Well the final meeting regarding the festival is over, the plans are in place, the people know where to be and what to do, entries are in for all the disciplines and now we (read as me) can sit back, relax and countdown the hours to kick-off. Read more →
Well today I got back to work with the welder
The whole passenger footwell is now stitched in
New heater tray is cut and folded, but waiting for drivers footwell before peding in permanently Read more →
The welding has started.
It basically got to the point where unless I started welding something into the car it was just going to flop apart into a bit heap on the floor.
My main concerns at the minute are the replacement of main structural items such as the crossmember and sills. The reason these are concerns are down to the fact that the cross member needs to weld to the inner sill, the inner sills need the be cut out and replaced, but these weld to the a-pillar, again, a panel and structure I wish to replace.
So what I am doing is cutting out the crossmember, welding in the new one, to the chassis legs. This should allow me to safely remove the sills and replace them, welding only to the structure at the back and to the crossmember.
Once those two are happily in place, I can then remove the a-pillar, leaving the fresh footwell panels in as strength and weld in the new pillar and the structure behind it.
I hope it’s as easy as I say it is when it comes to stopping the shell from bowing. We shall see when the time comes.
Anyhow, I now have the footwells in, welded, and all the welds linished so it’s all pretty again, thankfully with no warping of the panels 
I also have the transmission tunnel cut out. I stopped by Montgomery Motorsport to measure up my desired tunnel only to find the wide end is too wide and the shallow end isn’t tall enough for the 200mm high tunnel that the Midget needs as an Escort only runs a 115mm tall tunnel. So back to the drawing board and further depletion of the sheet steel stock in the garage.
All in all, I am happy with the progress, but I now loathe spot welds!!! Read more →
Well last Wednesday my stomach took a turn for the worse, let me just say I wouldn’t wish the pain on my worst enemy. By Saturday the pain had eased enough to take a dander to the garage, work was slow, very slow. Read more →
So this leads us to the last few days work.
In the last photo you can see I roughly cut out all the footwell panels. This was mainly due to rust, but the top and inside panels were brittle and had cracked where the engine steady bar had been mounted.
So fresh metal was required, and we now get started on the fun parts Read more →
Well, more fun was had this evening. Taking the grinder to big bits always seems exciting until you realise how fiddly it can be to cut into the tight areas.
The outer panel was fine, but due to wanting as much new metal as possible, it had to go. As seen in previous posts the toe-boards, forward panel and sill extensions were veritable tea bags, they needed to go and quick. The inner panel which the heater box mounts to was generally in good shape, but due to being used as a mounting point for the engine steady bar, it had become brittle and cracked in multiple places around the heater vent holes, so once again, it had to be removed. Read more →
Well yesterday work began on Mk1. I knew I was to expect some rust but my mind was still seeing the nice red paintwork and not really preparing itself for what the wire wheel was about to find.
The Mk1 has found its way to it’s temporary home, just a mile up the road from where the magic will happen.
Fingers crossed in the not too distant future I will have finished off the current project in the garage and the poor Midget can be brought in for surgery. Read more →
