What did you do on your car today?

[Hloni]

Drove Ol' Betty down to church in Eston, kicking dust as l drove down them farm road, then headed up to Hilton "village" for a braai with mates.
Man, what a joy riding her after a month behind the wheel of a Jap in Jozi!
Now have to install the bouggi cords and see to an alignment.

[Dirk]

Yes, you may all over me for writing about a ford here, but it's been hectic so I need an outlet.

Took it to a mechanic to get rid of the smoking on the engine. Mech quoted ridiculous amount to do engine re-build. 11k on a 1600 kent engine. I don't know what he's smoking but I wanted some and when I asked he refused.
Anyway... so I told him to sort out just the smoking and he said he'll see what he can do.

First off he said that the smoking was due to head gasket, so we had the head skimmed and gasket replaced.
Then he pointed out that the radiator had a huge hole in it. So we sent it for re-coring. Re-coring didn't go according to plan
so we were promised a new radiator at the same price.

That was Thursday.

Got back to the car on Friday, radiator was returned, but it wasn't a new one. Just our old one re-cored and painted.
!@#$!% Jackass just played us for more time.

Then we tried to drive her home, miss-fired like a gecko on acid!!! Smoked even worse! Granted, the mech did inform us that the play in the pistons were ridiculous and that we'd have no choice but to bore and do pistons. Fact is though, the car came back in worse condition that it went in. 2k down the drain. At least he didn't charge labor. So he might not be as much of a knob as I'm making him out to be.

Anyway. We also needed a new alternator because the casing on the old one cracked and it broke of completely.

So off we go to Good Hope spares. And there our luck started to change!

Ivan, one of the dudes there. Know about Wayne and me. I spend lots of time and money there and Ivan is always more than willing to help, good advice flows from his lips. For a guy not into his thirties, he is damn good with cars and parts.

After bringing me an alternator, his face changes and asks if it was for the Ford Kent Motor. I say yes with a rather dismal look on my face, and without a further word he runs into the back of the store. After a few minutes he returns with another Good Hope spares employee in tow, JP. Also a young fellow with much potential.

JP proceeds to tell me about this seriously cool ford escort his buddy had that was T-boned on the N1. Apparently the motor was done over and hardly ran 5k before the accident. He then tells me that the dude wants 2k for the engine and Ivan adds that he knows the engine and we would do good to grab it while we can. That was at around 5pm Friday afternoon.

7 PM we get back home with the new engine in tow, and a punt load of other parts the dude let me have for almost free. All in all I gave him 2.2k and walked away with a complete engine... including a new alternator.

So this... rather Saturday morning, just after 11h40 I fall out at Wayne's place and see that he already has the old engine out.
I'm go off to good hope again to get an inlet manifold gasket, oil filter and clutch kit. Good hope didn't have the clutch kit so off I go to Blou winkel. They didn't have the clutch kit either so I buy just the plate.

Get back to Wayne's place and he has the fly wheel on the motor we bought. On goes the clutch assembly, with the new clutch plate and three hours later, we were still struggling to get the damn engine back in.

Frustrated, we get it out the car again and we get the clutch off. I take the plate and try to get it over the spline... and there's the bloody problem. The clutch plate is the same size, the teeth are the correct number, but the individual teeth are broader than the the spline would allow.

Back in with the old clutch plate and this time we get the engine in, in under 15 minutes.

Then we start assembling everything again.

We have drained the oil and radiator, and wanted to take the old oil filter off. An hour later the damn thing is still exactly where it was when we started removing it. Noting we tried would get it off.

So off came the whole oil pump assembly. With the oil filter in a vice, we finally manage to get it off. We stopped briefly to get some graze into our bellies and then the oil pump got back on.

Now the electrics got sorted, and I'm rather proud of myself, because I got the firing sequence right first time.
For those who don't know, it's... it's... we'll come and take a look at mine and find out.

After a brief wobbly with the distributor, rotor and a timing light. We got her started at 23h45.

At around 00h00 we had issues with the clutch and briefly thought that we snapped the clutch cable after hearing a loud thunk from that area. But Wayne, after some fiddling managed to sort that, and apparently the arm was miss-aligned. He hammered down below for a while and soon that was sorted as well. We finally called it at around 00h30.

I'm home now, tired and pretty happy at the moment.

Not bad for a day's work.

[Dutch_Diver]

Take your Ford to a forum who gives a ( )

[Farhaad]

Take your Ford to a forum who gives a ( )

[CooP]

Dunno if it's applicable for the Kent but for the oil filters that simply screw in to the outside of the engine I find it easiest to just bang a large screwdriver through it and use that as a handle to twist it off... obviously this will ruin it so only do that when you have a replacement!

[Dirk]

Dunno if it's applicable for the Kent but for the oil filters that simply screw in to the outside of the engine I find it easiest to just bang a large screwdriver through it and use that as a handle to twist it off... obviously this will ruin it so only do that when you have a replacement!

That is the first the we tried. Seriously, the damn thing just didn't want to come off while it was in the car. The screw driver ended up cutting through the filter body, rather than turn the filter.
After trying for an hour, we relented and took the pump off. We griped the filter in a vice and used a spanner over the pump spline in order to get enough torque to turn the pump off of the filter.
This was our last option though, becuase we didn't want to try it for fear of damaging the gears on the pump. Eventually, we had no choice. So we placed some thick cloth over the gears, got the
spanner in position and ... the rest is history.

[CooP]

Still working on the mess that is the front end. Filling and sanding and sanding and sanding...
Nearly there though - the end is in sight.

[Pine]

Filling and sanding and sanding and sanding...

Marigold is looking good, Coop!

Remember, whatever one does - there will always be someone who had a tougher time than you

[CooP]

Thanks! Without this forum and all of the encouragement I probably would have given up this project a year ago and turned to

[bugspray]

Take your Ford to a forum who gives a ( )

http://www.fordstownerssa.co.za always welcome a new member with an old ride.

[69bug]

Washed "Old Lady" at 6:30 this morning. Went to church with her and for coffee at a local nursery. Always get a kick when people notice her!

[lowlight]

Saterday: Fit 6V battery in the ghia. Washed it and drove to Howick to another lowlight ghia. Sunday:Drove to church yesterday, then to Hilton to the antique market. Monday: Took the ghia to work, the reseve tap works the meter is out says 1/4.

[lowlight]

wanted to service beetle. Studs on beetle oil strainer pulled out. Lift beetle on stands. Will fit inserts tomorrow.

[hitlers revenge]

Seeing as the Ghis has had an engine transplant, I decided this was the weekend to start looking into the body work. Saturday I started to rub down the paint by hand and eventually gave up after developing some rather large areas of removed skin on my hands. Eventually got hold of a sander and with the help of my son, we started in sanding in ernest.

On Saturday I removed the passanger side mirror which was bolted to the door fron the INSIDE, behind the window winder mechanism. What a job. No the head that did this job warped the door around the 2 mirror mounting bolts and then proceeded to use bucket loads of body filler to hide these marks, Doos.

Any way as you all know its a long hard process. More to follow soon.

[dsan]

replaced the accelerator cable (again). I'd hate to know how small ze german was who designed the setup. It's nigh on impossible to get manly arms through such a small, and twisted, gap underneath the rear wheel.

Tried to work out what's causing the friction. I've ended up with a universal cable (vwheritage one), that has a hook rather than the bent S config and that doesn't seem to put so much pressure on the line.

Fingers crossed...