Cor Blimey!, It's A Cortina Crusader!

[fordfan]

Ever since I sold my 1.6 Crusader daily driver 4 years ago, I've wanted another one for best.

 

I took the plunge at the weekend and spent £5900 on this 37,000 mile one owner car, that despite being over 30 years old has yet to see a paint gun or a welding torch.  It's had some (mostly reversible) customisation from new  with some not so obvious changes as well.  It's a 2 litre manual and it'll do very well.

 

Here are the advert pictures and I'll add some of my own at a later date.

 

[Toxicvrs]

very nice

[P6bJOHN]

Wow! That's tidy, it looks better than new.

[Taylor93]

Wow thats really impressive condition!

 

Do you still have that blue Sierra?

[fordfan]

The Sierra is going strong, it did nearly 500 miles at the weekend without a problem.

[trundlenut]

Wow! That looks nearly as good as my mate's Capri - after he completely restored it.

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[Redboy]

That is the exact same colour scheme as my 1982 2.0 Crusader, which for a young married dad was a great car for £1500 in 1987. You could service and repair it really cheaply. A new rad was £25 and a new head gasket and clutch change took my dad about 3 hours on a Saturday morning. I sold it for about £1000 after 2 years of commuting 65 miles a day to work with no breakdowns at the roadside. Ah them were the days!

[RobClubley]

Wow. So clean!

[kentphil1]

Is that just a K&N or has it got the 3.0 capri carb mod done on it as well?. Lovely condition, makes me think of my old 2.0 ghia. Just not sure if I like the steering wheel or not - probably looks better in person.

[StevesTruck]

That brings back some memories. Grandad had a brown over dysentery beige one, apparently he wanted a red one but the was a waiting list.

I'm probably telling you stuff you already know, but have a good dig under your front wins. Ford filled them with foam to cut down road noise. The foam gets waterlogged and the wings rot, and weigh a time when you take them off!

[fordfan]

Had a bit of time on it yesterday to find out what needs doing.  New shock absorbers all round, sort out the 40 mph steering wheel wobble, look at the brakes.  It had done only 65 miles over the last 3 years.

 

Gave it an oil & filter change, checked the gearbox and back axle oil levels, inspected the cam belt and cleaned the cover, drove it a little and took some pictures. The foam on the wings is quite oily, so hopefully no major rot problems.

 

 

 

[Paul007]

That steering wheel needs to go in the bin.

[Fester1698]

awesome, my first car was a blue cortina crusader until it became too costly to fix

[andy68]

Apart from steering wheel and the wheels, very nice, brings back some memories of the Cortina's I had,

[fordfan]

That steering wheel needs to go in the bin.

Not quite, a bit of research shows that it's around £200 new.  It's now been replaced by the original which is in as new condition.  A set of new shock absorbers fitted today has made it noticeably less bouncy.

 

[skomaz]

Blimey that brings back memories... Mostly of my dad spending mornings taking plugs out of the head and drying and warming them on the gas hob so he could get his 1.6 Corrina started after the variable venturi carb had flooded it and then stuck. It eventually got replaced by a manual carb Webber and started no trouble!

[kentphil1]

Blimey that brings back memories... Mostly of my dad spending mornings taking plugs out of the head and drying and warming them on the gas hob so he could get his 1.6 Corrina started after the variable venturi carb had flooded it and then stuck. It eventually got replaced by a manual carb Webber and started no trouble!

Ah............................. the Ford VV, god's little joke to teach us all patience and self control in winter

[fordfan]

Getting on for 3 months later, time for an update.  I went out to a local car club meet in it, it was good blasting down the outside lane of the A12 behind another Cortina.

 

 

General fettling and cleaning around the engine bay and a few stickers added for coolant, engine capacity on air filter, brake fluid and rear panel logo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Replaced a bulb, wired in the radio correctly, added an alarm some immobilisers and remote central locking, removed some extra wiring and interior lights which were added by the previous owner.

 

Today I went to replace the valve stem oil seals, using a lever so that I didn't need to remove the head.  I nearly completed the first one which was fiddly and thought that I didn't fancy doing the next seven too much.

 

This was the result:

 

 

I may as well get an unleaded conversion done and clean up the bits that I can now get to.

[Richf]

Very nice I had a Mk4 2.0l Ghia in Gold (Lovely car) and a Mk5 in green (not quite so nice VV carb etc) .

 

Great to see one on the road and in such good shape

 

Sooo easy to work on as well

[fordfan]

Time for another update.  Just over a week ago I collected the cylinder head, with it just being a bit short of 3 weeks it gave me plenty of time to clean things up and break an important part.

 

Cleaning:

 

 

Manifold with an attempt to repair the coolant outlet that I broke:

 

 

Replacement manifold, sourced locally from a friend who had heard of my predicament from a friend of a work colleague, (you can't keep anything a secret )

 

 

Cylinder head, at home on the table for the valve clearances to be set:

 

 

The water pump, you can imagine the sate of the cooling system.  It was flushed along with the radiators, new coolant and now a toasty heater.

 

   

 

Finally all assembled along with new timing and fan belts:

 

http://s5.photobucket.com/user/fordcortina/media/VID_20150314_144039.mp4.html

 

That's the engine sorted after a tune up, which could be similar to a remap except that you do it with screw drivers, spanners, timing lights, dwell meters and a gas analyser, whilst burning yourself on the aforementioned red hot heater hoses whilst adjusting the carburettor.

 

Next stop - the brakes.  Brave/stupid Cortina owners use the jacking points when raising the car on a 2 post lift:

 

 

Which was worth it to skim the discs to this finish:

 

 

Along with a new set of pads, it now stops as it should - in a straight line, without any vibration.

 

The wheels have been previously mentioned and I'll admit that they aren't the prettiest.  I've got a set of these going on next weekend and I've gone up 20mm on the tyre width.

 

 

 

And for the first time since buying it, I got round to giving it a wash.

 

 

 

 

 

[mannyo]

Lovely car, drove one of these many years ago from Chesham to Stevenage to deliver it to a work colleague (was a new company car)

 

I don't recall the gear stick being as long as this, I remember it being fairly short and stubby.

[lichfielddriver]

My favourite Ford I think....had a 2ltr Mk5

 

2nd favourite was a MG Montego turbo (licence loser) and before that a 2300cc Viva HC, debadged and just RoStyles to say it wasnt a 1200cc OHV

[Mikek3111]

Wow very nice. My dad used to have a Red estate when I was a kid and was gutted when he got rid of it for a Favorit It was the car I learnt to drive in (round Asda car park at age 11 :peek:)

[fordfan]

I chucked the wheels on it on Saturday and the wheel wobble has disappeared, it drives quite nicely now.

 

I took it to a show at the local transport museum yesterday, it was a bit wet:

 

 

Despite the weather we had a good turn out, even if at one point it did look like a Ford show, we even had a free ride on an old bus.

 

 

Some pictures of the Cortina, taken by others:

 

 

 

 

[andy68]

Still got this, any more updates?