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Jul 24, 2018 15:24:57 GMT
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Well, a new project has arrived will be arriving shortly.
Now seems like an apt time to start a thread, as I'm sure the journey I take with this car will be a bit of a laugh and these threads are always good to come back and have a cry laugh at.
It's currently in Texas, hence the 'arriving soon' bit, or at least I hope it arrives soon... Who knows, I'm just trying to stay relaxed about buying a car I've never actually seen in person, after all, what could possibly go wrong?
So the car, well it has 4 wheels, the original wheels in fact and what more it has original everything else to go with it. (a damn sight more sensible starting point then the last motor I was playing with)
1 owner Texas car all it's life, never driven more than 60 miles from the chaps home and has just gone through a hefty amount of recommissioning. I think that's a better way of describing it, as the work carried out wasn't in a 'restoration' style or anything. The car had been sat for a couple of years as it had gotten a bit tired as had the chap that bought it from new in 1971. The carb started messing him around and it was decided to leave it parked up, he finally let it go, where it found its way to a little hot rod shop in Texas to be recommissioned ready to ship to old Blighty.
So, a list of all the stuff done to it seems a good place to start:
Brake drums
Brake shoes
Wheel cylinders
Brake hoses
Brake lines
Master cylinder
Sway bar links
Sway bar bushes
Shocks
Fuel tank
Fuel sender
Fuel filter
Exhaust
Battery
Engine oil + filter
Trans oil + shift shaft seal
Diff oil
Full engine gasket set
Full trans gasket set
Contacts
Condenser
Dizzy rotor
Dizzy cap
Ignition leads
Starter solenoid
Ignition coil
Ignition switch
Re-manufactured head
All new hoses/belts
Re-wire
U-joints
Weather strip kit (whole car)
Dash pad
Door hinges
Full carpet set
So in summary, it should be nice and weather tight, likely needs some new tyres when it gets here but other than that, should be ready to enjoy.
Any of you keen eyed people out there would have noticed the word 'head' rather than 'heads' so yes this is a 6 banger inline motor with a C4 trans hanging off the back of it. Paint wise, it's had a buff but as it's been sat in the Texas sun all of it's life, it is a little sun blushed and quite faded in parts.
The plan is to get an MOT on it, register is and then drive it. The gentleman bringing it in for me is taking care of all of that for me, so the first time I drive should be on the way home (which will not be an insignificant trip, but more on that in a couple months when it turns up) once I have it home, give it a good going over, then get it under-sealed and decide if it needs some paint protection for a while.
Then it will just be about driving it and enjoying it, none of this mad project stuff, just some simple maintenance and lots and lots of driving... Famous last words I am sure, but that's what I keep telling myself.
It has already been coined 'Goose' by mates, purely as it doesn't have a proper motor (read V8) so therefore they refuse to call it a Maverick until I motor swap it, which I am not going to do... I can already feel myself shaking my head as I write these words... It's fairly inevitable... But after the last project, I don't want to take a car off the road for extensive work ever again haha
I'll document the collection of the car, but until then there won't be much to report on. Fingers crossed she will see the UK roads early October.
OK, pics don't seem to be uploading just yet, so i'll slip them in after this post.
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Jul 24, 2018 15:25:20 GMT
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brc76
RR Helper
Posts: 1,107 
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Jul 24, 2018 18:12:09 GMT
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Genius, I love the oddballs of american cars.
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Jan 17, 2019 10:01:28 GMT
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Wellllllllllll it arrived a little while before Christmas. The car not quite how it was described, but at least that gives me something to do now! She's tucked up in a shed at the mo with a flurry of parts on the way, the biggest piece of the puzzle is the drivers side floor pan that it needs. Then a carb rebuild kit as that seemed like it was kind of bodged to work and after a 15 mile drive decided to start spewing fuel out. Not too worried as it needs the floor sorting and undersealing before it gets any more road time at the mo. The car overall sticks a massive smile on my face and has a nice raspy note to it when you can actually get it running. The paint, yeah it looks cool being all sunblushed and what not, but it is super thin. Not being a big fan of the whole clear coat patina movement, she will get a rub down and spray job to keep the body nice and straight. Couple of holes in the rear wing which will get welded up before that too. Overall cool car, needs some love, but that is what it is all about. Hope to get it all road worthy for the end of April when there are loads of 'Drive it Days' and coffee morning meets to start attending. I'll update some bits as I go... On the boat:  Collection:     On the way home, we ended up stopping at a services and bumped in to someone that had an even more full on project than us! This Spitfire was pretty much held together with rust, best of luck to them!  Then as a bit of a tradition, a new car means a new key ring... How else am I mean to know which keys are for which car?!  (spoiler, it's not hard, I only have 2 cars) |
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Jan 17, 2019 10:08:22 GMT
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Pity it wasn't as described. I think if I ever get a car from the states it'll be one I've roadtripped in, first.
