so when

you’re filling when you fill the tank

with fuel effectively it’s kind of

absorbed into a large block of foam if

you like which means that it can’t

quickly slosh around the tank as well

which also helps with the anti surge

there are a couple of details on the

design of the tank the we always

designed it so that the tank would

overhang the fuel pump and filter so we

could do a trim panel off the back of

here which then hides those fuel system

components and that’s what this flange

at the top here part part of it was to

mount this and vent line here and the

other the other reason for that was so

we could mount the trim panel and the

venting we’ve done on the tank is also a

relevant thing to talk about we’ve got a

dash six spigot in both sides at the

front here and then a smaller – through

both sides at the front and there’s two

reasons you need to vent the tank one is

as the fuel expands or contracts or

you’re actually using the fuel obviously

air needs to be able to go into the tank

to take up the space as the fuel level

drops so the small vents in there for

that kind of induced venting if you like

the other venting thing is literally

just a filling issue when you fill the

tank air can actually come out through

the filler neck but you’d probably

always have this it works fine when

you’re jerrycan it but when you use if a

fork or petrol station pump the air rush

up the neck actually clicks the pump out

and you’re you have loads of problems

with the pump clicking out if you don’t

vent it higher than where the end of the

nozzle is which is why and in most cars

particularly all the cars you’ll see

that there’s a vent off the side of the

filler neck a little way down from the

cap which is actually venting air from

the tank out through the filler neck but

above the point of the end of the filler

the nozzle of the gun and that’s what

we’ve done we’ve got a big connection

both sides here they two together and

then they’re attached to a spigot on the

side of the filler neck here so when

you’re actually filling the end of your

filler gun will be down here so the air

is venting out above that but it’s still

coming out and through the actual filler

hole and the reason we’ve got on both

sides is so that regardless of even if

you were filling the car and a slight

slope you would still be able to brim

the tank completely

and if you’re coming up announces other

we wanted to actually use the original

escort

cap so we’ve got the very end of the

original escort filler neck and cut it

off

that’s moil steel so that we’ve then

made the rest of the pipe in mild steel

so we could weld it to that and then

that’s actually been galvanized which is

the only bit on the car that’s

galvanized most of the mild steel parts

zinc electroplated galvanizing as a

dipping process it’s literally like you

could imagine it as basically dipping

something in molten zinc so that

definitely coats completely that pipe

inside and out so you don’t get any

corrosion I mean obviously we could

obviously paint the outside as well but

the inside wouldn’t get any coating on

it and that would mean over time the

inside of that pipe would would rust

actually is obviously an issue we did

the mounts for that when they when the

shell was a bare metal shell especially

touch on the reason the batteries here

may mainly because of the space in the

engine bay is seriously a premium there

wouldn’t really be room in there for the

battery given that the dry sump tanks in

the engine bay but as an added bonus

it’s also helping with the weight

distribution gets a bit more weight in

the back obviously on earth in a car

light it’s whether you’ve got the engine

and transmission at the front the axle

is a lot lighter than that and you do

end up with a bit more weight at the

front than the back so having a battery

at the back and the spare wheel will go

the other side we actually modified the

side of the floor there so we can get a

full-size spare wheel the same as all

the other ones on the car in there which

means you still maintaining a reasonable

side-to-side weight balance with the

spare in the battery and shifting a bit

more weight sort of towards the back of

the car to help balance out from the

front to rear weight the boot area is

completely sealed from the cockpit of

the car so there’s no fuel risk of fuel

vapor coming out into the car and also

obviously if there was an accident then

and the burst the fuel tank there’s no

risk of that getting into the front of

the car or it happen to be a pretty

serious accident for it for that to

happen this sort of complication to the

pole cutting was that there’s a air

outlet vents here at the back of the

windscreen which which helped with this

through flow of fresh air through the

car that air has to come out somewhere

which is what these are and then there’s

actually a passageway under the scuttle

here

which leads to these holes on the parcel

shelf that just provided a little extra

challenge on the bull getting because if

we literally built headed straight

paneled straight across under here to

block up these it would have blocked off

that airflow so we’ve done we’ve

basically done like a little sort of

panel that creates a cavity if you like

under there and actually duct the air

from here to here still open but blocks

off completely from the boot area so

that’s not battery cable obviously then

feeds through the car to the front so

I’ll show you where that comes out

so although you can’t see it the battery

cable comes through the car and then

comes up to a little through bulkhead

panel connector on the bulkhead behind

the airbox there on the car side it’s

there’s a second connection which splits

off to feed the PDU and then on the

engine bay side there’s a cable coming

off from there to the starter motor and

then from there to the alternator but

coming back to the front of the car has

led me to think about one of the things

I’m quite proud of on this guy which is

the bonnet release which on these early

cars was just a button in the grille on

the later cars they had a cable inside I

think we talked about this last time in

fact we might have might have seen it

being done but now we’ve had it black

anodized you can kind of see the full

effect that it looks for all the world

like it’s just the normal light style

grille with no bite release button

except this slap here releases the bone

which I thought was quite a little

feature we’ve got the bonnet prop in now

this is the later style arrangement

where the prophecy attaches to the

bonnet we’ve obviously had to make some

reinforcements because this is into a

carbon-fibre bonnet and then the

receptacle down here that’s normally a

spot welded part on the shell but we’ve

kind of always keen to avoid spot welded

brackets like that on the shell because

there’s always when you paint them a

small shadowed area where you just

couldn’t get paint in there which is

always always going to lead to corrosion

so we just put some threaded inserts in

the shell there when it was when it was

a bare metal shell and now we’ve made

that receiver in it’s not stainless

steel that we’ve had powder-coated and

then we made a little nylon plinth that

it sits on so that when the props

actually in it it’s not resting directly

onto the paintwork of the car I’m not

chafing away at the paint there it just

sits onto that nylon pad and so that’s

that

we’ve also got a strip race in position

now and a more recent addition is the

air box which reverie have supplied the

air box the the standard cause of back

light was too deep to actually fit the

standard off-the-shelf air box in so

we’ve had the back plate made shallower

by reverie so that we could keep because

of backplate and usually our air box in

there and well that’s turned out really

nicely and then this perfectly points

towards the spigot that we fabricated

into the back of the front panel so

there’ll be a flexible part between

there and there so you get cold air flow

we probably talked about this when it

was bare metal but the front panel is

almost completely blocked off apart from

the gap where the radiator is and that

round spigot there so you know all the

air that comes through the grille is

forced either through the radiator or

into the engine there and then I think

the last time we talked about the tanks

that we were just in the process of

making they’re ready to go for anodizing

now that’s the brake and clutch fluid

there’s a level sensor in the back I

don’t know if I mentioned that before

we’ve got a threaded bot in the back but

a float type level sensor sits in

because we wanted to have level sensing

for a warning light but didn’t want an

ugly cap with a wire trailing off over

it so we’ve got a real nice no aluminium

captain that goes on there but it’s got

a still got a level sensor in the back

and that sods the screen wash and that

feeds down through the bulkhead into the

main screen wash tank which I’ll show

you

so that screen wash tank then feeds down

via a quite a large pipe into this which

is a large screen wash tank and but

we’ve obviously done it to serve two

purposes it’s also doubles as the

footrest for the passenger with the seat

being so far back you need to have a

nice flat surface to rest your feet on

this side and we thought it was a that’s

going to be black anodized and by the

time that’s for the black anodized with

a black carpet around it it’s kind of

like a subtle nod almost to the

navigators footrest of the old rally

cars back in the day but with it being

Blacky a little bit more knock back and

you know so for the pump and we’ll

screen wash pump mounts on the back of

that tank and then feeds up to a revised

screen wash jet arrangement we’ve done

so that feeds screen wash up to the

through the bulkhead through a pipe that

goes to here and that feeds fluid out

into these two plastic extrusions on

each side they’re open on this end and

closed on the other end and they have a

row of very small pinholes in this back

edge which is spaced between the slats

of this scuttle panel so the screen wash

actually Jets out between the slats of

the panel onto the screen so when you

look at the car there isn’t obviously

any screen wash Jets there but there’s

just a number of jets come out between

those slots and then we’ve got a an

updated wiper motor as well which we’ve

done and which sits inside the car we go

back down here probably won’t be able to

see it but up under here is where the

wiper motors are always mounted a my own

escort on the inside of the scuttle so

well we’ve got the the basic mechanism

from the escort we’ve transplanted a

mark six mark seven and transit wiper

motor onto there with a custom crank

that we put onto it so it just has a

much more powerful motor with two speeds

and then we’ll be controlling the

intermittent from the PDU which I’ll

talk about in a bit while we’re in here

also worth

we’ve got a steering column in steering

