Ongoing tales of a Pinto in That There London

[purplebargeken]

Cheers guys, I am looking forward to starting on her

 

I'll have to wait till next pay day for the plates

[JohnK]

How much are a set of plates from DMB these days ?

[purplebargeken]

£33.55

[purplebargeken]

I'm still tickled about the origin of the car. Interesting odds I think

[trigger]

That will look amazing after a good days polishing a set of new plates.

[purplebargeken]

I'm hoping that it won't be much more than that

 

I'll bring it over so you can work your magic on it

[purplebargeken]

Spent a couple of hours at my mates place on Friday. I took advantage of the free time to clean the years of grunge from around the various seals/door glass rubbers and so on.

 

I chucked on a load of Demon Machine Rapid Dirt Shifter. A very soft toothbrush and this spray stuff had it all looking bloody perfect in short order. 

 

Crikey, the amount of algae and shite that came out was astounding. I would well recommend that stuff. 

 

One thing I did just notice was that the N/S headlight sits at a different angle to the other. There is quite a difference in the gap at the bottom of the headlight and the front panel compared to the O/S headlight.

 

I will take off the bumper and front panel to have a proper look once it is in the garage. Odd.

 

The seats (although not horrible) are coming up lovely with some light use of 1001 cleaner. Also bloody good stuff.

[trigger]

Remember to keep taking photos of the progress!

[purplebargeken]

I will do mate. I

 

Anyone recall how the front bumper comes off?

[Richard]

Drive into a nose-in parking space with a high kerb, then reverse out. That's how SWMBO does it anyway.

[fordperv]

Take the grill off with the 4x screws along the top of it and if you look under the inner side of the headlamp which is only active on main beam you will see a 13mm headed bolt each side, you should be able to get a spanner on these, under each side by the wheel arch there will be a twist clip you have to twist and remove, but suspecting the bumper hasn't been off for a while it may be worth you removing the headlamps to get a ratchet on them, to do this you will find 3 10mm headed bolts going through the slam panel either side and if you look at the back of the headlamp there is another 10mm bolt which bolts into a plate which sits about 2 inches above the chassis leg.

 

If your only taking the front end off to see why the headlamp isn't lining up, stop, save yourself some work, as many people just throw replacement lights up and hope for the best, there is a lot of adjustability on how the headlamp sits, if you loosen the bolts on the slam panel, the one that bolts to the plate above the chassis leg, and there is a 10mm headed bolt on the headlamp case that holds the bracket that bolts closest to the wing on the slam panel you can adjust the headlamp to the aperture in the grill until your happy.

[Angrydicky]

I seem to recall Laser wheels having a small bump in it while parking, that resulted in the bumper being replaced. Could something else have got bent at the same time? Not sure if it's been MoT'd since he had it.

[fordperv]

under the bumper you have a box section crossmember that links the front chassis legs which has the towing eye welded to it and some side brackets under the wings, the bumper has L brackets on it which have a captive on which you bolt up through a hole in the top of the chassis leg each side, You'd be able to see anything that would affect the headlamp from the engine bay as it fixes to the slam panel and a bracket that's in the engine bay, unless the metal fillet under the lamp in front of the mounting panel has a kink

[purplebargeken]

Cheers guys. I can see a small ding in one of the steel sections, so maybe that was as a result of the bump.

 

I'll take it all off and have a proper look and clean it all up anyway. It'll help to keep it all solid for the future

[purplebargeken]

She's all tucked up in the garage for now. Might pop over in the morning and have a quick fettle. 

 

Bit of an eeeek! moment when she came over. The bottom pulley 19mm nut was rather loose. All tightened now. 

 

I will have to investigate the clunk from the front as mentioned. Sure it will be nothing very much

[JohnK]

That front bumpers a replacement item so should come off fairly easily. It all lined up right when I put it on so unless the vibrations of driving it have shown up a loose clip or something and moved it out of alignment.

[purplebargeken]

It may well have done mate. I'll have a prod at the weekend

 

I'll take piccies of course

[overrun]

Drive into a nose-in parking space with a high kerb, then reverse out. That's how SWMBO does it anyway.

 

My dad used to have a mk1 Laser estate, and my mam caught the bumper on a metal railing, while reversing, and it just popped off.

The best part was the indicators, hanging out by the wiring looms.

 

[purplebargeken]

Garage time. The lighting was not great so you may not be able to see the changes in the paint finish. Sorry

 

 

 

Engine bay painted black. Meh!

 

 

Gap

 

 

No gap

 

 

Gotta clean this up

 

[danthecapriman]

Nice.

Is the black under bonnet paint or an old Ziebart/Waxoyl coating? It looks very similar to my Transit which is Ziebart wax coated everywhere under the bonnet. It's kept it rust free but can be cleaned off with thinners back to the original paint.

[purplebargeken]

It looks like matt black paint

 

It is super duper sound in the engine bay. Just looks awful.

[fordperv]

That headlight is down to poor refitting, 10 mins fiddling as I said above will have that sitting right

[danthecapriman]

It looks like matt black paint

 

It is super duper sound in the engine bay. Just looks awful.

Bit of a shame someone's done that, could you not unbolt as much as possible from the inner wings etc and pile it all onto the engine, then mask everything else and the engine off. Then do a simple white rattle can blow over. I did this with my Capri and it looked ok. The car is Bronze but the engine bay was a pale blue. Of course there's a lot less stuff bolted to the inner wings/bulkhead area on the Capri.

[purplebargeken]

I may see if I can get it to clean off first using some thinners. failing that...... paint!

[trigger]

That's going to look fantastic when you've finished, it's a shame about that black paint, is it not some kind of rustproofer?

[purplebargeken]

Pretty sure not but there is a sticker on the back window relating to some kind of protection.

[DeeJay]

Paint the car black.

[trigger]

I've seen cars like that before, normally on Cortinas and the like, I think it's a wax protection which should come off with thinners.

 

I think it could be Ziebart.

[JohnK]

I must admit I always thought it was some kind of rust protection as opposed to paint.

[Ben_O]

I have seen a few old Fords with this colour engine bay.

 

I too wonder about it being some form of rust protection?