1989 Ford Escort van

[bigmike5174]

Hi guys, I thought I'd start a thread for my van. My aim is just to keep it maintained and on the road with just the odd mod here and there.

I bought it as a bog standard 1.4 van, 3 owners from new, with 120,000 miles on the clock to use as my work van

Then I added a set of seven spoke wheels, spotlights and early RS turbo recaro seats I had in the garage,

Obviously it has some rust, which I cut out and plated until I get around to putting new panel sections in

Sine then I've fitted a recon head, new water pump, mototsport thermostat, timing belt, clutch and changed all the hoses

The next jobs on my list are drop the tank out, fit inner/outer sill, outer floor sections, de-rust, hamerite and stone chip above the tank, fit lower rear corners.

When I've done that I plan to fit a 1.6 engine and box as this one is under powered and the final drive is too low in this box.

I'd appreciate your thoughts and comments

Mike

[foldy]

Cool. Nice shiney looking leads and ignition control module.
Did the exhaust heat sheild come with the recon head?
I think my Escort has an xr2 gearbox and it goes well with the 1.4.

[dodgerover]

Nice, a local painter and decorator has one thats similar - good to see another oldie still earning its keep

[mattxr3i]

Van looks like a good project - I did try putting an XR3i cam in a 1.4 and from memory it did perk it up a bit - Any pics of the Sierra in the background.

[bigmike5174]

Mar 17, 2014 21:23:21 GMT foldy said:

Cool. Nice shiney looking leads and ignition control module.
Did the exhaust heat sheild come with the recon head?
I think my Escort has an xr2 gearbox and it goes well with the 1.4.

The heat shield came with the van, it was looking very horrible so I painted it with very high temp aluminium paint

[bigmike5174]

Mar 18, 2014 10:04:56 GMT mattxr3i said:

Van looks like a good project - I did try putting an XR3i cam in a 1.4 and from memory it did perk it up a bit - Any pics of the Sierra in the background.

It's a 2.9 4x4 ghia, it's a lovely car but just too expensive to run, used to get 100 miles to the tank on the commute to work

[mattxr3i]

Mar 18, 2014 18:32:58 GMT bigmike5174 said:

Mar 18, 2014 10:04:56 GMT mattxr3i said:

Van looks like a good project - I did try putting an XR3i cam in a 1.4 and from memory it did perk it up a bit - Any pics of the Sierra in the background.

It's a 2.9 4x4 ghia, it's a lovely car but just too expensive to run, used to get 100 miles to the tank on the commute to work

Looks fantastic

[bigmike5174]

Hi guys, it's been some while since I was last on here, mainly due to moving to a house.
I've now done most of the welding, had it blown over and changed the engine as the old one wouldn't run right.

[tomfairall]

did you use to live in biggin hill?

[bigmike5174]

Jan 30, 2016 14:42:20 GMT tomfairall said:

did you use to live in biggin hill?

Yes I did

[07lilredwagon]

great looking van....nice work. do you have any pics of the welding you did?.....

JP

[Granadaman72]

Nice looking pair of old fords there