column is a Opel Manta steering column

which we chose for a couple of reasons

is a collapsible column which the

original isn’t and B the switch gear on

it we absolutely love because it’s just

a single stalk this this the look of

this stalk is exactly what we wanted for

this car it’s kind of just lean and

purposeful and it covers a lot of

functions on just one stalk so you’ve

got indicate on here you’ve got main

beam tip beam half a pull this flash

turn it three-speed wiper so you’ve got

intermittent slow fast and then on the

end to push it the screen wash then

you’ve got a hold on the steering wheel

and with that combination of switch gear

with the headlight switch which is going

to sit in here that pretty much covers

almost all the functions that we need on

just one switch pedal box is in that’s

just an off-the-shelf mark 1s core bias

pedal box so the master cylinders now

sit up under the dash here got one for

the clutch one for the front brake

circuit and one for the rear brake

circuit and the bias is adjusted via

what they call a balance bar which is

just the pivot point that the préval the

pedal pushes between the two master

cylinders biasing the leverage towards

front or rear depending on where you set

it and then we’ve also done the mounts

for the ECU the engine ECU which sits

over that side sort of on the inside of

the footwell panel right up where you

can’t see it behind the dash and then

the PDU sits this side and I’ll talk a

bit more about the PDU in a bit but what

I will do is just take this tank out and

show a few more of the details of this

this is the tank we fabricated this here

what was it done the dimple effect just

a to make it look a bit more interesting

and give a bit of a nod to that

passenger foot resting on the side

threaded bosses on the underside which

we’ve done to the appropriate depth for

the thickness of the carpet it’s

obviously bolted up from underneath two

threaded bosses which were welded on the

inside before we welded the tank up and

that’s where the screen wash pump mounts

that’s the outlet which goes to the

screen watch pump which has a tube on

the inside of the tank which obviously

goes down to the bottom so it’s picking

up fluid from the bottom and then that’s

the spigot that goes up to the fill tank

at the top and this security is looking

piece here is a small tube that comes

out inside here we’re going to be

running a little tube off the back of

that which actually runs inside that

main fill tube so it actually lets the

air flow out from in here into the top

tank whilst you’re filling it so it just

fill it’ll just fill smoothly without

going down into the tank and while we’re

here I’ll show you some of the other

stuff we’ve got these are the fascia

panels we’ve done for the – our mininum

they’ve been water jet cut because the

surface finish of the edges was going to

be the final visible finish so we wanted

them to be really nicely caught on the

sides so that’s the main – fascia panel

that sits in front of the driver you’ll

have a series of warning lights in these

holes and obviously the speedo and taco

and they’re these which we’ve done for a

while actually but never showed you the

instruments we’ve had done these are

done by speed hut in the States and

we’ve asked I asked Gordon and he gave

us the go-ahead to put his Gordon Murray

design when I go on them just because I

thought that would be a really it’s a

nicely proportioned logo to fit on a

gauge so we’ve got those on there on the

taco and on the speedo it’s obviously a

digital Steffen motor drive on both of

these and so they’re extremely shallow

and that’ll be your digital readout for

your trip and you odometer the little

warning lights they go into these holes

they’re just real simple and if you

think back to when we were doing it

roarings we just wanted a real kind of

basic looking fascia that had almost a

nod to kind of that seventies – look if

you like so we’ve got just some basic

LEDs with a little chrome bezel that

almost replicates the bustle of the taco

and then we’ll be getting these fascia

panels anodized black and then we’re

going to be engraving the wording on

through that black anodizing back to the

silver that shows you what the different

warning lights do so it’ll be a main be

morning light indicate Telltale’s and

warning lights for oil pressure

alternator and something else cut and

what the last one would be brake brake

fluid same on this this is the central

panel as the auxiliary gauges in we have

these made not without any indication on

the gauge of what they do because that

will be engraved into the aluminium

underneath each gauge so rather than it

saying on the face of the gauge it’s a

nice little design feature that it’s

engraved underneath and then this piece

sort and goes into here and that as the

control three of the controls there’ll

be the fan speed for the heater the

temperature control for the and the air

direction for the heater which selects

between feet face D mist or combination

of those and then the last one will be

the headlamp switch that’s also going to

be black anodized and will also engrave

onto these are in fact underneath here

will be engraved what those controls do

yeah so that’s kind of the the the

facial panels come in together

we’re just waiting at the moment because

we want to send all of the things

they’re going to be on a dog’s back off

together

so although we’ve got tons of it already

the bits we haven’t got are the machined

parts for the dryer sump tank because

we’ll be will be analyzed in that black

as well we talked about when I was over

at the car the PDU that’s mounted in the

footwell and so what would quite like to

do is show you a bit more detail of why

we’re using that and and the programming

of that I’ll come to the office come

through to my office

PDU it’s basically a little box like an

ECU it’s got three connectors on it one

is the main power feeding from the

battery and then there are two connected

multi pin connectors there Deutsch

Autosport connectors which are like

really really high spec military spec

connectors one of them has got a large

number I think 50 odd pins really small

pins and the other ones on this unit

which we using which is a 16 channel PD

use got 16 larger pins on it and the

connector with the large number is the

input or the is the input connector and

the other one is the output connector

and essentially on the output connector

each pin on that plug feeds a wire which

goes to a component on the car so that

could be a light or it could be a motor

whatever there there the output channels

you’ve got battery voltage voltage being

fed into the battery and put on there

and then on the input connector

they are feeds in from anything like a

switch on the car this is the software

we’re using a PD from the life Racing by

the way so you’ve basically faced with a

blank grid select which PD you using

we’ve got 16 channel 1 and you’re just

presented with a blank screen like this

simple as that and down the side here

are the components you can add to this

screen and in its most basic form you’ve

got inputs and outputs here so I drag an

input onto here that represents now a

physical input on the input connector

let’s say horns ok that’s more like the

most basic circuits you could do on here

my horn button on the on the car is

connected to pin 15 so I select pin 15

and then drag it out over here I know my

ones connected to pin 8 on the output

connector so I can select pin 8 and then

it’s most simple form all I need to do

is draw a line from there to there and

then whenever I apply voltage or ground

to pin 15 it

turn on the horn but if I then if I put

a different component yeah if I like put

output let’s say side lights which is

output one if I put put one here and

drew the line to that this same input

would turn on the solid lights instead

and then that’s where it gets more

exciting it is when you start going into

more depth on the output properties this

is where the fusing comes into it on the

output properties you can select the

fusing and page that you want that

component to trip out at this one as the

cars with building go this one’s pretty

straightforward some of the things we’ve

done they’re just ridiculous amounts of

electronics on the way it doesn’t get

quite complicated

this one’s reasonably straightforward

because there just aren’t that many

electrical components so I start by

listing all those connectors that will

connect to the main components of the

electrical system lists the individual

wires that will be there and from that

work out what type of connector I’m

going to need once we’ve got that list

of the connectors in the car and the

main ones which are the PDU input and

output connectors i then i’ve got to

work out every wire that connects these

compile these plugs to these plugs list

all those wires and then it would be

working out the length of those wires so

the next stage would be I’ll do a rough

schematic of where the wires will be

routed physically in the car then go and

measure up on the car exactly the length

between all the different components so

then I can fill in my spreadsheet where

there’s a list of all the wires that I

need then I can fill in the length of

each of those wires and then finally the

gauge the thickness to each of those

wise needs to be to cope with the

current that’s going to be true and when

we’ve done that it comes to the easy bit

we just cut all the wires label them or

lay them all out heat shrink em all four

connectors on the ends and hopefully it

all works easy

next stages exhaust is going away next

week to go to BTB and they’re going to

make an exhaust to expect we’ve kind of

agreed between us I’ve seen some of the

work they’ve started which looks amazing

so excited to see that when it comes

back here with everything done better in

the manifold as well so we’re going to

literally stick it on transport it as it

is now they’re going to build the entire

manifold and system or I’ve got to back

which will hopefully get to see you in

the next episode and then it gets

transported back here and we can carry

on the bill in the meantime the

machining work on the dry sump tank

components will be done so we’ll be able

to crack on basically with the next

phase which is getting the oil system

plumbing done just want we’ve got the

exhaust done and the oil plumbing done

at that point we are getting pretty

close to being on the soil so you know

hopefully that’ll be within a month

you

just randomly or something

that is job lists and parts ordering

lists each clipboard represents a car

there basically lists are try and ignore

and not do anything about

“

Source : https://youtu.be/zYwKzy1oZP4

February 20, 2019 General, Mk1 Escort Videos

Mk1 Escort Rebuild – Retropower Gordon Murray Episode 12

In this episode we get a look at the rolling shell complete with engine and gearbox

Here’s Episode 12:

Transcript :

”

