ShiteRiders' fleet. The vectard edition.

[ShiteRider]

What really pissed on my chips today was the fact i've done 150 miles in this car since i bought it, and have done nothing to it other than drive it and put petrol in, what annoys me is it had a 2 day old MOT on it when i bought it and this was the colour of the brake fluid that came out.

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After this i gave the car a proper going over, i know stable door and all that bollocks but still.

So faults i've found so far.

1) Steering rack is fucked

2) Void bushes are fucked (goes with out saying with a cortina to be fair)

3) All four tyres have cracks around the tread blocks (hence why it's now wearing my spare capri alloys)

4) Brake flexi's are perished

5) Steel brake pipes are corroded

6) ARB droplinks are fucked

7) It's has had a sill, and some patches to the inner arches that aren't weled all the way around.

There's other shit too but i'm suprisingly not that bothered, as despite all that it is actually a decent car to drive and very solid in the usual grot spots.

I can't fortell it's long term future but for now, at least it's going to get the bit's that need doing done and used at weekends and the occassional jaunt.

 

[ShiteRider]

For some reason i don't seem to have any luck with cortina brakes, everyone i've had has ended up needing a complete rebuild.

This one had everything bar the servo replaced.

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This one the same, except it's actually had two master cylinders in 6000 miles!

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 And this bastard at least needs shoes and a seal kit for the master, probaly the front calipers as well.

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[trigger]

Funny enough I also had problems with the brakes on my Cortina when i first bought it, only one of the front callipers was working which annoyed me as if your selling a car and know the buyers got a 250 mile drive home you'd at least make sure it was save for them to drive home.

 

Every time I braked i swerved into incoming traffic!

[srad34]

I love MK5's, my grandad had loads of them, he just kept buying them and running them until they died and bought another....

[HMC]

1+ on the mk 5 Tinas. How many have you owned, and what engine/ spec was your fave?

[ShiteRider]

1+ on the mk 5 Tinas. How many have you owned, and what engine/ spec was your fave?

I've had four (still own three). I always had sierras and capris before but fancied a change. The black one was the first, christ knows how much money i sunk into that, i replaced and repaired everything bar the roof and floor pan.

My favourite is the beige 1600 GL, currently on 24,000 miles, i'm the second owner the first died in '91 and his wife kept it in the garage till she died in 2010 and i got it indirectly from the daughter in law. It is truly mint.

Best spec is the estate a 2.3 ghia S, it's the last one in this spec it had every option available fitted.

Unfortunately it needs a full resto, a few lads on BSC tink it should be tarted up and left as a survivor, but in the years since it left club circles it's suffered. It's got rot in the pillars, doors, sills etc it's also lost a lot of it's special parts includinf the entire interior.

Type the reg into google it's BEV 823X.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Thought i'd give the ebay cortina a run to work today and give it a service.......brakes failed coming off the m65....... I was lucky and just tapped the back of a tipper who didn't seem to notice and fucked off.

 

 

Living it fast, living it furious....... SHITE LIVIN'

[ShiteRider]

Well i've spent a productive day fucking about and earning no money......

I'm skint, as in i've got £11 of my overdraft left and don't get paid till the 23rd, so when a mate offered £150 to repair the legs on a transit and jumped at the chance........... what wasn't mentioned was i'd have to take the fucking engine out the tranny to repair them!

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What also wasn't mentioned till after i'd fucked about getting the engine out on my own using nothing more than profanity and trolley jacks and repairing said legs was that the £150 would not be paid in money, oh no that's way to simple, it would be paid in alloy wheels.......

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[HMC]

I googled BEV your ghia estate, in that spec with those options it must be pretty much unique these days! Lovely

[ShiteRider]

I googled BEV your ghia estate, in that spec with those options it must be pretty much unique these days! Lovely

Theoretically it is unique, in as much as the only other car in that spec is a manual. As mine is an auto i can say it is the 'last' one of it's kind, that said i've never seen the other car so it could be dead, in which case i would win the "bloke with the rarest 2.3 ghia s estate cortina built in 1982". award*

 

* It's an award i've created myself which consists of tea and biscuits, which i'm now enjoying......cos i won innit.

[ShiteRider]

I suppose i shouldn't grumble too much with it being christmas and all that bollocks, but if Tiny Tim himself had handed me those alloys this morning i'd have beaten him to death with his own fucking crutch.

