dj85
Part of things
Posts: 13
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Hi! I'm brand new to this forum. Having stumbled across it many times previously when perving at classic cars, I've been encouraged by my 'new best friend/colleague and fellow car geek' willowandmikey to finally sign up and share my recent purchase. I've always been a car fan right from a young age. I remember my dream car as a 5 year old being a MG metro... I just loved the sound of it. That high pitched engine/gearbox note. I remember telling my dear old nan my aspirations to own one one day to which she replied "I'm sure you'll be able to do much better than that when you're older"..... I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder!! Anyway so I've owned a few cars in my 11 years of driving as well as a few company ones but I found myself always drawn to the blue oval as opposed to any other. Maybe it's the fond memories of my dad's white Cortina with black vinyl roof... Followed by the inevitable Sierra. So after a change of job/girlfriend and the birth of my son, I decided to 'sort my priorities out' and buy myself a classic. I had a budget, a vehicle type in mind and an idea for the amount of elbow grease I would be able to dedicate to it so I hit eBay/auto trader twice a day and the hunt began... Casual at first but soon intensified as the weather got nicer! I wanted a summer project, taking inspiration from my colleague and his stupendous MK3 XR2! I initially wanted a Mk2 Fiesta XR2 but after nearly 6 months of looking, I just didn't find one that motivated me enough to spend my cash. Then at Christmas, I was bought this!! It changed my searched perimeters completely and within 2 months, I found exactly what I was after On first impressions I was rather impressed. I was surprised to find such a solid Mk 3 in a condition that is very presentable. Obviously, like nearly everything in life, the harder you look the more bad bits you find.. But instead of feeling the cold chill of dread, I actually got quite excited because it means I can get my hands dirty! Now I like to think I've got a fair bit of knowledge about cars... Not an expert by any means but you can't beat a second opinion, so I intend to continue this thread and share my restore as it continues in order to get tips, feedback and best practice as I really want her to shine!! So please feel free to contribute with ideas! Ive already drawn up a todo list of things that 'need doing' and things I 'want to do' - additions to these lists are very welcome! I can't wait to get cracking!
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Looks exactly like my old one. Yours looks real nice and very original. Good purchase matey. I will follow this thread closely. Good luck sir.
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New cars. Who needs em.....
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Get the claybar out and hit it with some Meguiars.
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New cars. Who needs em.....
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mjsrb5
Part of things
Posts: 162
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Very nice indeed, love the mk3s
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'80 - Escort Ghia / '83 - Manta / '99 - RB5 / Bye Bye RS2000
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THE_Liam
Yorkshire and The Humber
If at first you don't succeed... HAMMERS.
Posts: 1,363
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Very, very nice! A mate of mine is restoring an XR3 just now. Love the centre console tape storage.
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You should ask on here about your sunroof guaranteed someone will know the answer
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fred
Posted a lot
WTF has happened to all the Vennies?
Posts: 2,957
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Great to see the enthusiasm, looks a real peach well done that man And welcome to R n R
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'79 Cossie ran Cortina - Sold
2000 Fozzer 2.0 turbo snow beast
'85 Opel Manta GSI - Sold
03 A class Mercedes
Looking for a FD Ventora - Anyone?
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AB car pix
Posted a lot
Car mag' snapper
Posts: 1,337
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Lovely! One of my all time faves.... Just needs the sill painted back to its original black. Always looks weird without that
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1979 Chrysler Horizon 1.3 GL 1980 Ford Granada 2.8 Ghia 1985 Ford Sierra 3dr 1985 Ford Escort Mk3 1988 Ford Sierra Sapphire Cosworth 1989 Ford Escort 1.3 Popular 1995 Volvo 960 1996 BMW 525i 1998 BMW 323i 1999 BMW 530d 2003 BMW 530i . www.facebook.com/ABCARPIX
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Nice. Is this the one that was for sale in Devon? That looked a honey for the money.
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That is a truly lovely XR...!!! What a gem...
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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dj85
Part of things
Posts: 13
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Thanks for all the encouraging comments! I feel very welcomed. One of my biggest hurdles I'm facing at the moment is trying to obtain a replacement sunroof! The glass, rubbers and runners are all tip top but the metal frame that attaches to the glass is rotten to breaking point! Does anyone happen to know where I can get a replacement? A mk4 would work if I modified it slightly...
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I will ask my mate, he has got a few bits knocking about. He will have to look in one of his lock ups, so may take a day or 3. It will be mk3 not mk4....
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New cars. Who needs em.....
