1966 Mk1 cortina GT Exhaust collectors

The manifold flange is off to a friends who has all the necessary toys to recreate it in steel which will buy me some time for getting the carbs sorted

Yesterday I had a big trip to south london (I got up at an unnatural time to get there for 9!) to buy some seats for the Cortina. The reason I bought these seats is because these are the one from my Cortina - I stupidly sold the front a few years back to a guy named Steve and when I saw them in his cortina 6 months later I knew I made a mistake....

6 years down the line Steve is breaking his Mk1 as no one wanted to buy it whole and I had to get them back - I even got a back seat which will be turned into a sofa for a friends motorbike shop



When Steve had them he bought some period clip on head rests which is what these seats are missing so I bought those too



As another mojo boost I thought I'd drop the spare rear seat in the car and just sit for a bit and have a cup of tea

I haven't got much of an update but I have most of the floor bare and the boot lid and I'm working on a few other panels inbetween

I do however need to put some bitumen sound deadening pads down - does anyone have any tips or adive?

I don't have much advice apart from "heat it a little so it's easier to handle", "keep at it" and "yay Cortina".

As I said before there was more to come, mainly painting and seam sealing the interior as it would only start to rust if I didn't do it.













I even started to refurb my BP Fuel can - I would have like a patina'd one but this had been hammerited badly



After a few days of drying and curing I seam sealed and put the wiring loom back in and the bits you can see here





I have the boot to seal but I am going to spend a bit of time masking off etc and I have the cable to start wiring the battery into the boot

its been a while! I lost mojo not long after the last updates with 2 bereavements and knowing that the cortina wont be ready for the wedding it just took a backseat.

After a bit of an arsekicking from the wife to be I figured I better pull my finger out! The inlet manifold is nearly finished - instead of the rubber mounts people use we are trying a pinch bolt collar which fits very snuggly on the carbs









With the manifold almost finished I cleaned the head up and gave it a coat of paint before fitting it to the bottom end









I liked the idea of a hard line running to the heater after seeing it on a morris oxford on here - so I made a temporary pipe out of some copper I had lying around



Whilst attatching the loom I found a few damaged wires - I have soldered them up but these will be replaced up - like I have done with the headlight wiring



I bought some lowering blocks a while ago and would like to try them out but the axle has a bolt that goes down through the leaf spring to hold them together - so I am struggling to get these to fit - do I cut/remove the original bolt then the stud on the block locates into that hole?



Any help would be great!

I'll finish with this!

The bike carbs need a rubber mount. Youll get some strange fuelling scenarios because the vibrations will not let the floats shut,and will also airate the fuel.

No offence but that makes no sense, I did my research into the cards and how to mount them and aeration of fuel has been mentioned - surely that's what the jets do rather than a rubber mounting that's past the butterfly valve

I believe that's why weber carbs have the rubber O ring between the manifold to stop vibration aerating the fuel in the float bowl. There not needed on throttle bodies. Don't ask me why a down draught doesn't need them though. I'm sure someone in the know will be along in a bit to explain.

I managed to get the bolt out of the axle, it didnt take a lot of effort which was a nice surprise, I have fitted the lowering blocks but they need a fettle to get them 100% but at least I know what they fit etc



I think I'll need to add a spacer to the wheels when they go on as they look a little bit lost in the arches



I decided to try multitasking as it seems to work out well for the Mrs! so whilst lowering blocks were being fitted and I dropped the centre console and passenger seat into the car (no where to store them till we've moved house) I thought I'd try electrolysis!

The exhaust manifold has some extra holes in it that need to be addressed and it looks pretty ropey, it needs to have clean metal so that I can weld it up and paint it - usually I would wire wheel parts as its quick and easy but the problem with that is that there won't be much manifold let afterwards!



The setup is pretty easy, I had the plastic drum in the garage - It is usually used for storing rags and doubles as a seat for when I am polishing stuff! and the washing soda was £1 for a KG (it should be enough to do this for everything on the car!) and a battery charger



After an hour - I wasn't sure if it was going to work!



after 4 hours - rusty soup!



I pulled it out and rinsed it off - it looks much better than I thought it would



I would recommend this as its something you can do whilst working on other jobs - I think I have an old sieve which would work for doing bolts etc at the same time