until you actually build these things

and try it you don’t foresee always the

potential stumbling blocks

it’s been a little bit longer than we

anticipated before getting to in this

episode christmas has come between so I

hope everybody’s got a good Christmas

I’ve got a stinking cold so if I sniffle

and sneeze my way through this then I

apologize but big change we’re in a

completely different room this is the

assembly workshop now obviously last

time we were looking through the show

was in the paint booth so it’s been

moved through to here and a massive

change obviously as we’ve got engine

gearbox the cars rolling and we’re kind

of now moving on to working on all the

sort of engineering jobs that we didn’t

do during the dry build because they

weren’t necessary to actually do there’s

kind of reasoning for the delay in

bringing this episode actually it’s just

the way the timings worked out on

everything we got the dummy struts from

Nitron essentially based on our just

steel mock-ups they built what they

hoped would be the final strut bodies

but didn’t put any kind of coating on

them they were just in bare steel got

them over to us and we did a mock-up

build with those and there was actually

a problem with the front ones so they

had to have those back do a revision on

the front ones and then get us to check

those out before we then sent them off

for coating and build them up and gassed

them up and basically get the final

struts and by the time we got those here

we’d kind of missed their window of

opportunity for the guy behind the

camera Jason to come and be able to do

the filming and we just we’re gonna get

it done before Christmas so we hoped

we’d get it out for Christmas but wasn’t

gonna happen so here we are January and

at least on the plus side we’re a long

long way into the build on the car now

some of the things we’ve been working on

in the engine bay in fact what we’re

actually working on now is these

fabricated tanks that sit at the back

corners of the engine bay and I think we

talked about this before when we were

doing the dry build we were making

provision for where they were going to

go and we had in our heads how they were

going to be so at the moment we’re in

the process of turning that kind of

vision into a reality so we’ve done

fabricated other mininum tanks which

will have kind of leveled tops on both

of them the way we wanted to mount them

we were trying to make it so there was

no visible fasteners so we’ve got the

unions that come out of the bottom of

the tank that feed in this case the

brake fluid to the brake and touch

master cylinders and in that case the

screen wash through the bulkhead they

actually create the mounting point for

half of the tank and then we’ve got a

threaded boss that we’ve we’ve machined

and then welded to the bottom of the

tank which kind of forms the third

Mountain Mountain point and the idea

there is that when they’re in situ they

kind of look like almost like they’re

slightly floating there and there’s no

visible bolts there’s no flange that’s

bolted down or anything like that so

what you’ll see is effectively like that

tank is now it just kind of sits in

there I mean at the moment we’re

essentially kind of tackling jobs that

are bespoke bits of engineering there’s

so many parts where we can just put our

it together you know like the doors for

instance it’s just a standard build and

put the winder mechanisms and the

channels etc in the glass but we know we

can do that quickly so it’s trying to

get through all the bespoke stuff now so

where there’s where there’s CNC

machining to do and that sort of thing

we can get those processes happening in

the background while we crack on with

the more basic build work so for

instance one example of that is the

bonnet release we’ve always loved the

fact that the early cars have the push

button in the grille to release the

bonnet it’s just it’s so simple and

effective gets rid of the need for a

cable yeah you can get into the engine

bay you know so there’s a security thing

which I guess is the reason they have

cable releases originally but ultimately

who’s gonna what you’ve opened the

bonnet what are you gonna do steal the

engine it’s a bit ridiculous so you know

we love the simplicity of that but the

original button looks a bit clunky and I

kind of prefer the look of the grille

without the bonnet release so we thought

we’d try and create the best of both

worlds and we’ve actually machined a new

push-button for the bonnet release that

it’s an exact replica of the profile of

one of the grille slaps

yeah I guess one of the obvious changes

standing here is that the last time we

did an episode although we had the

plaintiff Shelley engine wasn’t even

back yet cause were for building this

still I would guess this arrived

probably the week after we add the last

episode but yeah I mean it looks amazing

now seeing it all here together with

it’s got that carbon airbox with the

carbon trumpets and then the plaque

that’s on the top of it you know it’s

it’s nice to you know we when we had it

all for mock-up it was obviously a bit

of a scruffy block and it you know you

never really see the finished thing it’s

in it all here and in place it looks it

looks a bit special and it’s it’s just

nice seeing everything start to come

together

you can explain all you want to somebody

else but it’s not until you actually get

it in there that I think people fully

appreciate what’s been in your head this

whole time then you can sort of and

visit how it’s going to look but when it

actually starts to come together that’s

when it’s sort of all all the hard work

starts to pay off and you get that kind

of rewarding feeling once we add the

engine here we wanted to get it on the

subframe because the whole lot goes up

from underneath you literally put the

engine on to its mounts on the front

subframe and then just raise the whole

lot up under the car and drop the shell

over it and bolted in but we wanted to

be sure there were there were a few

parts on the whole assembly which are

going to be very difficult to access

once it’s in so we we wanted to sort of

tick off all the all the jobs that we

wanted to do while we still had access

the heater plumbing pipes was one of

those jobs so there’s there’s there’s

like a water manifold on the back of the

head which feeds water round and up and

the radiator but it also has the outlets

which recirculate a water via the heater

when the heat is on or and they also it

also bypasses the thermostat to some

degree when the engines in its warm up

phase basically it has a recirculation

from the back of the head back to the

thermostat it’s very difficult to get to

that automatically afterwards so we

thought we’ve made made another minion

pipe that runs down the side of the

block and curves around the back to join

up with that water outlet on the back of

the head there and that’s bracketed on

to the side of the block with an

Arminian bracket so we formed that pipe

and the bracket and then have those

anodized to protect them from any sort

of corrosion and we’ll be doing the same

actually with the tanks up here because

that kind of bare aluminium finish gets

a bit of furring over time

even if you poly fit up so it is we’re

going to get those clear anodized so

they’ll have a nice silver finish to

them and they won’t deteriorate over

time and then obviously getting the

engine and gearbox together that’s

another fairly obvious point the engine

comes without flywheel or clutch so we

just get it as the bearer as the basic

engine so I spoke to Dave at retro Ford

we’ve had some clutches done via him in

the past and I know he’s done this exact

combination before so I spoke to him and

kind of agreed what would be the best

spec for a car that’s going to be a

reasonable amount of power so at least

nobody searched but it needs to be Road

drivable we’ve basically got a

traditional sprung type organic friction

plate but with a heavily operated billet

pressure plates over it onto a billet

flywheel ttv actually made the flywheel

and did a nice job of that so we could

got that ttv flywheel and all those

parts here got that light on the gear

box that we mocked up with it was

actually a used one we just bought that

from a mx-5 breakers to mark everything

up but then the final one that’s in the

car now is a brand new and we just got a

new a new gearbox from Mazda and then

the other custom part really on the

gearbox is the stick itself which if you

remember from the mock-up build we had a

really cramped back stick on it for

Gordon to try and get the position in he

kind of made notes on what position he

wanted it versus our mock-up

the big stumbling block there was that a

mock-up one didn’t have any of the rear

reverse detent you know the blocker

basically that stops you being able to

select reverse without pushing the stick

down and when we came to do the final

one it was one of those jobs that just

turned out to be vastly more complicated

than you would expect in that the

original sticks got a rubber isolator in

it which just dampens down violent

vibrations in the stick the problem was

when we made the crank stick on top of

that rubber

later suddenly with a big leverage ratio

you can twist the the rubber bush in the

isolator by an enormous amount which you

wouldn’t which didn’t seem very apparent

when it was just a straight stick and it

just made this shift feel horrible when

you went across the Crossgate the the

stick would then twist by kind of an

inch or so at each end of the Crossgate

so we did actually have to do a a

reasonable amount of reengineering of

that mechanism to create a sleeve that

went over and became that sliding

mechanism for reverse blocking and

actually replaced all of that rubber

isolator section but we’ve got that

pushed down to reverse mechanism now

without the twisting of the torsion of

the rubber isolator so yeah that was a

good couple of days work on just a gift

which is where these things always I

hope you know you see people always talk

about the time that goes into these

projects and you know talk about what it

must be costing a lot of money and yeah

sometimes the strangest of jobs turn

into you know huge amount of work it’s

probably to say two days of work in a

gifting which just seems bonkers but

until you actually build these things

and try it you don’t foresee always the

potential stumbling block

so yes a little likes noise going on

next in the unit next door which I can’t

do a lot about while we were waiting for

the struts we had all sorts of other

processes going on so the black you see

here those components are generally

steel and they’ve been blasted hot zinc

metal sprayed and then powder coated

we’ve probably talked about this before

but the hotlink metal spray is basically

like a sacrificial protection corrosion

protection so even if this power to coat

gets chipped or damaged in any way you

still won’t see any corrosion to the

steel itself the diff cover which is

