Neb

Some **** has nicked Paul & Mick Hand's Mk1 Escort Rally Car last night from Mick's workshop in Rainham, Kent. It's Orange, is non arched, fibreglass front wings with mexico arches. Turreted caged etc. Has a Pinto on twin 45's (will have Connaught Badge on Rocker Cover) Trans X Type 9 Straight Cut Gearbox Atlas Axle with LSD, Sierra rear calipers Brand new Sparco Seats New Belts Ally tank Will try and get a few more details but obviously both are well pissed off. Car was up on stands with no wheels on it, battery switch out of it i.e. not in a nickable state so they knew what they were after and came prepared. Any details whatsoever, please get in contact

Does anyone know (or have an old set in the garage) what the i.d. (internal dimension) of a standard spring on a MK1 or MK2 Escort? Faulkners have listed a 4.75" & 5.25". I'm mainly interested in 5.25" and what car they would been on? Thanks.

found the place on the WWW where i nicked them before... http://www.rallyanarchy.com/EscortRallyPrep/ The body prep manual is the one you want. The priciples are the same for all cars. There is no denying to get the best out of any suspension setup on any car on any surface it has to be as stiff as possible, also it'll last in tough competition. Just alot of work - the seams have to be as clean as possible. We used a wire brush on a small grinder along with various other wire brush fittings on a drill/drill extension to get in the hard to get places. Would be a nightmare on your back under the car. I've got a few pictures of the build if you want them, but people like Prepfab, Gartrac etc have build diarys on their websites, could be worth having a look at.

We seam welded our Escort last year. Was nice & easy on a spit. Basically all the seams on the chassis, we did 1" of weld (mig) every couple of inches. It took 2 weeks, 15kg of wire, and quite a few diddy gas bottles. Albeit our Rally car is being used in the forests. If you have an e-mail address i'll send over the Escort build manual which shows you the areas which need additional strengthing & a run down in the art of seam welding... I've seam welded road cars before, but i wouldn't do it again. Bit ott. ben.dawsonatuku.co.uk for the manual.

I don't know in all honesty mate.... We registered a couple of months ago via the council, it was in the Gazette. Chris West is the chap who sent us a letter could try and give them a ring? 01227 868515. Be good to chat to some OSF'ers!

The old man and I will be at the Herne Bay Classic Car Carnival on Saturday with the Mk2. Bit of a run down on us - http://www.dawsonmotorsport.co.uk/ We are there trying to drum up a bit of sponsorship for the London to Capetown rally that we are doing next January - see here - http://www.londoncapetownrally.com/index.html If you fancy a run out this weekend come & say hello. Can't miss a bright orange Mk2 and a couple of idiots up for a challenge! The old girl in action at Longmoor in December (pic by Rally Gallery.com)

Cheers Mate, she does go sideways well! Yup that's him, part of the woodwork now. Still got his car too. We are talking about going out to Belgium this year to do a couple of tarmac rallies in the Escorts. How's your car going pal?

double post...

Evening Ash, It was a thought after we have had a few teething problems with the Xflow. I had a chat with a mate who works for Dagenham Motors over the weekend (mech) and he reckons they are a good little motor, just be careful to keep the oil up or they destroy bearings apperently. The main reason for going for the 1600 was to keep in the class for rallying, whilst keeping the weight as low as possible. Unfortunatley the London to Cape Town was canceled last year due to political unrest - pretty much everywhere we were going! I knocked up a website recently www.dawsonmotorsport.co.uk if you fancy a gander. Might do it again this year (2012). Recently been out on the Longmoor Loco - got a bit of a shite result on cheap tyres (should of bought slicks) but spent most of the day in the general Escort pose - driving using the side windows.... Still got a few bits left from the build - i'll whack'em up on here when i get time. Still would like to see a Zetec SE in a Escort if anyone has done it....

Anyone installed one in an Escort?

http://www.rwdmotorsport.com/Bellhousin ... od_16.html A bell housing is available for it - which is a bonus, sorry should have looked for that first. I had a look at the Shawspeed site. looks like we could get 140bhp for under a grand. We'd probably run carbs. Dunnell seem to do some kit for them too. Has anyone installed one in a OSF?

