1979 Ford Capri 3.0 S - Knock Knock

Well, it's certainly been a while!

True to my word, I've been driving it and loving it a lot - 2000 miles covered now since April and I dread to think about how much fuel has been dumped through the carb.

Not a lot notable has happened, really. The lights have continued to be an absolute and even started shooting sparks out around the bowl at one point, I blew a fuse between my fingers and trod on a soldering iron barefoot. Auto electrics are not my thing.

I've now got some new lights thanks to an old friend, and have just spent an afternoon wielding spanners and flower cutters of all things. Whys that you ask? Well, have some photos to tell a story.

On saturday, my town got flooded pretty bad. This is one of three ways out;



The other one was as deep as a Discovery bonnet, and the other, as I found out, was as deep as the stripes down the side of my car.

"make a bow wave and keep going" he said "it'll be fine" he said " just like the landy but lower" he said. He was wrong, and my girlfriend got to take this photo of me in a suit pushing the car out of water that was up to my knees (yes I climbed out the window, and the door seals are surprisingly good)



I think Tony went into self preservation mode as soon as he touched the water which I am eternally grateful for. Hit the water and silence. Engine stopped immediately. Had to push and rounded up some local yutes to help, managed to get it down a side road and assess the situation before deciding to man up and spin it over 'til something happened. Luckily for me, it started. We forded the next flooded bit despite some curse word in a van saying it couldn't be done, and I made it to my mate's party, drank and was merry.

In all the fuss though, my sweet splitter made from part of a ford focus bumper was lost
It was pretty curse word though and didn't look quite right, so I took the opportunity to do it again but better.

First up, I tightened up the wheel bearings like I should've done months a go;



Then I got down to the business of making my car look less like a kid with a cleft lip.



The main part of this was a splitter I bought for five english pounds from my local scrappy. It came from a smashed up renault Megane with spotlights and stuff on it, so I assume it's the same as the Laguna ones the Saxo brigade get excited about.

First up, a clean. It was filthy and had a few scrapes to it, but a little bit of time and some fine sandpaper sorted that right out;



After that, a little trim so the ends didn't keep fouling the tyres when I tried to measure it all up



Some crude mods to make the corners bend without kinking too badly;



Some cheeky self-tapping action bang in the middle (24.5" in from the corner of the front valance if you're looking at doing this to your own capri)



Several self tappers later;



A few more;



My incredibly grubby Compomotives started to reveal their true identity too;



A bit of back to black, et voila!







One very OEM looking front splitter. With a bit more blacking, it should look identical to the bumper corners - very happy with that!

This might have happened too, but I'm choosing not to think about it too much just yet.



And I have this little lot waiting for me in the back of my landy - just trying to finalise brake, spring rate and wheel choice...



PS, it's not getting a visit from Mr Grinder anymore. As cool as X-Packs are and as much as I long for one, it'll never be my old man's and, after fitting some x-pack width wheels, i'd never be able to drive it. They are huge.