billet aluminium that’s been anodized

and then the diff which was just a

scrapyard diff from a Sierra that’s a

brand new different Quaife they’ve built

that with one of their automatic talk

biasing dips in it it’s got a three

point six to one final drive ratio these

are obviously the damper reservoirs for

the nitrile struts they’re just cable

tied up at the minute but they’re going

to be mounted we’re just having some

mounts for those CNC machine we’ve drawn

them up on CAD and they’ll mount the

reservoirs on these diagonals here and

here and they’d like a billet clubs and

kind of clamps onto there and then clamp

it onto the body of the reservoir you

can just see the bottom of the struts

poking out down here that’s the black on

there is that Xylon coating we talked

about the xylem coating you can see the

brakes we’ve got the Sierra calipers on

there when we did all the mock-up build

for this we actually machine now a

minyan bushes effectively so when we

digged everything for the welding

everything was literally mounted

completely rigidly there was no bushes

in there they’ve obviously now been

replaced with polyurethane bushes so

every link has got a bush on one end and

a rose joint on the other and these are

really high spec aurora rose joints

there was a comment made I think on

either on the Facebook page or on

YouTube about the ROS joints and whether

they’ll be susceptible to to wear and

with them being open to the elements do

we put the rubber boots on them and

actually it’s a conscious decision not

to because every instance we’ve had when

we’ve had rubber boots around these

we’ve found that the river has

deteriorated

they’re actually getting water and grit

and muck inside the rubber boots and

then it has a detrimental effect effect

it actually holds water and grit around

and join so it can’t get washed away

when you wash the car or just overall

use so we leave them exposed and yeah

ventually they will wear and probably

more quickly than a rubber Bush would

but realistically you’re going to get a

good few thousand miles of use out of

car before you get any perceivable where

it’s actually quite a good thing to

demonstrate in a minute is the toe

adjustment and a few people sort of

looking at the pictures and things of

these wishbones and wondering why this

appears to be rows joints in here and

there and it’s because effectively we’ve

got an a arm onto one side of the hub

carrier but the other side because we

want it adjustable it’s mounted to the

first pass of the eye arm if that makes

sense so this joint here doesn’t move

this way relative to this it always

stays fixed and move that whole assembly

moves as a fixed piece on these two

bushes here and here but you can vary

the length of this which gives you your

toe adjustment so you can vary a little

which a reverse thread on one end so as

you can see probably when I do that you

see them in the wheel moving in and out

so that is actually Instituto adjustment

so when you want to adjust the toe on

the car all you’ve got to do is crack

those lock nuts loose turn that and

tighten the lock nuts back up camber

adjustment is via the bolt here which

has got the little puck which we’ve

talked about in quite a lot in the past

that will complete the back end almost

entirely once we bolted these reservoirs

on we’ve got the brake plumbing to run

and that’s basically the back end done

although something has stopped I do

that’s almost worse because then there’s

people watch this video there’s going to

be continuity between who and then there

we go yeah it’s all good the prop shaft

our stews are linked to the medley of

noise now so if the prop shaft which we

have now just sent the drawing a way to

have that made it’s a two-piece prop

we’ve put my ups on the fuel already for

the center bearing which will sit here

to the first section of the problem goes

from the gearbox to the center bearing

and then there’s a second section from

the center bearing and back to the

differential where yes I think that’s

pretty much covered everything on the

rear and I’ll just show you the front

what’s going on there

you

so yeah subframe much the same treatment

is all the rear so I made all of the

steel components the lower arms the

actual subframe itself the compression

struts they were all sent away to be

blasted a zinc metal sprayed and powder

coated the steering rack that was

already a recon like fresh built rack

but the paint that they use is kind of

just like aerosol you can virtually blow

it off so we we stripped the rack back

down painted that with a like a really

tough polyurethane paint and put up

rebuilt that again and also likewise the

track rods themselves which is often a

thing it’s kind of overlooked they tend

to just have a bare steel finish but it

does deteriorate quickly so we painted

those with that polyurethane paint as

well get a good view of the struts again

from the front here the damper

reservoirs again they just cable tied up

out the way at the minute but whereas

with the back we’re having some billet

mounts made for those whereas the back

ones kind of like a double tube clamp

that clamps them onto a tube at the

front it’s like a it’s basically a

billet piece with some threaded holes in

that we’re going to be bolted up against

the back of the these kind of reinforces

that sit each side of the strut so the

reservoir I’ll be on the back of that

packed back power where we have already

talked about the front suspension in

massive detail before other than the

fact that it’s basically an

off-the-shelf package but what we

probably haven’t dwelled on is the fact

that it is completely different to

standard mark what about to escort from

suspension

it’s a fairly standard thing to do on

these cars but this compression strap

here is very different to the standard

layout normally there’s an anti-roll bar

it comes around the front and attach it

to the lower arm and that’s that is

actually what provides the fore-and-aft

location of the lower arm but of course

an anti-roll bar by its very nature has

to flex it’s one wheel will go up when

it will take the along with it but it

needs to allow some degree of flex

between the two so effectively it’s a

bendable rod

so a standard you’re relying on a

flexible rod to

to locate the fore-and-aft movement of

the wheel which of course means under

heavy braking the wheels push a long way

back and you end up with massive changes

in steering angle as you brake so this

set it’s a pretty standard setup on kind

of motorsport escorts where you change

the answer roll bar so it’s no longer

doing that before and after location and

that strut takes all the load so under

heavy braking all the loads are being

fed straight down that’s truck there

which is not going to flex at all so you

you look wheels are absolutely solidly

located when you brake that’s pretty

much covered it to be honest huge

amounts talk about it from I guess we’re

trying to move forward with all of the

engine related systems so the cooling

system the oil system the fuel system so

the parts are being made for the dry

sump tank once they’re machined we’re

going to do the fabrication work on that

tank that will complete that job then we

can get the oil lines in we’re also

having the oil filter mountain machined

which sits on the side of the engine

here mounts the oil filter things like

the screen wash set up making the tanks

for that then we’re going to be doing

the washer jet setup and as I said

before about the domino effect of jobs

that’ll open up a load of things so

we’ll be able to put all the heat

everything that goes behind the dash can

go in after that’s done so we can put

the wiper motor in we can put the heater

box in we can put the instruments in we

can start doing the wiring it goes

behind the dash it’s focusing on that

kind of domino effect of jobs and

working out which ones need to be done

first to make sure they open up a lot of

other jobs

I haven’t sort of looked at the exact

hours that are in it and broken that

down into how many hours per week but we

must be in the ballpark of having a

person working on it

continuously for that entire year I

would say and that will carry on till

the end so that kind of illustrates

pretty well the number of hours that are

involved you know people will sometimes

say the progress should be faster but I

know myself that if I was building this

myself at home and I had these workshop

facilities I would have to not have a

job and be working on this guy non-stop

for like a year to 18 months or whatever

it’s going to take to achieve this kind

of progress because we have been working

on it continuously it’s not like we’ve

done a bit on it then just put it to one

side and sat down for a bit so really

that kind of really does a list rate the

amount of work that goes into it

sometimes it’s hard to resist the urge

to just put a few bits on like the

bumpers really even though you don’t

really have to do it just because it

seems to transform it so much and there

are biggie which we’ve not got to yet

it’s always the glass it’s kind of hard

to define or explain how much of a

transformation that seems to make from

going from having no dice to having

glass always seems to make the car

change it from being a shelter Bay a car

and particularly is it neat ins up the

when you used to seeing the kind of a

metal flanges where the windows are and

they’re obviously a little bit rough and

ready where the spot Wells and things

are and they’re suddenly you’ve got a

black seal around there which just

really defines that the line in the

window is much more cleanly which yeah

big big transformation but yeah I guess

the the first massive transformation is

getting it to the stage you see it now

where it’s actually on its wheels with

its mechanicals in and then yeah I think

I think the next sort of two

transformations are for me that the big

cosmetic ones are getting the glass in

so then all of a sudden the outside of

the car looks complete and then getting

interior in so all of a sudden the

inside of the car looks completely and

the final kind of reveal at that point

is when we’re used to seeing it sort of

dusty and working all the time and we

get the Detailers in to do the final

buffing ceramic coating and detailing of

everything inside and out and you go and

see it cleaned up to that level and you

suddenly like wow yeah that looks

awesome

“

Source : https://youtu.be/Fp16NCEez5M

February 19, 2019 General, Mk1 Escort Videos

Mk1 Escort Rebuild – Retropower Gordon Murray Episode 11

In this episode we get a look at the painted shell and the Retropower guys visit Nitron factory to see how the custom struts are progressing. Some serious work has gone into the paint process, from a 2 pack acrylic base they progressively knocked back the finish with 1500 grit wet & dry, through to 3000 grit & mop cut and polish down to 3000 grit paste. Rumour has it it will be followed up with a ceramic coating in a later episode.