Looking forward to see what you do with this.
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Jan 17, 2019 10:08:55 GMT
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Then I took it for a drive to the workshop, 15 miles, what could possibly go wrong? Well it ran nicely at this point, a bit rich is a slight understatement, but the carb was just dumping fuel in regardless of any adjustments... One little hiccup on a huge roundabout, but the rest of the trip was all country lanes and went off without too much drama. So much fun to drive.  Also get a better look at the paint without water on it, she's a bit pink! Very tempted to give it a light rub down and a rattle can job just to keep the moisture at bay and for the car to be well... Less pink. Messing with the carb, it was easy to see it needs a rebuild and a general tidy up. I'd like to try and get some life out of the motor and carb so will give it some love and see how it gets on. It will keep the engine swap at bay for a while and some cash in the bank account a little longer.  The front valance has also taken a hit at some point, so will try and straighten it out when I get around to worrying about the body.  Hopefully the more love she gets, the less I will have to worry about using this when out on a drive haha  |
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Jan 17, 2019 10:21:24 GMT
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Thats a neat wee car.
Is the Carter carb hard to rebuild/replace?
You don't mention if its a manual or auto?
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Phil H
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,448
Club RR Member Number: 133
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Jan 17, 2019 11:22:11 GMT
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Thats a neat wee car. Is the Carter carb hard to rebuild/replace? You don't mention if its a manual or auto? Auto assuming the C4 is the Ford C4 Auto I'm thinking of? |
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Jan 17, 2019 12:49:45 GMT
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Yup, you guessed correctly!
Auto trans sitting behind the inline 6 motor, column shift.
It's a baby C4 though so I won't be able to just slap a V8 in front of it, I will need to change the bell housing and take it easy or upgrade it to a bigger boy C4 that can take more grunt... Luckily there is one of those in the workshop collecting dust...
It's a pretty basic carb so I'm not expecting a big headache, rebuild kit is only £20 so will give it a punt, worst case a replacement carb is £200
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Jan 17, 2019 12:56:09 GMT
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I missed your post last Summer so glad I caught the update, I don't know anything about these but like the understated look about it. I guess they weren't as common / popular as the usual American Ford stuff that you see everywhere.
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Jan 17, 2019 13:49:21 GMT
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They were brought in at the smog crisis time, so they were fitted mainly with small engines and were slightly smaller cars to compete with the import of J stuff hitting the market.
They did offer a factory 302 model, but there wasn't a huge uptake on this.
They share an amount of parts with late 60's Mustangs too so there is some aftermarket support for them which is nice. Especially nice is there are factory V8 mounts available if a motor swap was to take place.
Very popular in South America, mainly Brazil as they have smaller streets and less money (apparently) so they really took off there. It's hilarious how many Brazilian blokes now follow me on instagram after posting a few pics haha
It's a great sized car, little smaller than a Mustang, not many in the UK. I suspect we will see a few more come over soon as the prices are pretty tasty compared to the classic muscle stuff. I'm quite smitten with it, despite it's current flaws
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Jan 17, 2019 21:43:05 GMT
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They were brought in at the smog crisis time, so they were fitted mainly with small engines and were slightly smaller cars to compete with the import of J stuff hitting the market. They did offer a factory 302 model, but there wasn't a huge uptake on this. They share an amount of parts with late 60's Mustangs too so there is some aftermarket support for them which is nice. Especially nice is there are factory V8 mounts available if a motor swap was to take place. Very popular in South America, mainly Brazil as they have smaller streets and less money (apparently) so they really took off there. It's hilarious how many Brazilian blokes now follow me on instagram after posting a few pics haha It's a great sized car, little smaller than a Mustang, not many in the UK. I suspect we will see a few more come over soon as the prices are pretty tasty compared to the classic muscle stuff. I'm quite smitten with it, despite it's current flaws Cheers for the details, lesser spotted makes it more interesting for me.  |
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Jan 18, 2019 21:28:33 GMT
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That's a nice looking little coupe! As people have mentioned above I don't ever remember seeing one before.
