Dismantling_the

Retro Cars Magazine Track Day

After my last last track day at Elvington I popped down to the workshop on the Monday morning to have a look around the car to see what little bits and bobs needed attention over the winter.

I got a little carried away and by Tuesday evening the car and engine were in bits awaiting a full rebuild!!

Click the pictures for the full size image.

As I progress I'll update the page, Andy

Atlas axle showing trailing arms

I began by dropping the exhaust system and rear axle including the shocks and the 5 link system.

Atlas axle and prop

Axle removed - spot the problem

After I'd dropped the axle I found the only bad bit of rust on the car. Unfortunately it's on the chassis rail where the sleeve and bolt hold the bracket for the top trailing arm. It's going to need welding but does explain a knock I couldn't find when everything was in place.

Pretty Clean

With the axle out of the way things don't look too bad, apart from that trailing arm mount but that's easily sorted.

Kit car part one

Starting to lay everything out ready for stripping down, cleaning and painting.

Bit oily after Elvington

Now for the front end.

As you can see I've removed the bonnet and wings. The front wings are fibreglass and simply bolt on as the inner wings etc. have been boxed and strengthened so the wings bare no load.

Kit car part two

The suspension is dropped out in one piece and joins the rest of the bits on the workshop floor.

Up and out

Next comes the engine, pretty easy as it's only got about half a dozen wires connected to it and it mounts directly to the chassis.

Plenty of room in the tunnel

All looks good in the engine bay with no rust, rot or bends anywhere. There's quite a bit of oil though, as the engine was blowing it out of the n/s rocker cover at Elvington.

Very compact?

Easy

The engine and box are now out.

Cool enough?

Here you can now see the modified slam panel. There's not much standard on this car.

Moving along

Now the rear arches are off the car. I'll be putting new ones on along with new one piece front wings.

Different

Here's a couple of shots of the rear suspension turrets. I haven't seen another Mk1 Escort with this configuration and would be interested to hear about any.