Here’s Episode 11:

Transcript :

”

now it’s got paint on it feels like

another step forward now we’ve just got

to do they’re not scratching the paint

bit

without further ado the painted shell

last time gums was literally walking

into the booth to spray the final coat

of paint which takes not very long

you know you literally talk in you know

two or three hours to completely do the

final exterior paint work on the car

after hundreds of hours of prep work and

we’ve sprayed it with just just a two

pack acrylic solid color it’s for Lerman

white which is the original twin cam

white color we’ve kind of gone for the

the two pack solid color rather than a

basing clear but you know you can get

two packs so it like so so kind of glass

flat but it still doesn’t have that kind

of miles deep brand-new car look about

it which we kind of wanted to avoid you

wants to paint it hardened off or best

part of a week we do the wet sanding and

polishing on it which is what takes it

from a gun finish where there’s a level

of orange peel there talked about this

last time to being completely flat and

nuts start with stiff blocks with 1500

grit some did wet

gradually go down finer so I’ll usually

then move to a 2,000 grit then we’ll use

3000 grit disks on a DA still wet if the

initial kind of hard blocking is just to

just to clip down that orange peel and

literally trim the tops off they’ll use

a book nerd art guide coat on a light

color like this until you can’t see any

guide coat left and then the progressive

final grades are basically to get the

something marks out from that initial

1500 grit and once you’ve got down to

3,000 in this case then we can go in

with the compound which is just a

basically an abrasive paste on a what

they call a mop on an electric machine

we’ve used system from fir Acula called

it’s actually a new one that just

recently brought out called the g 360

super fast system we’ve actually brought

out to speed up the initial cutting

process so you can do it from 1500 grit

but in our case we still wanted to take

it to 3,000 just to be absolutely sure

that something marks

no show at all initial cut with that

superfast correctly and then we move

down to the final grades of curricular

sort of finishing with like a real

ultrafine finishing compound and that’s

kind of the state you see in here

all the inside paint work was done first

we painted with the panels off so that

the doors for instance of painted

there’s a complete unit inside an out as

long in one go same with the bite and

the boot lid they were painted inside

and out in one go and then everything

assembled together afterwards which just

means there’s no kind of hidden areas

where you can’t quite get a nice paint

finish engine bay was painted at the

same time as the whole of the exterior

of the car which is pretty high pressure

on the go I do in the paint because he’s

got a clamber in underneath with it

exactly how it is now and sort of

squatting what is you know a really tiny

engine bay and get paint work everywhere

you know under all these hidden bits

under the edges of here whilst squatting

down in here and not then getting his

own overalls printed into the bank is

just painting which is obviously wet so

you know this is like the painters

Worth’s nightmare doing in an engine bay

like this you know a lot of people just

lean over and spray em but you just

can’t get the angle on some of the bits

that you want to get up under here and I

Fund it here and there’s so many bits

you can’t get to and you can’t see

clearly unless you’re right in there so

yeah he was literally in the engine bay

doing all the engine bay paint work

which as you can see has turned out

pretty nice happy with that very happy

with that

the reason the Dynomax in there now and

dying about being a sort of sound

deadening and heat insulating product to

try and get refinement in i don’t know

we’re gonna get criticized for adding

weight back into the car but it was

always stipulated as being a regular

used car with some degree of refinement

so we’ve got a lot of dynamite in there

to try and keep the drumming and the

noise down on the road noise down and

keep a bit of heat insulation in there

as well now the reason it’s in there now

is because before we did the wet sanding

on the car we wanted to make sure we wax

injected all of the kind of cavities

inside so that if any of the water from

wet something got down in there it

didn’t cause any corrosion so and then

it’s if once you’ve done that you get

wax oil over everything it’s very

difficult to stick the Dynomax on when

we’ve got the gunner finish from the

paint we Dynamat it first

then we weren’t to inject everything

then we must get and do the wet

something in that order so that we’ve

protected it so the work the water

doesn’t go anywhere and cause any

corrosion that we don’t want but we’ve

also got the dynamite on before the wax

so it actually sticks properly yeah

we’ve done the behind the grill work and

actually we did the dash at the same

time and it’s just it looks nicer it’s

to be honest it’s an opinion thing

actually they were originally black now

in there and it’s so when you’ve got the

grill on there and you look through the

grill you don’t see the painted bits

behind you just see in dark darkness

through the grill I actually on some

cars we’ve done I’ve actually not done

that because I quite like the look at

the body through the grill on it it kind

of has a bit of a motor sporty look to

it to me on this one I don’t think that

looks suited the car it’s nice to have a

bit of contrast as well on a white car

you want to see some dark there so we’ve

done that more or less than the original

forward positions although the grille

sits right forward here and then the –

we’ve also done satin black because

there is areas all around the top and

the lower part of the dash which that

will be its final finish it’s got a

loaded part on the top but all of the

sort of peripheral part of it that satin

black paint is the final visible finish

on it and also there is going to be a

bit of black on the back there’s a

section kind of where there’s a suede

line that comes up each side at an angle

and runs across over the slots that

we’ve put in the rear panel which we are

going to be doing black but I wanted to

make sure we could stand well back from

the car when we were sort of marking out

and visualizing how that was going to

look because I don’t want to mask it in

the paint booth paint it in here and

then go now look how that looks so we

need to kind of visualize it we’ll

probably just do it in black tape to

start with and then look at it from

different angles and probably get

Gordon’s opinion on where that’s going

to be because that’s quite an important

change to the look of the back of the

car to try and narrow it sort of height

wise make the car look wider and

narrower so we need to roll up and try

that and took before we do that

eventually when we’ve finished the build

up on it we will do a final

mopping with a really ultra fine

compound and it will be ceramic coated

but chances are were scratching it

between now and it being done are always

there so we don’t want to count our

chickens and all that now and then have

to redo it if something if we scratch it

or damage it in the meantime which I’m

hoping we won’t but

it’s best not to take the risk so yes

gonna leave here we’re gonna wheel it

through into the assembly shop and we

get to start doing the what I think is

the fun bit of starting to bolt finished

engineering parts onto a shiny shell and

I’m not no knots actually over at nitron

today seeing how they’re getting on with

the suspension builds so we’re gonna

have a little look at that

hi Maya and you did not make hi good to

see you

you wanna come right yeah

this this is kind of where we do most of

the bike stuff so it’s got the bike

specific parts you know laid out here

then we’ve got things that are motorbike

mojo motorbike forks all the cartridge

internal parts and then there’s a small

machine shop in there which is the in in

shock room machine shop so we have to

keep that clean but it does allow us to

modify parts a small lathe cleaning tank

a vacuum tank

these are shocks that come back in for

rebuild so they get stored there because

they’re dirty would have to clean them

take them apart so we basically make

sure the dirt stays in this in this part

here so this is just our little broom

we’ll put a door in here eventually so

this is this is the size of nitrile mark

one yes isn’t it this is the first the

first shed was about this big what what

year was that well it would have been

1998 yeah April 1998 was when I actually

officially started the company so yeah

it’s been 20 years

so with one one I’m gonna say unique

thing about about what we make is that

we test everything yeah so the design of

our product means that once we’ve

assembled it before we put out the door

we have to calibrate it and it’s a it’s

a purposeful point of the design because

I want to know that the product is

matched yeah does meet the the graft

criteria rather than sizing how much

some aren’t you put it together and it

is what it is it can’t change you can’t

adjust it you can’t tweak it therefore

you’re stuck hoping that the performance

is correct

so this is a McPherson strut being

dynoed and we’re doing the compression

cycle and we run it through a series of

speed checks and we checked that the

valving will give us a good damping

result on the speed up and the speed

down inside the stroke so it’s very

important that you get both sides of the

stroke to be a reasonable mirror image

it’s possible to have it so that as it

speeds up it produces one damping result

yeah and as it slows down going through

the sustainer set of speeds you get a

different damping result and this is

known as hysteresis when looking very

there is an allowance of hysteresis

nobody’s ever proved that hysteresis has

a particularly negative effect on a car

but from a pure shock point of view it’s

always nice to get a shot that has a

balanced upstroke and down stroke so

that’s what Mark is doing now he’s

dialing it in and he’s changing the

valving settings now and he’ll be set in

the calibration points to meet the

criteria he’s looking for

sorry I’m being nosy

so we run a heat probe on the shock so

make sure it’s up to temperature as well

you got to make sure the tests are done

under the same criteria all these shocks

and they all do the same thing so these

two are struts and these two are shocks

and the difference is this is this is

the the product of your engineering is

that this shock is always structure so

this shock actually holds the wheel up

mm-hmm and you got four of these one on

each corner on your car yeah and they

are different front to back of them

correct yeah yeah so you’ve effectively

designed and specified what you want

really we’ve not done that work so

you’ve given us the requirement and we

have made this different one and we’ve

made this so this will bolt on to the

the aluminium up right on the jungle

perhaps steel its aluminium on the front

elements the iron on the back I mean

education and this bracket here which is

steel fabricator steel bolts onto the

upright part and then you have the tube

that is the shock absorber part and it’s

got a really thick rod here this is a

very strong high carbon steel rod and

that resists the bending where the wheel

stops are collapsing into the wheel arch

and then you’ve got your bearings on the

top which is the the top plate which has

rubber inside it as well to isolate some

of the noise and smaller vibrations that

you get through from from the strut

itself and the adjustments on this

particular strut we have rebound on the

top here which we can turn and then on

the reservoir we have two compression or

bump modes a very low speed mode and a

high speed mode and we can think about

these two modes as the low speed is

driver input and the high speed is

something that has

happened to the car that the driver

didn’t didn’t cause so you might think

perhaps driving over a curb the driver

didn’t actually do that to the chassis

the wheels you want them to move very

fast inside the car so if you take a

kerb at a racetrack the wheel needs to

move very quickly you don’t want the car

to be upset that’s a high speed movement

whereas putting on the power the car

will change attitude going through a

turn the car will change its attitude

there’s a lower speed movement and

they’re controlled with the low speed

knob so that’s the way we kind of think

about the high speed under low speed

this truck does the same thing that

looks entirely different so this is a

BMW m4 that the newer type of BMW but it

does exactly the same things it bolts to

the car through this large diameter here

it has the compression same compression

adjustments and same mechanism and has

the same type of rod the same structural

steel tube and it has a top plate here

which is very adjustable so we can

adjust the camber and the caster on the

top of the car using these adjusters so

we can sit the way the wheel sits in the

car when you turn the steering the

caster will affect the cab build up that

you get and the the performance so does

the same thing but just looks totally

different

very old ford item is there so you’ll

recognize those the ad Cortina yeah but

we’ve actually machined these out of

solid so that’s our own solid machined

part that’s interesting to know if

they’re racing Cortinas we build them

slightly differently which is why this

one has come back for a modification so

you can see here there’s a cylinder of

gas the gas that is put into the shocks

is nitrogen yeah

and the reason why we do that this is

heavy and I’m going to put it down the

reason why we put know the reason why I

put nitrogen into the shocks is that

once we’ve done all the bleeding process

and we vacuum the product out and we put

the oil in if we then give it’s a 10 bar

of pressure 10 atmospheres of pressure

any miniscule air bubbles that are left

in there will be crushed to a tenth of

its size also during operation if you

imagine the oil wants to froth up the

action of the pressure of the gas stops

any frothing going on so the oil can

really be thrashed to bits inside with

the piston and shims and it won’t aerate

or create any any gas bubbles inside the

shock so we use nitrogen as an inert gas

to do that

so the name Nitron has come directly

from nitrogen gas

hi-yah further further work that we’ve

been up to mechanically I’ve done a few

bits one of them was rear brakes we are

constrained by a 13-inch wheel because

we want to make the car look similar and

look sort of correct to the period the

idea was Gordon was keen to have it

looking more or less like a lotus

twin-cam escort so we want to use the 13

inch steel wheel and we need to use a

hand brake caliper we want disks on the

back we need a hand brake on the back I

really want to use one caliper to do the

job the best option we kind of concluded

was this which is the Ford the trusty

old Ford Sierra unit that everybody uses

and that you can buy new again that’s

been remade because everybody uses them

it quickly became obvious having done a

couple of little sketches that it wasn’t

going to fit inside a wheel with any

sort of off-the-shelf disc that we

initially looked into so we I started

having a look at ways we could modify it

into the wheel color and color look at

it as well for a fresh pair of eyes and

we did use that if we move the caliper

in we’ve got a chance if we used a

smaller disc so we’ve got a smaller disc

with a slightly shorter top hat which

moved the disc outboard a little bit

which gave us a better chance of the

various bits of caliper clearing the

various bits of up right at that

diameter we to move the caliper in we

needed a machine various things we’re

trying to keep the service part standard

and the service parts will be wheel

bearing brake the brake caliper claw the

disc the pads and the CV joints

yes yeah yeah we’re getting its now

we’ve now it’s got paint on it feels

like another step forward now we’ve just

got to do they’re not scratching the

paint bit yeah yeah no I’m looking

forward to seeing it really with all the

parts coming together it’s gonna happen

a little bit more rapidly than some of

our builds in that we obviously not

completely dry built but but almost

completely dry built the car and a lot

of the parts are just new

oh that’s coming from there that’s

coming from there there’s a lot of just

a collection of new parts that there’s

going to be brought in quite a lot of

which were already finalized so it

should be we should be able to make

pretty rapid progress on some of it it’s

not to say it’s going to be finished in

five minutes but we’ll be able to get it

coming together quite quickly and yeah I

think that’s that’s the stage I like to

see once once plumbing starts going in

around an engine and the engines in

there and it’s on all its wheels and it

suspensions all operating it suddenly

feels like you’re building a car not

just a collection of bits that are

supposed to bolt together so yeah now

I’m looking forward to that it’s

definitely definitely another milestone

yeah I think the bit I’m looking forward

to the most is it Gordon riffing off of

the road in it it’s a vehicle it’s doing

the traditional it see if he comes back

with a smile on his face nasty that’s it

that’s that that’s the bit that I’ll be

most excited about

“

Source : https://youtu.be/OEZqJNFBxS8

February 19, 2019 General, Mk1 Escort Videos

Mk1 Escort Rebuild – Retropower Gordon Murray Episode 10

In this episode we get a look at some detailed paint prep on the newly modified Mk1 Escort shell.

Here’s Episode 10:

Transcript :

”