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dj85
Part of things
Posts: 13
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I will ask my mate, he has got a few bits knocking about. He will have to look in one of his lock ups, so may take a day or 3. It will be mk3 not mk4.... That would be excellent thanks! No rush, I've got plenty to be getting on with in the meantime. Cheers
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dj85
Part of things
Posts: 13
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Ok so an update on the work I've done so far.- first things first is to get the carpet up, in case it's hiding any horrors. The carpet itself isn't in the best of Nic so while it's out I plan on either seeing if I can clean it up, or source a fresh one to put down. So first things first... Seats come out followed by the rest of the trim. All of which in pretty good nick Once access to the food pan was available I noticed a tiny bit of damp in both front foot wells, causing some surface rust A brilliant bit of knowledge past on to me highlighted the sunroof drain as being the culprit... While I'm there, won't hurt to flush it through to aid the draining.... I intend to re route this out through the seal and so that it drains to the floor rather than the seal and footwell!! So from here, a good afternoon spent with a wire brush cleaned the pans up rather well. Once cleaned up, I found two tiny rust holes that simply we're not worth welding. So once cleaned to bare metal, I fibre glassed over them for piece of mind and gave it a coat of under seal. Now I'm not a fan of coating the hell out of a car in underseal as I've always associated it with someone trying to hide something... However, being that I want to create some sound deadening As well as rust proof it for time to come, I went and covered all the footwells
Now I know this won't be everyone's cup of tea, especially from a sceptical buyers point of view.. But seeing as I intend to keep her and use her as a daily, I think it's worth doing. So anyway, giving this a couple of days to dry, I moved on to other bits.
So I removed the rear quarter panel interior panels as the fabric was scratched and threadbare in places. I ordered what I thought was a good colour match in faux suede.... It turns out I may actually be slightly colour blind as I couldn't have got it more wrong. What turned up was 'silver' as opposed the grey I thought it was. That said, I carried on regardless even if it was just to perfect the technique of re trimming.. So after nearly 5 hours of practice, this was the end result.. As you can see, nothing like the original but I was really impressed with how it came out. We'll worth the hours put in and now I've developed the technique, shouldn't take long to do the other side! That said, the purist in me isn't quite set on the colour change! I'm going to see what they look like in the car before I make a decision but there's a good likelihood they will be changed to a darker colour! Opinions welcome on that one! What I will say, if you look at the patters on the rear seats, with the lighter coloured trim, it will be light, dark, light, dark as you look across the seat from the trim panel... So it may work... We'll see!
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dj85
Part of things
Posts: 13
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One of the little niggles the car had was the fuel gauge didn't work. Some testing of the circuit and the fuel sender pointed to a fault with the gauge itself... So a donor set of clocks were sourced and the gauge replaced... Now fixed The next niggle which is probably my biggest annoyance is the vague gear change. Essentially, there's no spring in the gear stick when moving left and right from neutral. I was under the impression that this would require whole new linkage, but a quick google turned up a 'gearbox bush kit' on eBay for £1.99. Comprising of two springs and two rubber bushes, I got cracking and dropped the linkage from inside the car! The inside of the linkage mech was a mess... More asphalt than grease... Very unpleasant! So a soak, scrub and tons of fresh grease later.... Unfortunately I neglected to take a pic of what it looked like before it's clean, so you'll have to take my word for it that this looks like a completely different part in comparison now. However, on reassembly, a further problem occurs... It appears that when you move the gearstick left (as if going for 1st or 2nd) you feel the resistance of the new bush but it promptly slips off, giving no spring back at all! Moving the stick right, (to 5th) and that bush is perfect! Now I've given this a go without a Haynes manual so I don't know if there's a particular order the reassemble should take place in... But I'm at a loss as to why it keeps slipping off the bush! I can only think that due to the condition the selector was in before the clean, that the plastic (that the bush makes contact with) has worn away... Anyone seen this before?
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I'll go dig that manual out now before I forget :-)
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foldy
Part of things
Posts: 710
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Giving the old girl some tlc. Loving it. Comma's grease pots always remind me of those two girls and that cup. Shame you can't unsee things. Anyways, lovely XR, tinworm seems very moderate given its age.
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dj85
Part of things
Posts: 13
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Giving the old girl some tlc. Loving it. Comma's grease pots always remind me of those two girls and that cup. Shame you can't unsee things. Anyways, lovely XR, tinworm seems very moderate given its age. Haha I'm going to pretend that I don't know what your talking about and move on tinworm is minimal so far, certainly no horrors found as of yet and I've got the interior out... Just little bits of tidying up on the bodywork front required. But that's phase 2 of 3 and I've only just started phase 1 lol
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