1966 Mk1 cortina GT She Drives!

5 minute(s) of a 319 minute read

I know that putting the quaterlights in first was the wrong thig to do but I wanted to do a trial fit and get a feel for fitting the brackets and test the fitment of the rubber.

Having got a feel for how to fit the glass I started on the passengers side with the first taking an hour and a half! towards the end the last door I fitted was the drivers side and it took 20 mins

I have only now managed to fit these door mirrors I've had sat for years waiting to be more than trial fitted - I may be able to see slightly more behind me - not that I'll have much behind me when I'm on the road!

I had found that there is an air leak on the inlet/exhaust manifold so figured I would take the opportunity to wrap the exhaust manifold as it sits close to the inlet, I have heard mixed reviews about wrapping manifolds. It is a painted and lacquered manifold but for the moment I'll leave it as it is.

When prepping the gasket and manifolds for fitting I found that the threads that hold them weren't in the best shape, I could get them to engage with the bolt but you couldn't torque them so I bit the bullet and helicoiled them - it got a bit tense but the bolts engage much better than they ever had so that's promising! After finding an air filter element for the Timavo filter plates and now it looks much better than it did.

I'm reworking the loom to remove a single wire that feeds the coil, heater, horn, wipers and other stuff that needs a live feed so I'm working on single wire feed to a 12v buss bar that is located close to the new fusebox and relays - this I'll come back to when it's all wired up etc.

I'll blame broady for a purchase I made a few weeks ago after seeing the JBW's in 7" I was quite easily persuaded to just go for it! They fill the arch nicely but a little too wide for the front but I think 5.5 or 6 will do the job nicely.

3-28-2021

jonsey You're more help than the folks on the owners club facebook page! That's a dark and difficult place!

The loom is coming along nicely albeit taking longer than I wanted - the rev counter is still with the chap refurbing it, so the loom is in and unwrapped because I wanted to make sure it worked before wrapping and I could get the routing how I want it.

I'm happy with the fusebox and relays now - much neater and can be easily removed if/when I want to upgrade it.

The engine has run for a while but when I had the exhaust manifold off I put a new inlet gasket on and the carburettor has been stripped and blasted out with cleaner and air. I'm now getting all 4 plugs getting fuel which is much better than how it was when it all came off.

The crank pulley I was using had 2 timing marks as it had been modified (not sure why) so I've reverted to a standard pulley which I had laying around.

The distributor seems to be delivering spark and I have a constant 12v to the coil and the leads are connected 1243 but still no fire - it's got me stumped!