1966 Mk1 cortina GT She Drives!

4 minute(s) of a 319 minute read

Whilst sourcing the tank was an important job it was only part of the bigger picture, the goal was to make the Cortina move under it's own power. I know it won't mean I' heading off to the MOT station but this is more of a motivational goal and something I wanted to attempt before I got too deep into fitting parts that would ultimately need to be removed.

There were 4 main parts to this;

The clutch hydraulics - standard parts and easily sorted,
Propshaft - new UJ's and paint, again standard fare,
The fuel tank (I'll not go over that one again)
The coolant system - hoses were tricky as the club website was down for a revamp for 6 weeks and ebay had questionable parts.


I didn't take any photos of the clutch arrangement and I'm unsure why but I have a clear plastic pipe which highlights my lovely purple DOT5 - whether this pipe is ok long term is to be decided

The prop shaft came up rather nicely, even though it's brush painted!

I painted the radiator and sourced the hoses from all over the internet before polishing the lot.

Once filled I heard a dripping sound..

The source of this was the coreplug conveniently located between the engine and flywheel, you know the one that's really easy to get to and can be fixed in minutes  

Off came the prop, gearbox, clutch, and flywheel so I could fix something I thought looked "OK" it was a pinhole but enough to cause a flood.

Once replaced I checked the coolant system once more before putting the underside back on, on my own not that I'm bitter...

Upon inspection I found that the release bearing wasn't making contact with the clutch and as it happens the AP clutch I bought isn't as tall as the original unit so all in all I would have had to remove the gearbox this week which is a small saving grace but even so!

Burton power who sold me the clutch informed me that I needed a bearing extension which they happily sold me and also told me that my clutch is now obsolete so there's a job for future me!

Now it could all go back on.

And that left me with 1 job to do...

I know it's a 6ft journey but I'm ecstatic with the thought of what's to come and overcome to get to this point.I'll admit I got a tad emotional but I have had this car on a pedestal in my head since 2005 and not driven it since 2006 so I think it's fair.