Search the Community

After reading the Escort Base model thread I thought I'd share my Escort 1.1 Popular that I have owned for nearly 10 years now. Its proper chod spec and I love it!! I always wanted one of these. When I was a kid my dad had a Sunburst Red Base Model 1.3 (x reg) until about 1998 followed by a mk4 1.4 GL. I always assumed I'd own a Red 3 door Escort mk3 when I passed my test but, that was 2005. My folks helped me with my first shit box which was a £900 Saxo and they wouldnt help to buy an Escort as they thought the ones they had were shite. I was stuck for a while until I was making my own money. Saxo died one Friday and I was looking for a mk3 in Red in a hurry. Didnt happen but I landed a mk5 3 door in Red for work on Monday (2008). I also test drove a Capri 1.6 but we'll come back to that later. During owning this I went to view a mk3 (sunburst red 1.3) that a scrap yard in Manchester had put to one side. Went along with £300 which was what it wasnt selling for on ebay. Fell in love, was told to go home and bid. When I got home they'd taken it down and I was gutted! Even drove back and pleaded with them to sell it me. The bosses son wanted it apparently. Anyway... had the mk5 for years, followed by a Focus when that died, then I was in a position where I was about to make some decent money as a touring musician which meant I could own a second car. Although I was always looking for one of these (still do to this day) one hadnt popped up in Red for 3 years and during the rehearsals for said tour a C reg 3 door 1.1 in Red popped up for sale on ebay. It seemed like it was meant to be so I went down to Peterborough and had a look/test drive. I loved every minute of it and thought it was hilarious at the same time. The steering wheel was so thin, the gear stick really long, the seating position was less sporty than my old mk5. I had to have it. The seller said you've checked it over havent you and happy with it a few times... alarm bells should have rang but it looked fine and solid. Put my fingers under the arch and they seemed solid (should have looked harder as you'll see). Anyway I bought it with my heart and not my head. Enjoyed the summer of 2013 with the medium wave radio cranked and the single centre speaker working its bollocks off then it lived in my Dads garage in the winter. Apologies for the Photobucket watermark on these early pics. As stereo upgrade from medium wave to Cassette medium wave. The following year as I remember it went for an MOT and they poked the little hole I'd found at the bottom of the driver sill, all the way around. Gutted!! This is the time I should have put it back on ebay, especially as on a now defunct Escort forum a guy couldnt sell a Base model 1.6 3 door in terracotta for £600. After a while I found some guys in Stoke-on-Trent who could restore it for me for a reasonable price so in it went... as you can see they found more rot than initially thought. All done! with some new wheels off a Capri, probably killing off all the wheel bearings. This is probably 1/3 of story. Its 2014 at this point. My girlfriend had moved to Glasgow for a new job so I was occasionally using it to go up there (Still had my Focus Estate too). Mainly I used it to listen to the Smiths and Tom petty cassettes round Manchester when back from touring with various bands. At some point it was kicked out of my Dads garage when he bought a Spitfire 1500 in early 2017 and then I took it to London with my later that year when I moved. I'll continue this later on when I have more time. As a long time lurker on here I thought I should maybe share my own tails of automotive woe with you... we havent even got to the Capri yet.

Bit of a request for advice, also a bit of a vent. Buggered: Ford Sierra following an unleaded conversion last year. It's the one concealing a 1.6 Emax lump under the bonnet. My garage, who have maintained the car for the (near) five years I've owned it, put in new valve seats etc as part of the conversion to unleaded it had. When the car was returned to me it ran brilliantly, far more sprightly than in recent times... funnily enough. Garage recommended running it on 98 OCT or higher - I've been using the locally available Tesco Momentum 99 OCT, sans lead additive of course. Very soon after, a metallic rattling sound began when being driven at low revs or uphill. Back to the garage... They adjusted the timing and solved this problem (hurrah) however now it wobbles on idle. Back to the garage... They adjusted the timing again and gave the (Webber) carb a clean inc. new jets. Result: no difference. Now it's spitting oil from one side of the engine - rocker cover gasket I suspect (could however be unrelated). And that's the Sierra in its current state. As I say, the wobbling problem didn't exist until the timing was altered to overcome the rattling sound (pinking...?) issue. Any advice on how to achieve a 'rattle-free engine' which will not wobble on idle? Perhaps I ought to try a new garage too - on the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire boarder if y'all can recommend a mechanic out there. Thanks for reading!

Right, thought I’d throw together a thread detailing my own piece of automotive shiteness; the wondrous Ford Cougar. A bit of a long one to start off with, and if it’s in the wrong place can a Mod shift it. Ta. My example is a MY99 registered in early 2000 and owned by my in-laws since they acquired it a couple of years later from Lombard Motoring. Having the correct compliment of cylinders in ‘v’ configuration I always wanted it. I had first refusal to purchase, but years came and went with no sign of selling and so I made do with all sorts of things instead (Mazda Tribute anyone?). Eventually I acquired it following a poor MOT fail. Deemed uneconomical to repair with knackered wishbones and an impressive list of broken stuff, its sudden availability coincided with a couple of pals and I signing up for a banger rally to Monaco. Perfect! After all, the three hundred quid budget would get it through an MOT, right? Well it did*. At what I consider great expense I sourced replacement wishbones from Poland, found several impossible to get Ford bolts and after convincing the garage to take it on, we had it back in for a repair and test. Success! We eventually got the rattler down to Sheffield and collected it. What a car! Check out those lines. ? Driving it back was a pig. It wandered all over the place at 70, the blower motor was shagged so it kept misting up and the road noise was… noisy. We spent time replacing various broken or missing parts including servicing. This is the first time I did anything more than top up washer fluid and change the wiper blades, although my mate is far cleverer with his hands and sorted stuff out. Such as the n/s wheel bearing which was borked. Pretending he knows what he's doing. A full dead cow interior was found for £100 over in Carlisle so that went in to replace a truly wrecked driver’s seat. A set of four alloys with decent rubber came from the rather excellent owner’s forum which along with tracking helped with the wandering hilarity and even improved the noise further. The trip down to Monaco nearly ended in fucking disaster. A huge fuel leak outside Brussels made us too late for check in on the first night. Caused by the twat of a little clip breaking off the fuel filter, a bodge inside some recovery yard at midnight got us back on the road after we stole parts from a wrecked C5(?) along with a sneaky use of a kettle and some cable ties. I'll write this bastard thing up another day. Us thinking we were going to get murdered in deepest Brussels. Anyway it performed flawlessly* for the rest of the trip, and by now I had committed myself to keeping the delightful old thing. This is us at Tabac. Of course it’s failed every MOT since. Firstly on shite handbrake efficiency (THADTS) and more recently the dreaded rust in the cill. Oh, and I bought a really wrecked V6 to break for parts too, which has been jolly useful and taught me a lot. Since then it has made its way to a NE meet near Bishop last year, but now has virtually been in a lockup I can’t get access to, although post lockdown I’ll be moving to a new house and then it should fit in my garage to get stuff done. TLDR; Clueless idiot takes a fucked Ford failure to Monaco and decides to keep it. I will upload more pics to bring it up to date.