pretend about it send this out what

about this paint right what would you do

guess

pull the handle up you ready

you

so it’s basically d-day in the sort of

production of the body shell for the

project gasps and Mark had been working

away on this for about the last month

since we blasted it and finished the

metalwork on it and it’s now ready

pretty much just to be set up in here

cleaned off and get its final coat of

paint in the last episode we blasted it

done the hot sink spray on the underside

of the car which is kind of a corrosion

protection system and we’ve given it a

coat of epoxy primer which I don’t know

if we talked about and that’s that’s

kind of the first step really is when

the when the shells freshly blasted it

gets surface corrosion really quickly

you know just the humidity in the air

and can start to turn it you know in a

matter of like hours so with the ink

sprayed on under underneath we then give

the whole thing a coat of epoxy primer

on the outside which is directly on the

metal and that kind of gives it its

proper foundation protection so you know

any work we do on the shell no matter

how long it’s left you know open to the

humidity in the air there’s we’re not

trapping any sort of surface corrosion

because we’ve immediately got that

coating of epoxy over it after blasting

so that was kind of the first step and

then from there we do the seam sealing

on the shell underside inside engine bay

and I think we looked at that last time

the guys were just starting that last

time and then sort of moving on from

that it’s the boat the initial fella

work which is just getting I mean on

this there were so many new panels there

was there was really not a huge amount

of for the work needed but there’s

always gonna be a bit when you’re trying

to get everything dead straight you know

when you look down the side of the car

trying to keep it all the reflections

looking perfect it’s always going to

need to be a small quantity you know

you’re talking less than a millimeter

depth but just to give you a material

there to block some and get everything

dead straight so its initial filler work

block sanding and then after that we put

a coat of poly ester over it which is

basically the same makeup as body filler

except it’s in a sprayable form and that

kind of gives you an all-over coating to

blocks and the importance of that really

is that when you’ve got a transition

between metal and filler no matter how

hard the block is you always find that

the

blocks more quickly so you tend to get a

slight variation in the surface between

the metal and the filler so if you give

the whole thing an overall coat of

polyester you then block something and

even material over the whole thing

so everything sums at the same rate so

it’ll get a coat of polyester over the

exterior guide coat over that and then

we start block sanding that down and

then kind of moving on towards the first

stages of sealing everything in because

at this at this point the filler and the

polyester they’re porous material so

they can retain moisture basically and

that’s that’s a real killer you often

see not very good paint jobs getting

micro blisters in and the reason for

that usually is that there’s moisture

being soaked into the lip and the porous

materials then that gets sealed in by

the final paint and as soon as it either

gets some freezing cold or very hot that

material expands that moisture expands

and starts sort of forcing bubbles out

from under the paint so it’s very

important to keep everything dry at this

stage

first sort of stage towards sealing

everything in and making it water for

its effectively non-porous we start on

the underside and we use a urethane

coating is a product by Upolu called

Raptor which was originally used for

lining the back of pickup trucks and we

do the underside of the car in raptor

tinted the the final body color then we

do the inside all of the non visible

surfaces or anything that’s going to be

covered by trim panels carpet etc that’s

all done in rapture as well just because

it’s harder wearing than a typical

acrylic paint so it doesn’t you know

movements of a carpet or a trim panel

won’t wear through it very quickly

and at this stage one of the one of the

sort of awkward bits on a shell like

this is that the wings are welded on and

there’s quite a few bits you can’t get

to once they’re welded on basically up

inside under the inner wing there and

there’s a section and that’s why a lot

of these cast corroded and died fairly

early on in their life this because

there’s an area up there which didn’t

really have any coating on originally I

seem to get all the road spray and dirt

going up there it just sits up there and

corrodes away really badly so the sort

of order of events to try and avoid that

is that we did the Raptor on all we in a

wing area with the wings removed we then

set up the wings and wrap to the

underside of the front wings and then

while we were doing that we basically

masked off the areas that were going to

be welded then we did the final

alignment to the front wings and welded

them on the spot weld on the top as a

couple of big seams of the front at the

back as they would have been originally

and then once they welded in we then go

back under there clean up around where

all that sort of sort in any any scale

from the welding seam seal that and then

basically go in and just wrap to the

under front wing area again to rego over

any of the areas that were affected by

the welding and any bits that were still

left bare metal from welding that way if

we’re doing in that order it means

there’s no areas under there that

haven’t got paint or rapture or

protection of some sort on them so then

that’s that’s kind of the underbody all

of the inside completely watertight at

that point

ah come on let’s get this done I never

quiet we’ve been cool I’m in the face so

I still why do cats go that way another

gasps wow I get some stuff

we’re gonna start from that door again

why I ought to get some stuff to do

usually gonna follow me through would I

do that take again once we’ve got the

wings on obviously that meant we could

do all the absolute final alignment on

the panels do a basically a mock-up of

the doors bonnet boot lid and this is

with latches seals you know the bonnet

property latch boot latch don’t seal the

grill in so everything is absolutely in

its final position as it will be when

it’s a completely built car and then

that allows us to block sand across and

the shirts on the car basically where

they where the tunnel gaps are we block

some across them blocking that polyester

coat back so that the the sort of line

down the side of the car is absolutely

crisp you know you know you’re not

sending the door separate to the wing

and then fitting it in the finding

there’s a slight slight change in there

in the sort of how flush the two panels

are yeah and that way when you look down

the side of the car when it’s all

painted it’s just gonna be a perfect

flat you know reflection all the way

along the car and that’s quite important

and it’s amazing how much of a

difference things like the seals make

you know you can actually door without

the seal and it’ll sit in a totally

different position than when it when it

has got the seal in there and just

because different parts of the door are

more flexible obviously the upper frame

is more flexible than the lower part of

the door so you tend to find the force

of the seal or push that out more than

it pushes out at the bottom of the door

so getting it all kind of built up with

how it will be eventually is quite

important and things like having the

grill in there and the lights so we

could just be absolutely sure all the

alignment of everything was spot-on once

we sort of block that polyester coat

down blocking across all the foots we

take that down to 320 grit and then we

go on with what’s on it now which is an

epoxy primer again so that’s the second

layer of epoxy primer which which

completes the job of sealing all of the

porous substrate sins

the whole shelf is waterproof it’s got

the urethane underneath it’s got the

urethane inside and it’s got the epoxy

primer on the outside the initial thing

after we’ve done this epoxy coat we go

around and just scotch up and key up

where any remaining unsealed seams were

which was basically the visible seams

because all the kind of exterior visible

seams like in the engine bay down the

gutters that sort of thing you don’t

really want much material over the top

of the sealer anything that might crack

you know if you go over with the

polyester over the sealer the polyester

is not really flexible so you’ll find

it’ll crack quite easily so we only want

the final paint to be over that’s that

seam sealer so what we do is we key up

all of the areas where the seam sealer

is going to go seal those seams leave

that to cure and then do the final wet

sand which is fairly essential because

when you’re going down to the 800 grit

which is what this has been taken down

to before final paint with dry something

you always get like slight clogging of

the paper which just leaves these light

sanding marks in there so you’ve really

got a Sun dick wet to kind of keep the

paper clear and just keep keep it so it

is a hundred grit rather than a hundred

grit with big marks gouged into it from

a clogged up some paper and so we’re wet

son the whole lot 800 grit and then yeah

we’re basically then ready for the final

paint so the panels have been taken off

and they’ll be painted separately so we

can get really well into all the door

shuts and around the hinges and any

areas that would be shadowed basically

if we have the panels on and yeah so

galahs gonna come in here in a bit set

this up properly so it’s straight down

the booth and give it a final panel wipe

off and do the paint on this and then

once that’s baked it’ll come out of here

we’ll put the tunnels in I think that’s

being a simple car we’ll probably get

all the panels in in one go got two

doors bonnet boot scuttle and that’s

about it so yeah it should should be one

booth of panels to do and then once once

all about what’s been baked and cured

for a few days we’ll then move on to the

process of wet sanding the final paint

finish and buffing out which kind of

takes it from a from the gun finish

which is kind of how you would expect if

you’ve went out and bought a new car

that’s the kind of finishing yeah it’s

like a slight level orange

and then we’ll work some mats until it’s

absolutely dead flat and buff it up so

it’s kind of like glass flat which is

not something you’ll only ever find that

basically on a car that’s had that

process done you look at any any new car

there’s a level of orange peel there and

the only cars that don’t buy things like

Lamborghini Rolls Royce they do manually

wet sand and buff their cars at the end

of this at the end of the production and

it’s really the only way to get that

absolutely flat the floor that’s

finished so that’ll be the final step

but yeah as of probably few minutes from

now Gaza is gonna be getting the getting

these overalls on stepping in here and

hopefully doing a good job of putting

some paint on this thing

so handle each other forget this sir

Dorko no more woah woah woah would go

past sure already send this out I’ve

heard about this paint right what we’re

gonna do is pull the handle up spinning

turn you ready

nothin

how do so now what panel what time yeah

just don’t feel like it’s going very

good I don’t pay I think it’s good it’s

just them two messed it up it’s rebus

stood and then straight after that it

was seen on anjing spray hot zinc

sprayer and then straight literally

straight after that clean it now no

I don’t get paid enough for this and

then after that it was epoxy primer used

to sit in and stop it rusting again well

on the outside anyway

and then what yeah yeah

come on down cows off cow got really

quiet we get racket to student noisy

twenty days yeah okay basically yes

since last time twenty days yeah yeah

depends how good it is I mean everything

this is all more or less brand new brand

new panels so it’s just kind of filling

lot because they fill in the joins and

stuff where we joined other stuff on and

told you and everything up and

straightening if they’re now and then

just loads of sanding make sure

everything is flat and straight because

there’s still some original parts here

Bob seaman under carbon panels yeah they

weren’t that great as always because

they’ve just race car panels they’re

just ripley but we don’t want that one

it’s a lot metal i with slight though

yeah

the Chevette rally car that’s all

fiberglass boat looks metal done it so

that’s what we wanted

yeah it’s not the blue alpha they’re

they’re all carbon panels on that but

you want it to look like it’s metal

you

whilst we’ve been doing all this with

we’ve got various processes in action

behind the scenes which are preparing

some of the bits we’ve been building for

the car so for instance all the subframe

parts that all the bits we made for the

rear suspension the wishbones and the

whole diff cradle carrier and the front

suspension parts like the crossmember

and the front arms

they’ve all been sent off to be blasted

and hot as ink sprayed the same process

we did underneath here and powder coated

a massive process we tend to do on all

kind of major underbody components that

are steel and just because it’s so tough

and it and even with the benefit with

those ink spreads even if you scratch

that powder coat off or it gets stone

chipped or whatever it still protects it

so it just you know it lasts incredibly

well and then we’ve sent off various

things to various companies so we’ve got

the engine has gone back to Cosworth and

so they can now do the final build to

the final spec don’t we struts that

we’ve built I’ve gone to Nitron they’re

going to be basically building struts

based on the dummy ones that we provided

we gave them the kind of open and closed

length information and positions of

where we’re going to put the damper

reservoirs and the lengths of the hoses

and they’re going to take it from there

and hopefully next episode we might get

to go over to know my phone and have a

look at them making those bits which

would be nice

because it’s not it’s not right it’s

nothing we’re not gonna do it just makes

everybody’s life harder if it’s not

right in the first place so but then you

can’t really blame anyone because if

you’re looking at the same thing for so

long you’re blind to what’s in front of

you usually so if you go to Stu and say

see what you think

oh sorry I didn’t mean you know you can

you sort it out between yourselves it’s

not a problem you know it’s not anyone’s

fault necessarily if you you’ve been

looking at but Stu’s I’ve done a how

long’s do spent on this during the

matter where there’s a long time so

little things you’re gonna go unnoticed

but I’ll try and keep an eye on the

process when he’s doing it and then

after so you know point little bits out

whatever and it might not unnoticed or

you know because you’re looking at the

bigger picture sort of thing that just

we know we get a bit of pressure because

what’s the first thing you actually see

in the car yeah so you could have really

fancy engine really fancy running gear

fancy seats but the first thing or gets

the attention is the bodywork

everybody likes to say always taking

ages it’s going really well actually

I mean the metal work it was probably

more involved than we originally

anticipated the prep for paint that’s

gone perfectly I would say it’s gone as

flawless three years we could expect

which probably means it’s gonna go

terribly wrong when we put the paint on

yeah I mean it’s I think we’ve been

working on it about a month and there’s

I don’t know the exact number of hours

on this offhand but generally to do a

prep and paint from a bare metal shell

to a finished painted shell we’d

normally Bank on there being somewhere

between sort of 250 and 350 hours

involved and this is definitely within

kind of expectation on that so yeah it’s

going well and we’ll see how the rebuild

phase goes that’s when I I’m more and

more kind of responsible for how

progress goes you know in these sort of

metal but if I use go ahead and that’s

kind of responsible for a lot of the

engineering so you know he’ll be working

on it and that will dictate some of the

progress they’re gazon mark have been

you know looking after all the prep and

paint on it so that’s kind of dictated

by them and then it will go through for

rebuild when I I’m more in charge of it

which point probably slow down to a

snail’s pace but I’m hoping we can pull

the cat out of the bag on it so I

remember reading a couple of comments

talking about the sort of speed of

progress and I think a lot of people

neglect to take into account

we’re probably building at least 20 cars

at any one time so this is one of the

central 20 or more projects that we’re

building to a similar standard you know

similar procedure and there is ten of us

here so you know there’s if you split

the down split down the projects per

person that’s quite a lot of work huh so

yeah I mean we do this was going pretty

well generally we anticipate a full

build of this nature to be probably

around 18 months maybe two years if it’s

a more complicated project and I would

say we’re dead on track for that yeah

pretty high yeah I can’t wait to it

painted it’s gonna be it’s gonna be

amazing I’m just I kind of like slightly

nervous levels in case something goes

terribly wrong but it’s kind of the

fracking paint process it’s an O it’s an

interesting one because there’s all of

the work is in

you know putting on the paint people

consider some people think a paint job

is putting the paint on while putting

the paint on it’s probably about three

hours work but it’s all everything

that’s built up to this point which is

hundreds of hours that is the paint job

as an overall thing but yeah I can’t

wait to see it in that final white and

kind of at that point you start to

envision getting all the shiny bits

bolted on and seeing it take shape

properly and kind of step one is getting

the suspension on getting the wheels on

and seeing it rolling and painted and

that’s just such a motivational boost at

that point I can’t wait

“

Source : https://youtu.be/bfyKi_4dc-4

February 17, 2019 General, Mk1 Escort Videos

Mk1 Escort Rebuild – Retropower Gordon Murray Episode 9

In this episode the Retropower guys complete the metalwork, strip the car back down to a shell, zinc spray ahead of the paint prep. We get a good look at the escort on a rotisserie getting the seams sealed.

The inner wing has been modified to make space for a dry sump tank. Typically these go in the boot. Retropower have designed the cooler tank from scratch, we get to see the CAD drawings & some serious design skills.

The engine bay and bulkhead has been modified for custom loom with plug in connectors so the engine wiring loom can be unplugged from the bulkhead – no rubber grommets.

Here’s Episode 9:

Transcript :

“the imminent excitement is the fact that

“

Source : https://youtu.be/bfyKi_4dc-4

February 14, 2019 General, Mk1 Escort Videos

Mk1 Escort Rebuild – Retropower Gordon Murray Episode 8

In this episode the Retropower guys take a look at the car at the end of the dry build stage. Gordon gets a good look around the work that’s been done, checks out the driving position, new suspension and under body mods.

Here’s Episode 8:

Transcript :

”

“

Source : https://youtu.be/bfyKi_4dc-4

February 13, 2019 General, Mk1 Escort Videos

Mk1 Escort Rebuild – Retropower Gordon Murray Episode 7

In this episode the Retropower guys take a look at the progress on the metalwork and explain the dry build process. The Escort comes off the jig and onto a rotisserie so we get a good look at the work done on the underside.

The instrument binnacle has been moved to suit Gordon’s preferred driving position. Lots of work…..

Here’s Episode 7:

Transcript :

”