As it happens though i do need tyres on my WBOD* fiesta,  these have come in handy. They're off an escort at a guess..maybe.. either way they have four matching 195/55 x15 avons which are nearly new, which are a metric shitload better than the semi slick tigar, the cracked semperit, the leaky dunlop, and directional firestone (pointing in the wrong direction, unsurprisingly) which were previously on it.

 

 

 

* i know it isn't a proper WBOD, but it is shit and i feel left out

[ShiteRider]

Shit, forgot the pictures in the last post.

Before.

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And after.

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 To be fair it does actually ride a bit better now, but i'd rather have a car that rides a bit shit and the ablity to buy food.

[Ghosty]

I think they're late model Puma wheels (missing the centre caps?).

[vulgalour]

They work rather well on the little Fester.  Ã‚£150 cash monies would have been more useful, certainly, but equally fitting burgers to your Fiesta wouldn't have cured your rubbish tyres issue.

[New POD]

Dear...thems is now a FORD dealer...

[ShiteRider]

Uppy datty time.

Today i've been doing what any sensible 'shiter does at the start of spring/summer......preparing for winter.

So this week it's the turn of the beige sex machine to get a fettling, mainly because it hasn't been outside for nearly a year and i want it on the road.

Here she is, squinting into the sun.

And rocking the "jenuwine barnfind OMGOSFDRIFTYO" look.

And after a quick bath (during which i found out some fucker has been putting his mug on the roof!)

 

[cort16]

THat looks great. I love cortina's (other than my one).

[ShiteRider]

I attacked the inner arches and boot floor first, using a combination of rage and knot wheel on a grinder. And guess what i found......fuck all.  Somewhat bizarrely for a 33 year old cortina it is actually pretty much rust free.

Driver side rear arch after 30 years of horse shit/road salt/dead squirrels was vanquished.

And the left rear arch. I didn't even bother bare metaling this, it's as solid as a bank vault.

Yes i have cut the exhaust off for better access, but in my defense it is fucked (it's the original, and blows harder than divine brown)

 

[ShiteRider]

There were a few rust blebs on the underside of the spare wheel well, these were taken care of using the knt wheel and some ancient 'rust killer' acid shit in a drum at work (label has long since wore off, but if you take a good whiff of it you go dizzy and your nose can start bleeding......so it must be good, right),

excuse the wobble vision pictures, but i was using my phone. And i'm generally a bit shit.

[ShiteRider]

A couple of nice light coats of etch primer, and then a couple of coats of 3M anti-stonechip later.

[ShiteRider]

And finally finished for the day, i've never really been a fan of RS four spokes but this is the only set of matched wheels i've got with legal tyres and i'm after sending her for an MOT next week.

[ShiteRider]

Whilst out enjoying the sunshine in the electric blue love machine, i thought i'd visit my mate (also called rob) who'd painted my black cortina a few years back.

He's got alpacas, they're cute little things aswell as being incredibly stupid.

I left the Cortina outside, instantly wiping 10% off the value of every house in sight.

Alpacas.

Cortina, rob hides his jealousy behind comments like "why the fuck do you drive old shit like this?!", because i'm cool rob.....because i'm cool.

[ShiteRider]

Well i've not updated this for a while so.......... fleet update:

Lupo-

covered in moss and birdshit (status unchanged)

Fiesta-

Withstanding the abuse of being a mileage whore rather well, although the slightly groany rear wheel bearing has escalated to full on doodlbug preportions. It's also due a full service......probaly.

Beige Cortina-

Currently cocooned under a protective layer of dust, slowly increasing in value like pirate treasure.

Cortina estate-

After some half arsed prodding with my prodding finger, many parts were found to be prod proof...others less so. A-posts both sides will require work, rear arches and sill ends are fucked. The metal work around the rear side windows, both inside and out, will require some fab work. The front wings are crusty around their extremities (front indicators, bottom four inches behind the wheel, a two/three inch band where they meet the front valance) aside from that though it's pretty much bang on.

Mechanically it's sweet as a nut but will get a thorough going over in due course. The temptation at the minute is an oily rag resto to get it legal and put some miles on it, but practicalites and finances are putting a stop to that at the moment.

Blue Cortina-

My very half arsed attempts at selling this bore no fruit (unsurprisingly). I then saw it as a potential parts supplier to the rest of the fleet. I bought it blind off ebay, realised it was a turd on sight but went through with the deal nonetheless. So far i've done 400-500 miles since purchase, as every journey has been a new lesson in wallet rape with constant failures and new horrors to discover, i only use it out of sheer bloody mindeness that it can't be as bad as i remember.......but it always is.

