Chris, how is this restoration progressing?
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Chris, how is this restoration progressing?
Very slow unfortunately Steve apart from sourcing the occasional part. Been putting a bit of effort in the last few months into reshelling my Mk2 that I rolled at a hillclimb when I completely ran out of talent. :( I know I have to get onto the Mk1 and it's never far from my mind!
Thanks for the update Chris, yeah I understand, life can get in the way sometimes! Have you managed to source any new photos?
Yep a couple from Warwick Clayton thanks.
Chris, I just posted this on the Graeme Bennett Collection thread, thought you might enjoy it.
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Awesome thanks Steve. Interesting it appears yellow here when I thought it was orange. It may be the photo or it may be another colour scheme.
I expect you are right Les now I've seen this photo. It's probably the best quality colour one I've seen from its time in NZ. Amature photos from this era all seem to brown up somewhat as per the AWA photo on my first post on this thread. Really pleased Steve posted it.
Hi Les what was the Escort that I built the 1600 BDA for and ended up in Will ORE hands Jamie A
It was white and yellow, remember it from back then.
Chris,I thought It was coming to Whangarei to sit with the woolmark Escort after our few beers on Saturday night??????
Hope the van went ok.
Pete
Any progress on the resto of this car? Just curious.
Cheers
Tony
Today while searching for something completely different, I came across these photos of the AWA Escort that Chris Kitzen was after information about.
The negatives are dated Pukekohe Grand Prix meeting 1976, Pukekohe 27-3-77 and Baypark 10-4-77.
Hope they are of some use to fill in some history.
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Wow! Awesome pics Ross.
Yes definitely awesome. Thanks for posting them Ross. I've sent you a PM
PM returned with my email address Chris
To be honest I don't really know and I don't know if he knew what he was talking about either. I guess it had something to do with strengthening the shell as it was a time before roll cages of course. I've seen the Alan Mann car in the UK and had a good look at the Fahey car during restoration and didn't notice any outriggers on either whatever they may be, The Fahey car is very special and massively modified in the chassis department from a standard Escort of any kind. It actually makes a full spec rally car with four link suspension and turrets look very pedestrian. I have never seen anything even close to front suspension on another Escort. If anyone can shed any light on the outriggers I'd be interested in hearing about them.
Another photo I found for Chris showing Bryan Blackberry in the Frist Escort with the AWA car. Looks as if there has been some "close" racing happening by the tyremarks on the door of the front car.
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How are you progressing on the restoration of this car Chris?
Chris, Those outriggers may have been the extra inner strengthening part of the 'B' pillar and under the roof skin done by Gomms pre roll cagers as the world cup cars and a Raydens car.???
The only outriggers I have had were on my game fishing boat,now you have the 2.0 ltr cosworth iron block you need to start the resto. Pete
Well I haven't got much further actually Steve as I'm waiting to get a shed up at home so I have somewhere to do the work. Nearly there finally.
I did manage to get my hands on the original engine block about a month ago. Long story but until recently it was basically still in the same workshop where the car was maintained in the 70's. It ended up in an Escort rally car with pushrods and a pre-crossflow Cortina head on it. It's approx 89mm bore so nearly 2 litres.
It's a special casting with a boss added on the oil gallery for an external oil feed. Alloy blocks are the same because there isn't enough room for the oil gallery to run through the engine with the bigger bore. They were totally bored out and the liners were vacuum brazed in. This is how you got 2 litres out of a BDA engine before alloy blocks were thought of.
I need to get it crack tested to see if it's useable and it will need a bore if it is as it's scored in No3. A nice bit of work actually and really pleased to have it.
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Wow, that is a great find Chris! I love stories like this. Really great score.
As to the question of "roof outriggers", RS2000 supplied this on TNF:
"The Mann biography refers to welding in a "top hat" shaped cross brace to the roof in a not obvious way and that this proved the provenance of some of the cars much later on. Without ploughing through the Appendix J "freedoms" I can't recall when body strengthening became free in Gp2 but this was perfectly permissible in Gp2 in the final years but probably not then. Roll cage mountings were very limited then with none of the massive constructions used today that attach everywhere. The weakest point of a Mk1 Escort shell was by the A pillars whereas on a Mk2 it was below the C pillars. Either way, it was presumably seen as important to shell rigidity and would have been concealed by the head lining. The permitted cage then was little more than the initial hoop behind the B pillar. Later the "14 point" cage was the norm right to the end of that Appendix J - the final Escorts in the 81 WRC still had no rear diagonal, not least because the passenger seat needed to be reclined.
My main concern in later years was that we had removed the standard production roof cross brace from a Mk2 International Rally car as weight saving rather than added anything, although I'm sure it was not standard production on all Mk2 models. I don't think Mk2 RS shells had it but mundane models did, suggesting that on standard cars it was more about "NVH" or whatever the term is."
Awesome thanks.
My shell has some extra strengthening in a couple of areas. Across the top of the windscreen inner panels front and rear (the front has the interior light fitted in it) have both been spot welded to the roof whereas as a standard shell is only spot welded in the windscreen aperture with sealer between the other edge. Of course spot welding them to the roof panel means the spot welds all have to be filled with bog. You can see it now as the shell has been sand blasted but you would never know when painted. The rear seat cross member is also extended up to the top of the 4 link mounts, out through the inner quarter panels and brazed to the outer quarters. Not sure how extending it out to the rear quarters helps but they must have thought it did something.
Found these a little while ago as well so my question some time ago about when it came to NZ has been answered :)
From Motoraction 22 Aug 1975
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... and from Motoraction 14 November 1975
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