1967 Ford Anglia LOL,,,THE ONE WITH 69's ON THE SIDE

You may need to add a pic or two of its stable mate at the time I used to visit you on the way home from the mental health hospital.

Hehe, I was thinking more from the perspective of maybe I'd be scraping it out the slave cylinders with a spoon


That was a long time ago, would have been the Pop? Good times!


Points won't be an issue because I ended up being a victim of not not being able to find a reliable condensor and finally succumbed to electronic ignition. But it was running when I put it away and it had plenty of antifreeze in the coolant, so in theory it ought to fire up without too much of a fight. Will probably pop the top off the carb and flush it out as best I can and suck the fuel up before I start cranking. I'll have a keen 3-year old helper, nothing can go wrong!

27 T - here we are.

I brought one of the Anglia engines home in it. Two of us lifted it in to the passenger footwell. I drove home carefully, trying not to let it roll onto my legs. No help at home so I lifted it straight out with the engine crane and wheeled it across the car park!

Random update - I found this picture on the NSRA forum from the 2004 NSRA Supernats. This was after I did the floors and sills, but before I tore the rest of it apart and did the other structural stuff and bodywork. It's still got its original doors and front panels and the original 69s.

Much excite to see this back out & about

TLDR; she runs!

Stage 1: get it out the garage.

Not completely straightforward, because after 3 years the tyres were almost flat and the front left was against the wall and I couldn't get to it easily. Also, pumping up tyres on my old rubbish with no ciggy lighter socket has always been a pain in backside. No longer. My trusty old Halfords 12V pump kicked the bucket a while back and I decided to get a cordless one. Already had the batteries and it worked out about £10 more than a normal one.



That enabled this:



That's the first daylight it's seen since September 2018. It's quite dirty:



It's also been used as someone's dining room. Convenient:



Anyway, I'd left the handbrake off when I parked it up which meant the rear brakes were free and the front discs were only very slightly binding. Literally just because of the surface rust, which was a relief. It pushed out the garage fairly easily.

Stage 2: essential checks.

Clutch and brake pedal felt fine. Handbrake operated fine. Interior dry and clean, except for the grass and detritus from RRG 2018. Squirted WD40 on a couple of things. Tank had a couple of litres remaining of something that I couldn't see but smelled vaguely like petrol. Coolant was a little low but I can't remember how much was in there. Coolant was maybe my biggest worry, because I'd left it full and I don't know how well headgaskets stay sealed if left stored for years. Key thing was it did have antifreeze in it, not just water.

Stage 3: engine fire up.

First things first; new battery. I had the old one indoors but I categorically forgot to charge it and it was completely dead.



I did a couple of things to make my life easier. Popped all the plugs out and pulled the HT lead out the coil. I put a squirt of WD40 in each bore. Just enough to wet the rings. Whenever I do this with oil, it makes the engine impossible to start so I thought I'd try WD40 this time. Then I checked it wasn't seized. Gave the waterpump a crank to loosen it off. I put a spanner on the crank bolt and tried to turn it but it didn't want to go, so I put it in 4th gear and rocked it back and forth. I put 9 litres of fresh petrol in the tank and sucked the fuel up the pipe to prime the pump. Then popped the top off the carb to check it wasn't full of gunge. Bone dry inside and not even any debris, which I have to admit I wasn't expecting to find.

So at that point I cranked it over on the starter motor a couple of turns to a) get the oil moving round it, b) check the fuel pump was pumping and c) let it squirt some fuel into the float bowl and a little bit down the carb barrel to get the jets etc well wet with fuel and hopefully fuel moving through. The coil was sparking like crazy so I knew the electronic ignition was working fine. Then I primed the throttle pump and put the top back on the carb.



Then I gave the plugs a good wire brush and put them back in. Didn't bother getting them perfect, just clean enough to spark:



I put the plugs back in and after a couple of cranks and bit of accelerator pumping it fired up and ran like the last time I ran it was last week. No funny noises, nothing. I was pretty chuffed. Not bad considering it was only 4 degrees C out.

Test drive next. Everything seemed to still work. I gently applied the brakes a few times to scuff them off, then applied them hard a couple of times to check they worked ok. Then a gentle local drive to check things over and knock the glaze off the tyres. All ok and took it home to hoover it out. I'd forgotten how responsive this car is to drive and how well it goes round corners!



No current plans to clean it. What I am planning to do is to get the Lotus wheels re-shod with new tyres:



These have been sat in the shed for years since I changed the look back in 2016, when it had the Retro Ford feature at Brooklands. I can't get my favoured 185/55/13 tyres any more so I'll have to get 185/60/13 instead. They're a bit taller, so it's going to have more of a 60s/70s tuned Anglia look than its original 90s South London look. Next stop: Brooklands Classic Car meet on New Year's Day.

I wasn't on RR when this was first documented so am only seeing it for the first time today! I love it! Keep us updated

Yeah that's a definite rarity with cars of this vintage and nature! Just shows that if you look after them they will keep going  

Would be great to see you Mark!

So I did look at bigger wheels at one point. Problem with 14” is there are just no tyre options. 15” has a lot more, but they’d have to be mega low profile (would need to be like a 185/30 or something) and I don’t think that would suit the car.