1985 Ford Escort mk3 Popular - welding time again!

[ChasR]

Sept 30, 2015 14:45:53 GMT baggabones said:

Sept 29, 2015 19:43:06 GMT cjhillman said:

Ended up replacing the cassette deck with my old JVC CD unit. just worried about my wiring . Yellow ignition/Red battery/ Blue Remote and the extension cable for the remote to the Amp... to the cars ignition cable... that ok???

Ooooff!!! The purists aint gonna like that ghetto wiring!

From a safety side sure! Exposed wires are never great and can leave people chasing issues. IMO there is nothing with taking the wires from there but I would solder them up and put some heatwrap over them. I have chased so many issues on my Escort due to wanky crimped connectors ; including one of mine fans not working. Quite a few of my previous cars were no different here.

Are you running the amp's power off the ignition feed as well?

The car itself does look great however. It looks clean for sure! The Capri wheels are a nice touch .

[hkr91]

The way you have it set up, when the ignition is turned on everything becomes live and likewise when you turn off everything gets turned off - including the radio presets as these would be retained if you had a permernant live.

I'd personally crack open the fuse box, find switch lives and tap into it using one of those fuse piggy back things you can get on ebay.

Try and make the connections more solid than what they look like in the picture, say using chocolate boxes etc if you're going to run with it as it is. Make sure everything is fused too.

[cjhillman]

Thanks guys, I will get back under there soon and sort that out. I was going to solder them all together but i wasnt sure if it would all work at first and was battling time. The wires are all taped up with electrical tape from now so nothing bare touching anything.

The amp runs from the battery and just takes the remote from the ignition, with the other wires.

It sounds so much better but the speaker could be a lot better. They arnt housed properly but also they're Edge speakers... thinking of getting some much better midrange speakers and making housings from them by drivers/passengers feet.

Glad you like the wheels ChasR... make it look a bit special i think.

[cjhillman]

So... I sorted the wiring out and that's all good. Next step is to make some decent speaker pods to get some bass out of them... Unfortunately means doing away with the plastic speaker covers it took me a while to find.

In other new someone reversed into it and bent them front bumper. I saw him and he was very cool about it. It doesn't look to have bent anything else but it's a bit annoying!
Just need to find the best option... I could probably bash it out myself and used the money to go towards some welding on the car...

[cjhillman]

I don't think its too bad. Just pretty annoying.

Appart from the middle of the bumper I think its just the brackets that took a bit of punishment. 

[sridgett]

Nice car dude, love mk3's. Looking forward to more updates

[cjhillman]

So I finely got the money off the guy who reversed into the car... it became a little drawn out although he offerd to pay up rather than go through insurance companies. He wanted a quote from a garage... which they said £300... naturally he went with the £150 i said I'd take to do it.
I managed to find 2 bumpers for £100 in the end. Win! as the back one was rusty from a previous owner reversing into something.

I've been away for a few weeks on holiday in Berlin where i got to drive a Tabant!! (wasnt any worse than this to drive) and on tour with Billy Bragg so, finely got around to spraying them up and fitting the new pressed metal number plates. Incase it happened again and to give it a different look i put the front plate under the bumper on a bracket.


quite like this^^^ maybe half bumpers next time.





Very pleased with this! Not sure what to do to it next... i really need to get it running right first. Other than that maybe the original wheels... although i do like the Capri wheels.

[tomfairall]

looking clean, i'd recommend you get the bumpers powdercoated though, painted my capri ones myself and the rust came back pretty quickly

[stevietuck]

Thats looking really good mate, a car fit for a rock star

[cjhillman]

So i've gone or trying to go back to a cassette deck. Someone gave me a load of cassettes and i thought i'd still quite like the option of a tape deck with an ISO block that i could just wip in and out. Also I want to use a 90s cassette deck like out of my old, long gone 90s escort (traffic alerts and it didn't spit the cassette adapters out!)

Long story short... I've now got two mid 90s decks. One works but i cant get the right code for that stereo I forgot the idea and went to CD for a while. THEN i came across the same deck in a scrapyard in a Mondeo but, with a couple more features (basically the one i wanted originally). The yard also sorted me out with the code too.
Then i went to Halfords and the guy gave me an ISO block I can chop up to fit the car wiring in the car. how good is that?
Today i soldered up the wires the way i thought they should go BUT, i used the power plug from the 1st 90s deck because, the colours seem to match up to the ISO compared to the block that originally came on stereo number 2... plugged it in and nothing :/ I'm trying to get some advice on here but, no joy. What do you guys think?

I'm going to go out and try 90s tape deck number 1 with the car now but, i think its me wiring it up wrong.







Original block for number 2 stereo... couldn't find anything online about this hence using the first decks plug.

