1978 Mk2 Capri - new rims

Cheers Dave, managed to find a couple of doors a bit closer to home, Northern Germany is a bit of trek sadly! Your Merc project is coming along really well.


So another small update - it's amazing how long it takes to clean things up and get them painted!

This time I got the propshaft and fuel tank (which was a right state!) done:





Came out pretty well. The tank has since had a coat of stone chip paint on the area's open to the wheel arches.

Next up on the clean up list is the powertrain. I've taken a fair number of the ancillaries off for access, now just to clean it all up and paint the block/head red



Will also give all the ally bits a good clean up and then paint stuff like the engine mounts up in black. With any luck I might be able to get a fair bit of the running gear back in the car this week, which will be nice!

Thankfully they're in ok nick, just in need of a good clean

Cheers, I don't miss it much oddly so it was the right choice, plus it's helping us buy a house (with 2 large garages) so it opened a nice door

Back to the job at hand, the last couple of nights I've been doing yet more painting.

The engine bay has had a final coat, and is now pretty much ready for the engine



and the engine it's self is pretty much ready to go in, just need to clean up the ally bits and figure out what sort of rocker cover we're going to use



That's about it for now, given a fair wind I might get the engine in this weekend, maybe....

Thanks very much, but to be honest I'm way past the mental deadline I originally set! Hopefully it'll be on the road in summer, if the sun ever comes out again!

Another week, another ever so slight progress update! But we did spend yesterday buying useful bits, and I've booked next week off to tackle finishing the body.... if the weather holds that is.

So front struts are on and tided up



I've fitted some flame retardant absorption to the bulkhead. Why? Well by day I'm a refinement engineer, and since this is a road car, we've decided to try and make it a bit quieter inside than the usual Capri - I'm not a miricle worker, but we a few bits of additional trim, a well tuned exhaust, a bit of intake work and probably an acoustic engine cover, it should be a bit more refined



Tomorrow I'm going to try and get the engine in.......

Hey bud. Might get some wheel arch liners made eventually, probably get it all together first and then add stuff like that on - easiest thing to do would be to blank off the back of the wing area off with the sort of mud covers Ford had as an option in some markets, then back them with Thinsulate, be far easier to get it fitted robustly than full trims.

Now for some good news



The engine is in ;D

Woohoo!! I echo that statement!
Looks lovely, will be interesting to see how long the white engine bay stays white for..!!

So it's been a good weekend on the car been cracking on with all kinds of bits and pieces getting ready for a few days off next week. So a some photos of the major bits.

First up I've finished off the radiator cowling mods - so putting in some new metal where the angle has been increased, and putting a 90deg return on it which will be used to wedge foam between it and the rad pack. Spotted it all up to check it all out, then seamed it up and then tidied it all up, had a bit of filler and paint on it since then. Doesn't look too bad really and doesn't look too much like it's been modified.





The big job was giving the interior a coat of paint to finish off all the repair work - looks pretty nice and shiny now and hides the repairs well



And now for something a bit different to the repair/restoration that has filled most of this thread so far!

So far the look and style isn't something I've really talked about, so what's the plans?

Well I suppose the overall look will be fairly euro/OEM+, so pretty much stock bodywork with a little lowering, some modern (but not too modern) wheels and a few detail changes. In terms of colour, well it'll get a coat of black to protect the body (next week I hope) and then the plan is to wrap it, which could be a bit of a steep learning curve! but it's the only way to get the matt metalic gunmetal grey we really think will suit the shape of the squarer Mk2.

If you don't know what I'm on about, this is the finish we're going for.



Anyway, all that is to come, but a couple of the details are pretty much done.

First up was smoothing all of the fittings on the bumpers - like so

This



now =



Much tidier and a touch more modern looking.

Next came the exhaust (well the bit you can see anyway!). I've always been into classic fords, but I've never really been into doing thinks the same way as everyone else, not major differences as such, but the little things that set cars apart. I've never seen a Capri with a centre exit exhaust, so I thought 'what the hell' lets give it a go!

Well the first thing you notice when thinking about how to achieve such a thing is that there's a reason people don't put the tailpipe in the middle! Basically the spare wheel well and fuel tank are all of 2-3 inches from the rear valance and so there isn't exactly a lot of space.....

Anyway not to give up at the first hurdle I figured out I could get the exhaust system around the tank/wheel well by splitting it in front of the axle at the mid box and then taking 2 smaller diameter pipes around to the back - not a lightweight exhaust, but this isn't a racing car so I'm not going to worry. Plus it'll give me a chance to play around with things to get a bit of a different sound from the car, and yes I have taken into account the effect on back pressure

So then next question was to find a tailpipe finisher, queue ebay! What turned up was this, a Porsche Cayman S tailpipe finisher, which is nicely different, and looked like it might just about be slash cut at a useful angle



The big question was, would it fit?! Well after a lot of looking, standing back, ummmming and arrring I decided it would, but that it had to not just go through the valance but the bumper as well - in for a penny and all that.....

So next came the cutting disc and the welder





Basically I've cut out the shape of the finisher and then let in some new metal to make it look like it's meant to be like that (well that was the idea anyway) then all that was left was to cut a hole in the valance and see how it looked - et voila







Doesn't look too bad I don't think, and the angle of the slash turned out to be pretty much spot on as well, which was a nice bonus So what do you think - does it look fairly OEM?

Roll on a few days off to crack on some more!

Exhaust looks lovely and it will be interesting to see how it sounds but PLEASE DO NOT WRAP IT IN MATT GREY!!!

I totally don't get the matt effect thing, to me, every car I've seen in matt looks half finished, like it needs a good polish.. oh no, its just matt paint...

I know it is up to you and its not like I'll be seeing the car every day or whatever but my opinion is that matt paint is for cars that are a bit ratty that the owner doesn't really care about the appearance of..........