Anybody know much about these engines? Whats the craic with fitting one in & Mk2 Escort? Currently running a breathed on 1600 xflow so looking for a bit more power & maybe easier & cheaper in the long run to install something else a bit more modern. Perhaps 150bhp? Looking to stay in the same class (under 1600cc) for rallying & would like to retain the Type 9 box. Also would like to keep a Ford engine in a Ford..... rather than going for something from the far east. Any thoughts?

Welcome, we are in Canterbury.

nicked from Alcoholics Anonymous - so don't quote me on it..... 1st Gear ratio 2.9515 2nd Gear ratio 1.932 3rd Gear ratio 1.323 4th Gear ratio 1 5th Gear ratio 0.8 might be worth getting out a tippex pen & start counting teeth! or check it with the haynes manual..... For reference on our gravel stage car we run a 4.6 but considering a 5.1 as we have a long first gear.

of the lot you have mentioned 3.75 will give the best acceleration, 3.09 the highest top speed. Don't forget that the gearbox ratios & tyre size will also make a difference but with that much power you want strength. There are various speed calculators online which could be worth running the numbers through. This is probably the best one i've used - http://www.kabamus.com/garage/gears.html Good luck it's a bit of a minefield picking the right one.....

Cheers Jamie, i'll have her out tonight to have a look.

Bit of a long shot on this one! Is there any way of tightening up the Tacho on a set of Mk2 Clocks? Ours is bouncing about all over the place like a Citroen AX, with the new lump in it i didn't want to rev it to hard...... yet..... Is there an adjuster?

Cheers Wilko, we only twiged when the exploded diagram in a Sierra manual showed it the other way round. We were close to pulling the box out! Could do with the practice though!

Turns out that the plastic clip on the selector shaft was on the wrong way round. Broke one of them though.... Thanks for your help chaps.

Looks like i'll be letting the dremel out of it's box tonight then...

Wilko, as you look at the picture on the Ebay ad, the cut out part of the clip should face the o/s of the car? Grizzley, i removed the circlip above the spring & the bearing to see if i could lower it down any further but that didn't work. We've got one of these.... http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_in ... ts_id=2009 Part No. RD1745 Was it the same as this that you had to file down? The right fu(ker about it is that we haven't got a standard gear linkage to try. I had a quick chat with our tame Gearbox man and he said about the mill pins in the box itself. We'ed have to pull the box out though, which i didn't really want to do yet.....

So for 2nd & fourth the selector goes into the bellhousing. i'll check that it goes down far enough, but would of thought that an off the shelf part would work..... Starting to wonder now though..... Cheers bortaf.

Chaps, Got a problem with our Trans-X s/c type 9 in our mk2. Can't get Reverse.... We have got a Burton BH3 Bellhousing (both sided starter), Rally Design rose jointed HD gear lever, and trans-x straight cut gear set. The box came to us with the rolling shell but belived to be a new gear kit, and we can select all gears other than reverse. I'm 95% sure that we have got the gear stick around the right way with the cut out toward the drivers side. It feels like the gear will start to go in but is stoped in motion. I think that there is a hole in the bellhousing for the selector fork/shaft to move into. Could it be fouling that? In other words pull the box out and check it? Any ideas or expeiences would be very helpful.....

Thanks for the welcomes. We have a load of bits that we have left over from the car when we got it, which i'll put up on the classifieds section on Tuesday. I'll also try & get some pictures up at some point of our Escort. It's been a long trek but about a month from being on the road. There was a few pictures of the car in the Classic Ford Magazine , builders special that they did a few months ago , of when it was on the spit. About half way through the mag, orange non arched Mk2. Cheers.

Hi Chaps & Chappessses.... Newbi from Kent, building a MK2 Escort for the London to Capetown Rally. It's going to be used as a stage rally car if it comes back in one piece! Quick Spec: 1600 Xflow Connaught Competition Engines built 120bhp & 122 Lbs/ft on a twin choke Trans X type 9 SC Gartrac Baby Atlas Hi Spec Brakes Gartrac Uprights - 4 1/2" spring Bilsteins Front (gravel) 5 linked rear end Seam welded shell Ally tanketc etc Looking for advice and just a good read!