They did sell a "Ford Maverick" in Australia in the 80's although that was a rebadged Y60 Nissan Patrol, so pretty much the opposite end of the car spectrum to this!
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Jan 18, 2019 21:54:50 GMT
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Wish I could get a pic like this for the Blazer Love shots like this, |
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Looks great. They were drag raced in the early days of Pro Stock IIRC, so inspiration could be found there. The 302 swap as you say is a factory fit option, but I think I'd be tempted to go for a turbo 4-pot - maybe a Zetec?
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim
1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started.
1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Wish I could get a pic like this for the Blazer Love shots like this, Cheers, I'll try and keep them coming! |
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Looks great. They were drag raced in the early days of Pro Stock IIRC, so inspiration could be found there. The 302 swap as you say is a factory fit option, but I think I'd be tempted to go for a turbo 4-pot - maybe a Zetec? I'm torn between a nice simple 302 swap, V8 rumble and all that... Or a screaming 6... There's a 7m-ge motor sat in a mk3 Supra in the workshop, with a manual box and well the rest of the mk3 Supra... There is also a V8 bell housing'd C4 gearbox that would drop in... There's even a 302 in there, but my god it needs a rebuild. I'll get the basics sorted first, then see how I feel about it. Hmmmm I do have a hankering for something with ITBs at the moment, but that can happen with any engine choice really. A motor that fits between the shock towers is a big must though, as I don't really want to chop it about too much. Strangely an LS motor needs as much chopping as a big DOHC Ford lump... If I was to go V8 I would stick with Ford. |
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So a quick strip down of the carb revealed a couple of interesting things... Firstly, there was no gasket of any sorts between the carb and the intake manifold. Secondly, there was a massive washer just knocking around and slowly taking chunks out of the poor thing... Luckily it was a big washer otherwise that could have been bad times indeed! Looks like it has been in there for a while! I can only assume the washer was once a part of the intake hat.  so that got a bit of a file down to smooth it out a bit, but all the jets seemed ok and were working as expected with no cracks or dents. The rest of the carb was mostly OK, accelerator pump got changed out and seemed to be much more efficient afterwards, which is good to see. All the other usual suspects changed out and cleaned up too. Then, when putting it all back together... The last bolt to go in... Wouldn't tighten, at all. Odd, thought I was going a bit mad with all the fumes at this point, but took it back out and sure enough the threads have been stripped from the body of the carb. The bolt doesn't protrude the bottom of the body enough to get a nut on the bottom to hold it down... So it will need to be tapped and a slightly oversized bolt used, or just a longer bolt with a nut on. Looking back at the pics of the carb before I took it off... Any guesses on which was the offending bolt?  So, once I have resolved that last issue, i'll get it thrown back on the car (with a new gasket between the carb and the intake) and see how she gets on. Shipping update also says that my new floor pan is in the UK somewhere along with an electronic ignition set that i'm looking forward to playing with. Choppy cutty weldy painty will be the first big mission on this.. |
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79cord
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,607
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Have you noticed the Falcon Barra engine yet for more silly options; the final evolution of your original 6.. With Dohc 24v variable cam timing & optional turbos from recent Australian Falcons.
The Maverick having also been a replacement/reskin of the original '60's Falcon.
Cheap here unless you want turbos, not that that means anything by the time transport is added. Ford's 6 was always a fairly heavy & long engine.
Obviously floors far more important!
Definately prefer the simpler styling & relative obscurity of Maverick over Mustang.
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Last Edit: Feb 4, 2019 10:36:34 GMT by 79cord
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what sort of output did the I6 200 engine have? i expect in the grand scheme of UK cars still got quite a bit of poke
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Last Edit: Feb 4, 2019 11:19:32 GMT by darrenh
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