1973 Cortina van

[Deleted]

day 5 of the revamp today and I started the day by doing some of small rust rapairs prior to fitting the new rear arch . I noticed a small crack at the bottom of the passenger rear arch a few months ago so new it was hiding some filler what o found was a bit of a surprise the car was owned by a friend of mine before I got it and he got it from the original owner who was the same guy who had hand painted it . all the time I've worked on the car I've found funny little bits the guy had done to keep it on the road from a wooden bottom to one of the rear doors when I first got it to strange putty type substance he had put under the arches to eliminate water traps the latter being on of the reasons the car has lasted so well but what I didn't expect was the repair he had done to the arch using

yup a bit of copper tube ;D . there was no sign of rot infact the cut out part in the first pic is how he had cut the arch for the repair . ithink it had only cracked due its more energetic lifestyle it now has ;D

anyway with that little gem investigated I carried on with repairs and mods
Mrs Nightmaresracing also helped out with her favorite job paint stripping relieving a lot less repair work than I was expecting to find on the drivers side rear quarter.
didn't realise evilged had taken this pic till it was to late ;D cheer's ged. he also helped out with a bit of the paint stripping much to the annoyance of mrs nightmaresracing

[grizz]

Just awesome Mark, just awesome.

[Pid363!]

Mega, but is there anything left of the van?

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2009 19:43:02 GMT Pid363! said:

Mega, but is there anything left of the van?

some but not a lot ;D the shell is still sat in my garage and that's the only important part that will be needed for the new build on it all the other parts can be got at a later date . doing anything with the van is out for a while at least so really not that important though it will re appear at some point

[Deleted]

Speedy work! No criticism implied but.......do you think it may look more factory with a slim pillar angled the same as the rear pillar to break up that large window area?

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2009 21:14:24 GMT @imperial said:

Speedy work! No criticism implied but.......do you think it may look more factory with a slim pillar angled the same as the rear pillar to break up that large window area?

none taken i have looked at doing that but to be honest it would just look wrong the doors are long but not long enough to allow that much rake and the rear windows are actually shorter than a mk1-2 escort's rear windows .

[Oldbus]

Looking good Mark,

by the time the estate is done there won´t be much of the van left eh? ;D

Are you going to be using glass for the side windows?

[Deleted]

Nov 2, 2009 5:49:48 GMT Oldbus said:

Looking good Mark,

by the time the estate is done there won´t be much of the van left eh? ;D

Are you going to be using glass for the side windows?

unfortunately not just the shell now but then you will still fit in this one when its done ;D where as the van looked like a toy when you got in it at the pod

glass would be to expensive to get made due to it having a very slight curve to it so instead I'll be using the next best thing ,polycarbonate still expensive but not as much as getting custom glass made

[Deleted]

day 6 of the revamp and today's key word was stripdown.
Mrs nightmares carried on with the paint stripping and made a start on the roof which proved to be a lot more stubborn than had hoped and very quickly used up all the paint stripper 2ltrs on the roof already though the car does have a few layers of paint on it having been hand painted before I had got it . so far the paintstrip has revealed no major nastiness underneath and very little filler proving to myself the shell is in very good shape . while karen was busy with the paint stripping I set about stripping out the rest of the interior and getting the engine out .

[bigkris]

looking wicked mate welldone!

[Deleted]

day 7 doesn't look like i got a great deal done today but i did honest ;D
Karen used another 2 ltrs of paint stripper to get the bulk of the stubborn paint off the roof today and i went round and finished it off with the grinder and twisted wire wheel to get in the guttering and then 80 grit DA pad over the roof to smooth off and get the last bits of paint off .
also removed the passenger front wing so i could address the lower corner of the foot well that has the usual rot in the corner though not as bad as i was expecting which always a good thing
the other bit of rot i uncovered was another common bit on cortinas , the outer edge of the scuttle panel where it meets the door and front screen pillar there has been a small bulge there all the time i've owned it and as i just rubbed the hand paint job down to paint it when i first got it i've never uncovered what could be under the surface , needless to say it has been repaired before not badly but a little out of shape so today i cut out the old repair to make way for a fresh more accurate repair .

[Ray]

You certainly don't waste any time Mark! Looking great.

[Deleted]

Nov 8, 2009 21:29:42 GMT Ray said:

You certainly don't waste any time Mark! Looking great.

cheer's ray . yeah its getting there but it helps to have such a good base really . i'm still surprised there not more rot in it as the hand painted cars usually hide a lot of horrors but this one was literally just a case of it had a few scabs on it so the old boy decided to give a once over with the old holts repaint all i did with it when i got it was flat it down and paint it . i didn't do hardly any repairs so didn't have a clue what it could be hiding ;D

[namless]

dude!! awesome.. Where do you get your mojo from? I need some
the 2 door wagon looks superb! if you squint enough you can see the van without the van nice one....

[rmad]

Nov 1, 2009 21:14:24 GMT @imperial said:

Speedy work! No criticism implied but.......do you think it may look more factory with a slim pillar angled the same as the rear pillar to break up that large window area?

Like this MKV?:



I suspect that the narrowness of the window area (cos of the coke bottle, innit!) might mean it would look better without an extra pillar. HB Viva estates look pretty smart with a one piece rear window:

[Deleted]

started cleaning up the rims for the estate tonight as I had 2 of them at home. made a big difference . they didn't look overly dull just not as bright as they were when new. I was very surprised at just how dull they had got ;D
before:

after:



the polish of choice was Meguiar's Hot Rims mag & aluminum polish works really well with very little effort

[Chris™]

Are those Crager (sp?) wheels? Should look awesome on there, especially with the shape of the back end, kind of hinting at american muscle cars. Love this build thread too, read it before (twice) but don't think i've ever commented! What colour are you planning to spray it after? I hope something like it was before - such a nice colour!

[Deleted]

Nov 10, 2009 21:16:11 GMT Chris™ said:

Are those Crager (sp?) wheels? Should look awesome on there, especially with the shape of the back end, kind of hinting at american muscle cars. Love this build thread too, read it before (twice) but don't think i've ever commented! What colour are you planning to spray it after? I hope something like it was before - such a nice colour!

cheer's. no the rims are American racing torque thrust II's 8x17 front and 10x17 rear and yes another part lifted from the van though new wheels were planned for the van anyway ;D . the actual colour of the estate I'm not revealing just yet but it will be very different to the colour it was as the car itself will be so different to how it was i wanted the colour to be new as well.

[Deleted]

day 8 of the revamp . bit disappointing with with the amount of work i got done today spent a lot of the time just measuring stuff up and not doing much actual work . mrs nightmares did some more paint stripping and got the bonnet and passenger side front wing stripped. couple small repairs needing were revealed on the wing so i'll get on those tomorrow along with some of the repairs under the rear valence . i removed the outer valence today and found another of the old boy repairs , an 8" section of inner valence made from alloy sheet and screwed to the rusted section and mastick'd over crude but the repair had stood the test of time as the rot has still gone no further than the plate i also found the inner panel full of saw dust which was a bit bizzare ;D
i spent ages today measuring and mocking up where the new exhaust is going to go as while the valence is of i need to decide weather I'm going to move the fuel tank and make dual exit or not . i have a pypes custom 3"stainless crossover pipe but it is very tight under the car so I'm just trying to work out how much room i'll have and were i can route the system.

[bigkris]

Couldnt you have a side exit each side before the rear wheels? Or would that mean no space for silencers? Just an idea. Nightmare you don't hang around doing an awsome job cant wait to see it done