I suppose we’ve been talking a lot about

dry build and does if everybody knows

exactly what I’m on about and I suppose

we should go into a bit more detail on

that because it’s a very very important

part of the process we do of building a

car

it’s been a little bit longer since we

did the last episode than the normal

because we’ve been so busy it’s just

been ridiculous we’ve got like four cars

reaching completion we’ve had shows and

we’ve had people on holiday it’s just

been absolutely manic so it’s been a

little longer and also annoyingly

because I’ve been so busy and stressed

with other things I’ve not been able to

grab the camera as much as I would like

to so we’ve kind of missed a lot of the

huns I’m actually on the car which is

annoying because we’ve actually done a

hell of a lot of hands-on action on the

car most obvious thing is the fact that

it’s not on the jig anymore we are late

on the jig for all the kind of geometry

related stuff all the stuff where we

were taking a lot of structure out of

the car and that’s all done now and the

curse kind of structurally sound all the

accurate stuff still and so it’s back

off the jig so we could get it onto this

rotisserie roll it over and access all

the bits that we couldn’t really access

conveniently with it on the jig so a lot

of that is just grinding back welds

welding bits that we couldn’t finish the

welds on with it on the jig or we didn’t

want to because it’s incredibly

difficult welding upside down well I’m

sure all these like pipeline well that

well there’s a laugh at me and say oh I

say you say it’s easy but it’s it’s a

pain welding upside down so we can get

it back on now and finish all the welds

we couldn’t get to with it on the G

yeah I guess this is an interesting way

to see it because we’ve not been able to

see it at this angle for a long while so

yeah we’ve been going over just cleaning

up all the welds and things that we

couldn’t really get to when it was the

other way up and there’s various little

sort of detailed jobs are still what I

do on the metalwork underneath but it’s

nice to see it like this and actually

it’s quite a good demonstration of how

much metal works been changed on it

because really the chassis legs are

original and the back part of the boot

floor and the you know wings and that’s

it kind of looking forward to getting

this back in the blast broom and

blasting it all doing that Thermal zinc

spray process that we’re going to do on

the underside at which point it starts

to really look like a new shell

how’s it going I’m looking forward now

the end of it would be nice – it’s gonna

be nice bottom some mechanical bits to

it yes so all the major changes we’ve

done are all back here but I will just

mention the – which because we were

talking about this last time we’ve done

the kind of main part of the – and the

other thing we’ve done since then is the

actual instrument binnacle we didn’t

want to use the original one for a

number of reasons

I mean hey we’re going to use some

different instruments and warning lights

and by the time you’ve cut all of that

mid out to do anything with that there’s

barely any point using any of the

original and also we’re lowering your

position of it because because he’s lots

obscure a lower steering wheel position

with me on he’s pretty tall guy with the

the instruments in the original position

the wheel would have completely obscured

him so the plan has always been to drop

those instruments slightly so it just

made sense to fabricate an instrument

binnacle in steel so we’ve kind of done

the lower sort of transitional piece as

part of it and the the actual panel at

the instruments mount into and then the

top parts just got to return lit because

we’ll be making a molded soft pad for

the top here so similar to the original

just just different shapes and that’s

what we’ve got

that’ll come along and that will come

over the top of here and just meet up

with that that edge piece there and then

this steel at the bottom we’ll carry on

the line that we end up here the sort of

details done on this that the angle was

something we paid attention to so that

angle and that angle both matched

perfectly and they’re both designed to

be pointing straight towards the

driver’s eyes and in the actual back of

this we’ve done sort of clearance holes

for where the LEDs are gonna go there’s

going to be a series of warning lights

three there one there

that’s for the back of the LEDs to pass

through there’ll be a trim panel on here

in anodized aluminium which is what’s

going to have this sort of engraved

lettering to say what the LEDs do but

then the actual instrument holes we’ve

made these the same size as the

instrument so that we can use the

instrument through the bezel panel

through that back panel and then use the

actual mounting bracket of the

instrument to hold the fascia panel in

and we’ve done the same at this these

these holes are actually the exact size

for the gauges so that when we’ve made

the anodized aluminium panel rather than

having it bolted on with any visible

fixings we can actually use the

instrument retainers to sandwich both

panels together so there’s no visible

fixings that’s the plan there which

pretty much completes all of that and

the biggie at the back is all of this

structure here which we were just

cutting out last time so kind of

starting with the structural tube we’ve

put a tube across here and that was

planned sort of when we were talking

about the design interior design on the

structure of the car for a number of

reasons I it gives us a nice stiff sort

of cross brace on the car there on the

shelf at the back there also gives us a

really nice curved transition between

the parcel shelf and the bulkhead and

they’re just a neat way of doing that

and thirdly gives us mounting points for

this to the harnesses because we talked

before about him alight he’s to have

normal seat belts on but wanting the

provision for harnesses so we’ve done

three points here so it even got double

options there we can either have the

shoulder straps mounted on separate

points or we can have both go into a

single point depending on preference and

these will just have blanking plugs in

them when they’re not in use and the

trim panel that will go around here will

mean that they’re completely out of

sight anyway they’ll just be a whole

wish so they sit just slightly less than

flush with the hole we’ve obviously made

all of these panels the parcel shelf

the separate panel on both sides there

the bulkhead panel with a little infill

each side which ties it up to the inner

arch to which I think we were just

making that stuff remember that we’ve

done those or not so these these tubes

have been made to allow us a good amount

of clearance on the inside of the wheel

the central panel there we’ve just a

slight sort of folded cross into it just

to stop it drumming and it’s the same

reason really on the parcel shelf those

those lead beads that we’ve rolled into

there just stiffen the panel up and stop

resonating so much over bump stopping

vibrating and just stiffen the whole lot

of this one here we didn’t want to do

the beads because we still wanted to

leave open the opportunity of trimming

straight onto that rather than having a

separate panel on there and we thought

actually if we just did that we’ve still

got the option of literally upholstering

straight onto there and without having

this the sort of lines of the bead

showing through I think we were just

rolling this in last time so that’s done

and then the only other change that’s

visible from here is this section we’ve

made here because we were planning the

exhaust routing and noted that we were

going to need a bit more clearance

basically well where the exhaust comes

up to kick over the rear subframe

assembly so we’ve done an enlarged sort

of area or a floor pan there to give us

some exhaust clearance the other thing

you can see is these access hatches

which go down into the access the top of

the turret so we can get to the fixings

that hold the top mounts in for the rear

struts and also the dumping of just a

knobs are going to be on top of the

struts so those hatches are used to

access the damper adjust the knobs and

then we’re going to make some little top

caps that go over there basically and

bolt on so that just then becomes a flat

shelf but you can remote you can remove

the caps to adjust the dampers or remove

the struts so that’s most of what you

can see from here and then if we just

turn it round I have a look in the boots

and you’ll be able to see that metalwork

from the other side

from this side you can see sort of more

of the structure and the more critical

suspension related structure that we’ve

been working on predominantly the

turrets here and that was one of the

critical reasons again why it needed to

be on a jig so we could we could

actually make a sub assembly which

located the truck top mounts really

accurately in relationship to the jig

which is obviously accurate in relation

to all the other suspension mounting

points so we’ve basically made a jig to

hold the strut tops and then fabricated

the turrets themselves around that

they’re then tied into that cross tube

that we looked at at the front there so

the whole lot kind of is just a really

really stiff structure you’ve got the

turrets going up and braced into that

cross tube within the parcel shelf and

the bulkhead tying it all together as

well in our opinion this is just going

to be an incredibly sort of rigid and

stiff location for the rear suspension

there the top here you can see where

we’ve we’ve added the sort of section

that raises up to the parcel shelf which

is that cavity that we saw from the top

where you’ve got the adjuster knobs and

the top mounts for the suspension there

and so that’s kind of what encloses in

that area so it’s not just opening to

the boot and I again was in case of

trying to stiffen it all up and then

it’s quite notably the entire floor area

here on this sort of over axle area has

been completely refurbished from scratch

in the main to the floor section where

again we’ve rolled some ribs in to

stiffen it off and just make it look a

bit prettier I think this section here

was actually the same press tool that

Stu made for the bulkhead panel inside

but it just makes a nice a nice job of

it and the reason for this is multiple

again a it gives us clearance for the

rear subframe B it gives us more

clearance over here for the exhaust

underneath C it gives us a flat plinth

to rest the fuel tank on because the

fuel tank is going to be located here

keeping the weight nice and far forwards

and then lastly that the the sort of

lowered section in the middle that air

is going to allow clear and spread top

section in the middle of the fuel tank

which is where the inlet and outlet on

the fuel tank will be

which basically gives you your anti

surge so there’s kind of a captive pot

in the bottom of the tank with only a

small opening into it which means all

your cornering forces braking

accelerating the fuel can’t really exit

that pot so you avoid if you just had

the tank without that in corner hard

with a half a tank of fuel all the fuel

goes to one side and if you let the tank

is the other side you get fuel

starvation that’s kind of incorporating

provision for that at this stage and

then you can see that the arch tubes the

earth was the section we were working on

last time they were all finished and

welded and I think I still have even

more welds to do on these and then we’ve

since done the outer which we’ve put

quite a lot of work into those to get

this cake really far out and close to

the quarter panel all the way to its

full height to give us maximum wheel

clearance so when when the wheels

normally you’ve got the coarse panel

here and the inner arch kind of cuts in

much much further away from the quarter

which means when the wheel troubles look

really high there’s a good chance of it

hitting so what we’ve done we actually

used another outer arch repair panel and

use that as the basis for the outer part

of the art still banned then fabricated

all the rest of it but that means we’ve

got the first part of it it’s almost the

two panels together for quite a long way

up so we’ve just got as much wheel

clearance as we can possibly get in

there I think that’s pretty much in

terms of the changes we’re doing here I

say that as if it was a small amount of

work it was a fairly significant amount

the last time I realised we’d missed

quite a not particularly important but a

very obvious bit of metal work in that

we’ve put these slots in the rear

balance and which I never even mentioned

last time and this was something that

Gordon was quite keen on the detail he

wanted to add something to the to the

rear of the car that was just a little

different a little something

non-standard just to put his own stamp

on it and we did various drawings and

ended up with almost totally standard

standard lights standard bumper exhaust

on this side because that was going to

be the convenient way of reaching it and

because the side the manifold is but

then putting these slots in and then

we’re going to do there’s like a shape

in the in the pressing of the back panel

here which almost has like a diffuser

shape

paint that black in that section which

will sort of narrow the back of the car

visually which is kind of what he was

one said he wanted to sort of make it

look a little little wider and lower so

but kind of leading on from that we’ve

were going to be fitting the bumpers

because we’ve changed so much metalwork

on the car we’re at that stage now where

we really need to bolt things on the

lights the bumpers because there’s

chances of these holes and mounting

parts being in exactly the right place

on the pattern panels is often

remarkably slim so I’m currently in the

process of ordering a vast amount of

parts to actually initially build onto

the car while it’s bare metal just to

make sure all the mounting holes and

things are in the right place and

everything fits so we could probably go

through and have a quick look at all the

parts that I’m ordering now and the kind

of job list I’ve formulated for the dry

build and so you get a bit more of an

insight into that

I suppose we’ve been talking a lot about

dry build and those if everybody knows

exactly what I’m on about and I suppose

we should go into a bit more detail on

that because it’s a very very important

part of the process we do are building a

car and the reason really for doing it

is so that when we get a painted shell

and we’re building the car we don’t find

sort of problems unforeseen problems

that mean we have to drill cuts grind

any part of the car and sort of

custom-built car it’s amazing how many

stumbling blocks you come across and

just even the standard stuff so you know

for instance we’ve replaced lots of

panels on the car place the front panel

the rear panel there’s a prime example

all the lights and grille or mount into

the front panel the rear lights mounted

to the rear panel they’ve been changed

and although their replacement panels

you’ve know full well with these things

that stuff is not going to just bolt

straight on and I don’t want to find

after its painted that I’ve got these

headlight bolts don’t quite line I’m

going to drill a hole through this front

panel next to the one where it should

have been and you’ve got a random hole

and then a drilled hole with no paint

around it so everything that might

affect metalwork we build onto the car

while it’s still bare metal before we

paint it consequently there’s quite a

lot of thinking on into that and I mean

here’s an example

each of these jobs will probably break

down into another one but this is a

rough job list I’ve done for the stuff

we want to do in the dry build which is

quite a few jobs and as I say each of

those is likely to them result in a few

more this things like fitting door

handles well we’ve done door skins on it

they are escort door skins and so

supposedly the door handles will just

bolt in but will they really and I don’t

want to find that out when it’s painted

so fitting the door handles fitting the

quarter window frames again we’ve rigged

in the doors there’s a gap that that

a-frame has to fit into between the

outer skin and the inner frame and if

we’ve somehow got that not quite right

I’m gonna find out later that we’ve got

a match something to get the door at the

window framing so we want to find that

out now if it doesn’t fit and that just

goes on you know seals the heater unit

and also this is a biggie making

provisions

all the wiring and plumbing so not only

making holes in bulkhead for where

wiring or plumbing passes through but

also drilling the holes that will put

threaded inserts in which will actually

attach the clips that mount the wiring

the clips that mount the plumbing so

when the shells painted we just put the

ribbon in with a ribbon tool and then

we’re ready to go so that River insert

is going into a painted hole so there’s

there’s no bare metal in well we’re not

drilling the painted shell and then

exposing bare steel which could rust

later and you know you can see some of

the parts we’ve got laid out here so for

example headlights we definitely want to

try them make sure the holes to mount

these are in the right place these are

just the sister beauty of working on an

escort so much stuff new it’s amazing

like some of the cars we work on it’s

just an endless trauma of trying to find

new old stock parts or refurbishing old

parts

these are sybbie ones you can get

cheaper ones but we thought on a build

like this we might as well go for the

banner made stuff so city lights we’ll

try them these are the little lip seals

that go on the outside of the door where

the window sits again you can buy these

brand new even though they’re a molded

specifically molded seal for the

Martinez core not just a universal

section so we want to make sure that

that fits perfectly and they at between

the outer skin and the window is nice so

it sits nicely against that seal window

seals from really screen seals I’m

hoping the windows will fit if they

don’t we’ve done something majorly wrong

with it but it’s always worth trying

