Lets Start Making A Car.
Although I planned to make my own body panels, the nose cone, scuttle, and wheel arches take a lot of work to make, so I decided to look out for fibreglass second hand. The scuttle and nose cone came brand new slight damaged from a trade stand at the Stoneleigh Kit Car show. They were still very good quality and a steal at £30 each, even though one was red and one was green. When both items had been offered up to the chassis and set to there final positions, they were clamped and drilled and bolted into position. Things were starting to take shape, and now these two items were in place, more fixtures could be offered up, measured and fitted.
The radiator was the original Escort 1600Ghia item which was in good condition. The book gives the mounting dimensions at an incline angle. The radiator is too big to mount upright and so is shoe horned in sloping. A basic light duty electric fan was mounted in front of the radiator, every inch critical, everything made to measure. I just hoped I would be able to find top and bottom radiator hoses to eventually pipe up to the engine.
I had the 1600X/Flow engine from the donor car and the 4speed gearbox from the Cortina all cleaned and painted in the workshop. Mating these two together should have been Childs play, OR NOT! The engine originally had a torque converter on for the auto box, but now I had fitted a 1300GT flywheel skimmed and lightened to 7.5kg. The mounting bolts for the flywheel to the crankshaft were assembled with Loctite Threadlocker compound on them. This will stop the bolts vibrating loose, but also allows them to be removed later if ever needed. The lightened flywheel should let the engine rev quicker. With the clutch fitted the two units were put together. The mounting holes matched perfect, but when the bolts were tight there was a 5mm gap between the engine and gearbox flanges. A spacer plate would have sorted this, but this was again extra work. The two units were parted and measurements taken of the depth of the clutch assembly and release bearing, and sure enough they were too thick. I now had to find another clutch to mate my engine and box. A lot of studying and head scratching a clutch was found to fit the bill. A clutch unit from a Mk5 Cortina 1600OHC matched the flywheel and the gearbox splines. A brand new clutch from Stoneleigh came in at £30. Once fitted and centralised, the engine and box were mated and with all bolts tightened the clutch lever had free play, Result!
With the chassis having the nose cone and scuttle mounted, the height of the engine must be slightly lower than a straight edge from the bonnet mounting edges of the scuttle to the nose cone. It is a good idea to cut a piece of wood 2inch x 2inchto the exact length between these. This is where the bonnet will eventually sit and so nothing must be higher than this point.