So in true shiter style i'm in the process of rolling repairs to get it to a reasonably useable level and presentable condition before selling it on for a massive loss, the proceeds of which i'll no doubt spend on another rotten blue oval turd.

 

 

 

If you've read this far i'll reward* you with pictures.

 

 

 

 

*_{rewards with be dissapointing}

[ShiteRider]

Because photobucket is as much use as a tissue condom i'm having to upload these off my phone. I'll add captions to them in a sec.

First sight after two years of parting, it nearly fired up as well but the battery i had brought was shit.

Loading it up required hot dirty winch action, which i got carried away with and bent the bumper and smashed the plate.

Off to start it's new life......sitting outside some other poor buggers workshop

The eagle has landed! with a jump pack she fired on the second go despite three year old fuel

Took this just because

The bent bumper gives her a slightly miffed look

[ShiteRider]

Cobwebs and rust, the autoshite goth look

The sill should be repairable, but the arch is toast. Another six inches above that rot hole is wob.

The door looks worse than it is, but i've alrady got an NOS skin in stock so it's a none issue

2.3 litres of asthmatic pig iron shouldn't sound as good as this does, it proper burbles.

It did/does have a chrome pan filter on top, but a slight back fire issue may have caused it to catch fire (and for me to make stool)

[ShiteRider]

Some were between leaving club circles and me buying her she lost her interior (as well as a few other model specific parts) I got it with the two blue seats in it, a blue rear base and four blue doorcards in the back. I've since got hold off a full, absolutely as new, interior in the correct colour grey (not all banger racers are twats shocker!)

"Those two clocks that look like you'd smack your knee on them?" "you do" "oh..."

Like the treasure hoard of an ogre with very low standards. It's incredibley light and airy inside, with a nice low loading sill and fantastic capacity. Puts anything modern to shame.

It's new (hopefully temporary)home.

The view many an Audi driver will experience.

[Felly Magic]

Oooft S pack Ghia wagon with Cologne power.....Rare beastie

[ShiteRider]

This car has pissed me of in many ways, but i'm slowly trying to sort it out. I've been on the look out for a cheap rear axle. Cortina axles come in two flavours, megabucks and fucked. Got this combo for £115 with the the type 9 behind it (out of a capri, with stick, bellhousing, crossmember and clutch fork) which was a bargain frankly.

It's been jerking like Michael J Fox at a disco recently, mainly at low revs and on the overrun. Taking the top of the carb revealed fine rust sediment in the float chamber, so a full strip and blow through followed. I'm sure this problem will happen again soon, meaning i may have drop and clean the tank.

I set the valve clearances while i was at it, inlets were fine but all the exhausts had closed up by a few though.

[ShiteRider]

I went into work today to weld up the rear jacking points that have been previously done by a fucking retard (that's the politest way i can describe the standard of workmanship) Instead i put off the inevitable and looked behind the wings.....

This explains the wet carpet.

Like all fords, you remove the wings to find fresh air and pissed on dreams...

When i was a kid, maybe six or seven, we looked after a neighbours dog when they went on holiday. He was an old labrador named Harvey, one day sat in the back of the car with Harvey next to me when i noticed his lipstick poking out, at that age i didn't understand what it was and ,with genuine worry, said to mum (who was driving) "mum there's some wrong with Harvey, look"! she turned to see me poking the dogs dick wondering WTF fuck it was. Cue the voice of satan declaring "Dont touch it!" i shit myself, the dog shit himself and we never looked after Harvey again.

The moral of the story is some things should be left alone....

This is the standard of previous bodgery i'm finding all over

The right hand front inner wing/top rail section is all repaired now, I ran out of time to do anymore so did the approved ford repair of gaffer tape over the casm in the scuttle till i'm back work next week when i can take the screen out to sort it properly.

I think i've fried the alternator welding as well, the battery light failed to extinguish on the whole 30 mile trip home.

Another thing to add to the list.

[ShiteRider]

Wow, i really am a feckless twat at keeping this updated.

Blue cortina above became a parts donor, after an unending stream of failures sucked the enthusiasm out of me.

Right rear brake went fucked, can't remember the cause now but saw a rust bubble and like dick poked it.......