these things just to be on the safe side

the bumpers we’ve got and we’ve got all

new mounting hardware

these are Harrington stainless steel

bumpers kind of decided seeing as there

were an off-the-shelf stainless item

made sense because you haven’t got any

of that worry of chipping the crime or

the chrome flaking and starting to

corrode or usually what happens on the

crime ones is the backs not been

finished as nicely as the front and you

end up with them rusting through from

the back so they were just an

off-the-shelf thing and we’ve got all

new brackets and hardware to mount them

which again will will mock all that up

now because all the bits at these mounts

are that have been changed around the

wings are replaced and that’s where the

bolts go through on the end ultimately

with the dry build is we end up with a

car with engine gearbox axle all the

suspension bolted in on its wheels and

tires literally sitting on the floor

like a finished car with seats in with

the steering wheel in with the

instruments in so that Gordon can sit in

it and say you know yes I’m happy with

that and we can assess that everything

fits correctly that when when it’s a

painted share all the parts are just

going to bolt on and I know this never

actually happens there will be something

we’ve overlooked there always is

something but the idea is that

everything will just bolt on and we’ll

have a beautiful painted shell with all

the parts and no ragging of paint

it’s easy to overlook certain things you

think you’ve ordered all the parties

when you go to fit something and realize

oh yeah we need a certain screw for this

or a certain talent for this and then

you have to go away and order that and

that takes time to arrive so that

there’s a little bit of that but now you

shouldn’t it shouldn’t take that long

we’re kind of in the latter stages of

the metalworker now at the minute we’re

just tidying up welds on the underside

which we couldn’t get it when the car

was on the jig we’ve got to do the rear

chassis legs where they we’ve cut them

out where the turrets go through and

then we’re making basically a box

section that continues the chassis leg

around the turret that’s the only

remaining kind of key bit of metalwork

then we’re going to be pushing ahead

with the dry build doing any metal work

related to that and then at that point

which I’m hoping will be probably two to

three weeks from now I think Gordon’s

Gordon coming Gordon’s coming on the

27th and it’s the seventh today so that

tells you exactly we’ve got we’ve got

three weeks basically to get it totally

dry built and then at that point we’ll

strip it down and hopefully it’ll be

ready to take through to start the prep

for paint the one thing we’ve probably

not mentioned is we’re going to do all

the seam welding on the shelf because we

want to and this was something Gordon

was very particular about is making sure

this the shells as stiff as possible so

also we’ve done all the all the

essential metalwork we’ll get the car on

the rotisserie and go around every seam

and that will be TIG brazing stitches

along all of the seams to basically

stiffen up every seam on the car and

then once that’s done we’ll blast the

shell again which will just completely

strip all of the kind of outer coatings

it won’t we won’t be stricken back all

the epoxy primer that we’ve carefully

put inside all the hidden areas but all

the outer stuff and all the welding

scale it’s just a great way to clean

everything up and all the surface rust

and then we do a thermal sprayed zinc

process on the underside of the car

which where we’ve literally got an oxy

propane gun with a solid wire of zinc

fed into it and it sprays molten zinc

onto the underside of the shell and

that’s kind of our ultimate corrosion

protection system and once we’ve done

that then it goes through

to the bodyshop guys and they’ll start

doing the seam sealing and basically

doing all the groundwork to work towards

painting it so it’s becoming pretty

exciting time now my kind of number one

excitement is seeing it on its wheels

really looking forward to Gordon coming

over and seeing it and no doubt that’ll

be a bit of banter back and forth and we

probably have to do a few little tweaks

and changes but once we’re all happy

with it and then it’s yeah over to the

body shop guys and watching it transform

entertain which is quite exciting

you

how’s things that no wait I meant some

promotion stuff well I suppose paint yes

I think supplies the paint I was down at

Brook way there a couple years ago

building a more a built in a mini Oh

cheering hey Sharon hey you know China

yeah there is a bit more musical yeah

“

Source : https://youtu.be/BtDZHiGIBA8

February 12, 2019 General, Mk1 Escort Videos

Mk1 Escort Rebuild – Retropower Gordon Murray Episode 6

In this episode the Retropower guys take a look at the progress on the bodywork. Most of the outer panels are on and complete. The custom dash metalwork is in place and some extra cross braces and seat mounts have been welded in to give a bespoke driving position requested by Gordon. The pedals have been modified to allow the room for a clutch foot rest and the steering column swapped out for an Opel Mantra unit that has a crumple zone. We also get a look at the start of work on the rear suspension. A turret kit is going in, however they are converting to landrover freelander struts and coil over suspension with engineered camber adjustors – not sure how I feel about that, but it looks interesting.

Here’s Episode 6:

Transcript :

” in fact it’s pretty obvious if you had a

quick walk around the car you know all

we ask panel work is essentially on

there now so it started to look totally

like a car rather than just a sort of

half torn apart a relic now

a lot of progress has happened on the

car and since we last gonna filmed it

because obviously the last episode we

went to see some of the engine work

being done at Cosworth so you know

everybody’s been screaming and shouting

saying we need to see more work on the

car work on the cars but I think it was

kind of important to show the planning

stages and something we’ve said from the

start was that we’d like to show not

just the work we’re doing on the car but

if we’re getting other people to build

stuff it’d be nice to show those bits

being done as well so that was kind of

why the Cosworth MS it was thrown in

there a bit consequently because it’s

been a long while since we were last

actually looking at work on the car

we’ve done quite a lot on it in fact

it’s pretty obvious if you had a quick

walk around the car you know all the

outer panel work is essentially on there

now so it’s starting to look totally

like a car rather than just a sort of

half torn apart relic now I think when

we last filmed we were talking about the

metalwork at the front we were doing the

inner front panel regarding the radiator

and the oil cooler installation and I

think Gordon came over and was doing a

trial sitting so since then we start at

the front we have we finished all the

metal work for the oil cooler

arrangement we did a load of

modifications on the slam panel

regarding the radiator so we’ve kind of

just made this or meet up much more

pleasingly with the where the radiator

states we’ve got the the outer front

panel on that was just a standard

replacement panel which was pretty good

actually the fit of that was reasonably

pleasing there’s a few bits to tweak as

there often is but not too bad and then

coinciding really nicely with that the

carbon bonnet arrived which when you’re

doing sort of composite panels on a car

you obviously can’t change the shape of

the panel once it’s once it’s done it’s

done you can’t really go adding width or

length to it so you really need to start

with the carbon bits and then knowing

all the steel parts to that because it’s

a lot easier to change the shape of the

steel bits yeah with the bonnet one

thing we did up to do because most of

these are being marketed to the

motorsport

scene

they don’t put any of the hardware in

for the bonnet caches so you because

they’re normally gonna be on pins so

that was the sort of major change

related to the bonnet we’re adding

there’s a there’s a metal plate which

we’ve put in under here which is almost

goes all the way across there and it’s

got nuts welded to it there there and

there which for the main kind of striker

pin there and the safety caps bolts on

there and we could have slot in the back

here which we try to do it as small as

possible so the thing was kind of

threaded in really okay and then bonded

in the inside there we’ve done a swap

that’s coming just about the width of my

hand here that whole metal plate was

threaded in through and then and then

clumped through and bonded onto the

other side the underside of that hollow

section there so we’ve kind of got the

hardware there to mount all the original

catches it did come obviously with the

hinge mounts and yeah the quality of the

bonnets pretty good to be honest we’ve

been happy with that and the clearances

as it was when we mocked up the steel

one they’re still it’s tight on the cam

cover but there is room

so we got the carbon bonnet on there and

then it was a case of getting the

replacement wings on and getting those

all aligned which as usual with pattern

parts normally was a complete pain these

wings were out of shape in a lot of

areas particularly down the back so we

did a lot of work reshaping the rear

edge of the wing I think we ended up

actually unfolding the fold on the back

and adding about five mils on the back

and refolding it and also adjusting the

profile along here to match the bonnet

more pleasing now I mean there’s still a

little bit of work to be done on the

wings but they’re they’re pretty much

there and there was some work done

around this edge here as well these this

sort of intersection as a welded piece

on here that meets up with the front

panel it just wasn’t in the right place

so we had to run spot weld those modify

them and re spot weld them in the right

place so it all met up nicely and but we

got there in the end we’re getting there

there’s still a little bit of work just

to get the lines a bit crisper and get

them the meet up to the valance better

they just I think they just screwed on

at the minute so they’re not they’ve not

been welded on for the final time but

we’re pretty happy with how the gaps are

all sitting now I’ve got the gaps and a

scuttle nice the gaps to the wings are

okay so that’s that’s reasonably

pleasing once we got kind of the wings

and the front valance and all of that

lot set that then allowed us to move on

to doing the doors and there was a bit

of an about-turn

on the doors if you remember in the

earlier episodes we talked about doing

the carbon Boonton bonnet and then doing

our mininum skins on the doors that was

the plan then we started getting sort of

ever-ever

extending lead time shall we say on the

on the other minion door skins which I

have made to order and in the meantime I

also saw in person some aluminium skins

that were done for a Cortina and I had

concerns over the the fact that they’re

not particularly straight shall we say I

mean that they were pretty good but you

know we want when we do the paint and

finish on this we want it to be

absolutely crack on you know like

perfect ripple free when you look along

the lines and we

worried that with the aluminium skins

being not absolutely dead straight we’d

end up having to put that much filler or

you know build primer on them that

they’d probably end up weighing more

than steel skins you know and for a huge

amount of cost and hassle involved in

the meantime you know it started to

become not a very obvious choice

potentially we were going to end up with

extra cost extra hassle you know the

potential corrosion issues with our

mininum as steel as well all for

something which might actually be

heavier in the end so kind of gone

around the houses with that we actually

decided to just go with the steel ones

you know the final kind of decider on

that being that the steel skins these

ones are really really good quality you

know they are absolutely perfectly

performed because because they’re

pressed with a decent pressed tool

rather than being handmade

so we stripped the old skins off the

door so it was just the just the

framework in there we had to do some

repair work on the hinges because they

were completely worn out and make some

new pins for them

we epoxy primed the inside of these new

outer skins and also at the same time as

the skins were removed we epoxy priming

the part of the inner framework that you

can’t get to once the skins attached so

all of the inner hidden parts of the

doors are all protected and then fitted

the new skin which is pretty much the

case for putting it over the frame

having an adhesive around there and then

how am i forming the sort of lip round

onto the frame it’s fairly clearly

standard stuff for somebody who’s used

to doing Dorsky repairs

once we got the door the doors really

skinned and we’re totally happy with the

gaps around them we turned our attention

to the interior we talked previously

about the interior design revisions and

obviously we had a fairly lengthy chat

with Gordon about what we were going to

do on the interior the reason for having

that discussion with Gordon about the

interior design changes at this stage

was because there’s going to be

metalwork involved in that you know a

lot of people have been sort of saying

why are you doing into so much detail

now and it’s it’s important to do that

because a lot of it affects what we’re

doing now we don’t want to be kind of

painting the shell and then finally

we’ve got to cut bits back out of it

again to make changes so you’ll probably

see straightaway there’s quite a

substantial change to the look of the

dashboard from that point down we’ve

completely scratch-made that that – and

we’ve the sort of main feature is there

is the instrument panel that sits here

with the auxiliary gauges and then

there’s going to be the heater controls

and the headlight control underneath

there and we’ve actually changed the

shape of the entire lower part of the

dash for a number of reasons we’ve

deepened this whole section here and

made it slightly more vertical and the

reason for making that deeper is kind of

threefold the first reason is having

this instrument panel here with the

shallower dash would mean a much deeper

drop down section which would start to

look cosmetically out of proportion with

the rest the second reason is you

probably remember Gordon had a seating

position that was way back you know

almost in the back of the car and the

steering wheel a lot lower you know the

steering wheel was probably four inches

on the column here at this point was

about three inches lower than standard I

think so we from a cosmetic point of

view it was going to be difficult to

make a column much lower and not just

look like a sort of hanging down

appendage on the bottom of the dash and

also from a strength point of view

difficult to make a mounting for it’s

that far below anything struct

so it made sense to drop the whole –

down and have a structural part of it

that we could that we could mount the

column to so it’s strong but also kind

of cosmetically you don’t have the

column hanging down miles below the dash

and thirdly the revised heater box

arrangement that we’re going to put in

will sit behind the dash and this extra

depth gives us a little bit more sort of

area to hide that away behind the dash

so there’s a few reasons for making

those changes the way we’ve done this

also to incorporate a lot of strength is

there’s a tube behind here 38 millon is

a substantial MIT’s like roll cage

tubing here which runs all the way

across follows that line down and back

up the other side and curves in to both

pillars and actually attach this to the

pillars and forms a pretty structural

part of the car so we’ve added a lot of

strength to the shell at that point the

steering columns and mounted directly to

that tube so it’s absolutely you know

solidly mounted to the shell and it also

gave us quite an easy way of achieving a

nice radius on the bottom here all of

the sheetmetal work is obviously just

handmade panel work and then this this

kind of bead that runs around the

perimeter here was designed to sort of

replicate the original shape of the

original pressing there and we just made

a tool for our Paul max sort of

reciprocating hammer so we could we

could form that bead all the way around

that section we’ve then added the glint

holes each side for the extra vents

we’re going to add that these are going

to be these out events here which just

the center two are actually going to

stay in the original position and then

we’re just having another two on each

side so yeah pretty major changes on the

dash

their income is now not an escort

steering column it’s actually the

steering column from an Opel Manta which

we’ve kind of chosen because

dimensionally it was almost perfect and

it has a collapsible section in it so

it’s a little nicer from a safety point

of view if you have a big accident

rather than the solid bar coming up and

spearing you in the head it in theory it

collapses which which would be

preferable we’re still sort of decisions

still out on the switchgear we kind of

haven’t touched on that yet we’ve talked

about between us about doing our own

design of switch gear for it which would

be nice I mean the Manta does actually

have quite a nice simple single stalk

that does a lot of functions but there’s

a question mark there it seems we’re

going to this extent extent we’re kind

of thinking do we really want to use in

1980s indicator stalk even though it’s

infinitely better than the escort one

which just falls apart every time you

use it yeah I don’t know we’ll have to

make a decision on that one still and

yeah the pedals looking down in that

direction was another thing obviously

when God was here he was talking about

wanting him a bit further over so he had

room for a clutch rest so we very

angular the pedals to bring them further

to the right so there’s kind of space

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Tag: Mk1 Escort

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