[Christina]

Invest in a soldering iron and some heatshrink You don't want any 12v feeds earthing out on some metal behind the dash and causing sparks. I've always loved the old ford radios, I've noticed you said yours spat out the cassette adapters, I had this with my SRT 32P (philips turnolock) ford radio, it'd play off the casette adapter for a little while before the light came on and it faded back to the radio.

[cjhillman]

your right i do need some heat shrink. I did solder all these connections believe it or not... just used electrical tape to insulate the connections. These 90s ones don't seem to spit out the adapter or they didnt when i had one in my last Escort 5 years ago. The 80s ford one really hates them though, if i manage to keep the adapter in any bump in the road and comes flying out.
Have you kept the original stereo in your Taunus?

[Christina]

It didn't have a radio in it when I got it, But I do have the (almost) correct type for it. The one I have is the late 70s version, same spec radio but a phillips instead of blaupunkt. It never physically threw the tape adapter out though, that's unusual. It just stopped reading it like the end of a tape.

[vulgalour]

Have you got wrinkly A pillar trims on this one, like every one of this age Escort I ever travelled in? Really nice to see it being cared for and kept in good order, the sort of thing people don't normally do to cars like this. Moving that front number plate down makes such a huge improvement to the front end too, totally unexpected, it just tidies it all up nicely.

[cjhillman]

A couple of months I got really lucky on ebay! I bought a genuine mk3 parcel shelf (with speakers) £20 and these wheels for £20. While i was there I also picked up a set of upgraded RS front disks + Callipers for £30 (hoping they fit standard wheels) and the guy threw in bags of bits and a centre console. Lets say I was more than excited!!!

Typically because of life, i've only just got around to sorting the wheels out because my other wheels getting to low on tread. I'm quite excited to see the car on standard rims as itll be a first. Will definitely have to re condition the Rostyles in the future.

[Matt Hesketh]

Get the pics up of them on then ! it looks really smart this. mk3/mk4 escort is always on my list

[07lilredwagon]

loads of good work on this car.

looking forward to seeing the wheels installed...always a big bang for the buck there.

good luck with the stereo wiring.....

how many speakers do you have or have wiring for?....there are pos. and neg for each speaker, right? I think I see those in the pics....

then there is usually constant power(memory....should only draw a few milli amps), switched power and a chassis ground.....(sometimes the illumination feature is on a separate wire)
(sometimes there is a separate wire for a power antenna)


fuse the two hot wires with simple cheap easy inline fuses

If the amp is super high power output...you may want to see if a relay is necessary on its own circuit...


this diagram was pretty helpful

www.reenca-ci.com/Car-Speaker-Wiring-Harness-Diagram.html

JP

[cjhillman]

I've been slow as usual to post anything about this car. To be honest, i've been that busy since i did the weeks over the summer that not a lot happened and i've been helping my dad with his Spitfire.

One thing that did happen was i finely had the scuttle panel replaced. I sent it away while i was out on a tour to i didn't feel the financial pain so much... surprisingly they did me an amazing deal as i have the rust bubbles around the back windows done, i got a partially free respray as the roof, boot & bonnet didnt match. 

Unfortunately it lost the base model stripe but, It must be the best looking 1.1 Escort out there now haha! 


Over the last couple of months i've re located to the big smoke and my Focus is back at my folks ready to be disposed of so, the Escort is now my main car.

Since moving....

I treated it to some big Pioneer parcel shelf speakers and took the Sony CD player from the Focus and fitted to this for an easy life.

First week here it the Exhaust naturally fell off it instantly when i was on a gig in Oxford last week. Quick Fit wanted £280 for a new system   I never use these usually but the local garage said they didnt have time and said to go there. When i went back to them and told them the ridicules price i was quoted... they sorted me out for a normal £160.




Since the new Exhaust i also had to get a new tyre as a nail was sticking out the side wall! so i had it balanced as at 65mph, it shook like  .  
The car runs a lot better since the new Exhaust was fitted so i also treated it to a new Air Filter. Even in the freezing weather it seems to run well. 

To celebrate i headed to Ace Cafe to see what was going on... looked a bit lame compared to the v8 action 






Things to sort out in the future are...

- Rust behind the drivers seat. I've not had the carpet up but its been getting damp over the winter and it seems to have rusted through   i could see it through the waxoyl when it was on the ramps the other day... It'll never end will it. hopefully its not too bad. going to investigate soon and drop it off again next week before the next tour.

- Sort that leak out!!!! sealed the boot rubber as damp was getting in the boot, still getting in the drivers side though. It must be the drivers side door seal right??

- Clicking clutch pedal. It clicks when used so I'm guessing its the clutch quadrant??? i'd like to sort this soon as its the only thing now making me feel like i'm about to break down.

[Deleted]

Great to see you still have this!
She is looking well.
The Ace meet seems small??

[cjhillman]

Yeah shes still hanging in there !! keeping it as long as i can !

I think all the salt on the road and freezing weather put people off. ive always wanted to go to ace in it (not quite the right night haha).