1986 Ford Capri - Lots of pictures!

Ah, the good times.





Pitty the front end looks like this now:


Surprisingly it was under steer that caused this. Heavy rain and £25 per tyre are not a good mix, but its fine now. Its now the "Tramp Drift" look, until I can afford a new front end!
It needs a new bonnet ( did anyway), New valance and the 2 wings are a little creased. Good excuse to fibreglass the whole lot and make it super light!

Money is tight now though as I spent it all on a new welder and will be spending the next pay check on bits for making the car actually handle! So I hope everyone like home made Christmas presents, the moneys being put to a more urgent use!

Aside from all the excitement surrounding the crash, the cars been spot on! It actually happened after a 600 mile trek to Birmingham and back to see the misses and has taken me to work every day since!

While I was in Brum we went to the zoo seeing as the weather was so nice and spotted this in the rare breeds enclosure:


There was also a capri in the scrappy at penrith if anyone wants to remortgage the house to get the rusty parts off him. I offered him £100 for the whole front end which you can see through (2 wings and a valance) and he said it wasnt enough! Did see some bits of my old Volvo, and wondered if it was still in here:


I think all my bad luck is over for now anyway.

- New Tyres
- Weld up small holes from the trim
- New wing mirrors
- Fix headlights, only 2 work.
- New Paint and a spruce up
- Finish bedding the engine
- 4 branch
- Webber 40's
- decent brake setup (coming soon with Coilovers)

James.

There hasnt been much time to do any updates on here for a while as i've been working overtime every day and then working on the capri when i get home!

Since my last update i started having a bit of trouble with the carb. Poor running, all the symptoms of an air leak etc, but no sign of one, until i got to the throttle shaft and wobbled that about. So i got some emails fired over to Fast Road Cars and before i knew it i had all the jets i needed to fit my 40's
Here are some pics from fitting them.

Before-


Head off -


Drilling out the snapped exhaust stud-


Used my super home made valve spring compressor-


Cleaned all the valves so they looked like new-



Rebuilt it all with fresh gaskets and fitted the webers-


Made a new exhaust aswell


and the finished piece:


In the post there is everything i need to get Megajolt up and running along with a decent electric fuel pump. It drives atm, but the lack of a decent advance curve means i cant really set it up properly atm.

Ill update again when the megajolt has arrived and show what I'm doing.

I took pics of all the steps of changing the jets if anyone wants to see what you do

James.

Its been a long time since i've updated this thread, but the car hasn't moved off my driveway since. I don't mind though as it'll be totally worth it!
The house is coming along pretty well, and the garage is getting slowly kitted out, but the car still hasn't got there yet.

Starting where I left off, I pulled the V8 into the garage and gave it a good once over and a clean and it's spot on, bores are great, camshaft still has lobes on it and its not full of sludge, so that's pretty good going for a rover V8 (or so I've heard!)

First thing I bought was a full gasket set so I could get the heads on and keep as much curse word out of the cylinder bores.
Next thing was to source the relevant gearbox, bell housing and clutch / flywheel to use. This took a while as its a mixed up list of parts that all fit together nicely. The list will be at the bottom. The stage i'm at now is saving up for the Mega squirt so i can get the engine wiring loom sorted out before putting it into the car and then wrap it up and put the engine/gearbox under my work bench and bring the car into the garage and start chopping. This however has created more problems as i want to extend the garage before i do that. (and that comes out of the new boiler fund. don't tell the missus!)

Here is some pictures to keep everyone interested!


First job was to find out exactly what I had




Next was to stick the cylinder heads on and inlet manifold




Then the gearbox




Then make an adapter plate because the gearbox doesn't fit...


Well, the last picture is as far as I've got. There's two reasons for this.
Reason 1:
I cant afford any more parts
Reason 2:
I cut my thumb with the angle grinder whilst making the adapter. Its not too bad, the disk stopped when it hit the knuckle and I only had 3 stitches, But I cant bend it now and have to keep it clean. Hard work to do that where I work though!

Anyway, There will be parts bought, or work done soon, so its not all bad news.

And the recipe and rounded up costs:
Engine -
4.6L rover v8 from p38 range rover
swapped for Webber DCOE40 carbs on pinto manifold. mileage unknown
came with manifolds but no ancillarys
Exhaust manifold bolts £13
Inlet manifold bolts £13
Gasket set and head studs £40

Gearbox-
R380 from LDV Pilot van.
£80
mileage 68000 when purchased
Spigot bearing from rover SD1 £14

Clutch-
standard rover clutch and flywheel
bought part used for £80

Bellhousing -
Rover SD1 bellhousing
£120
Bolts £5

Awesome work fella. It's gonna be worth the wait once its in and rolling.

For the moment i'm just going to use the existing axle and modify the prop so that it all works, then upgrade it all when it needs it just to save money. It currently has the stronger of the axles that was fitted in the Capri, but the name eludes me after a week of long work days! (maybe atlas?)

I'm not 100% sure about what I'm going to do with the suspension. I'll either modify the existing shocks, or modify the suspension so that i can use shocks from a modern car, such as an s14 or something that is cool and does drifts so its easy to get uprated steering and suspension parts, without using relatively pricy and outdated bilstein shocks. It'll probably also be getting a quick rack if i find any faults with the existing rack!

Anyway, I've got the adapter cut to shape and my new vice bolted down so all my fingers are still where they should be and get some longer bolts tomorrow!

James.

i have 52" atlas on mine and i'm guna beef it up abit and add a 4 link setup/ladder bars and maybe uprated shafts and rear discs. and then i plan to do a IRS down the line. i'm guna go for a set of lowering springs and convert my struts to coilovers just as there nice and simple and wont mess up the geometry. don't forget uprated brakes... ;P i also wanna get some sort of power steering worked into mine to at some point if i have room (doubt it). let me know what struts/front setup you end up using as that does actually sound pretty good so might be worth ago

Time for a big update. Engine still isnt running but its in and the metal work is really under way now. Ill let some pictures show the details:


Once the engine/ gearbox were assembled I hung it under the car, took measurements and then broke out the cutting disks.


And used an old stunt peg for what turned out to be a super comfy gear lever.



I played around in it for a while at that point, making car noises and throwing the wheel from lock to lock
Then decided that the budget aircon system probably wouldn't get me through an MOT. A trip to Thomas Grahams and some steel later and i could start patching up the tunnel. Its not finished yet but its getting there.



Along with the tunnel Mods i fit a cross brace under the car to hold the gear box up and join the two chassis rails together. Again its not finished yet and the cover isnt on the back of the bell housing.


When the welding fumes had settled and i had some free time at work i modified the front pulley from a 3.5 to fit the 4.6. Giving me the use of the cheeper trigger wheel kit and the smaller, easier to get belts for V-belt pulleys.



Next on the job list is to:
- Finish the tunnel
- start on the body work....



Its all pretty crusty, bent and the double skinned parts of the body have rusty holes and a triple skin on them. Kind of like a rust sandwich.

Dinner time now!

Need to get some more parts ordered as well.

James.

Impressive work! Mad seeing the R380 next to the Type 9, i'm almost tempted to try and stick to a ford 'box and just accept that i'll need spares

We'll have to get 'em all together next year when they're on the road!

A V8 in a capri is like butter on toast.... natural and needed! Look forward to updates