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Project Capri. Back on the road! New earths.


danthecapriman

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That mk1 is lovely.

I saw an L reg mk1 the other day near Goodwood, it was not as mint as that one though. It looked like the ones you’d have seen as old bangers in the 80’s and 90’s with a black tide mark around its sills and lower edges, a different colour wing and the paint was very worn and flat with surface rust coming through in places. It was spectacular!

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Got a few hours in on this today.

Did a few more little bits and bobs around the engine bay and got about as far as I can with that for now.

Ive fitted the suppressor thing. Had to take the coil bracket off and strip the paint off the back of it then very very carefully ground a small patch of the paint off the inner wing under where the bracket fits to provide a good clean earth point for the suppressor. I’ve given all surfaces here a thin smear of contact grease too just to stop corrosion starting. The suppressor is fitted to the LT wire from the coil to distributor, the little O ring connector just fits over the terminal on the coil then the LT wire pushes on over the top and secures the lot itself.

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Next task, get the heater box fitted.

This proved to be a bit of an arse hole to do as it didn’t fit terribly well. Don’t know why as it’s the same one that came out and the surrounding panel work, mountings etc haven’t been altered. It was extremely tight trying to force the motor and it’s housing up through the hole for the air intake and at the same time get the two water outlets through the little oval hole in the bulkhead. Got there in the end though!

The bolts for the box didn’t appear to have any washers or anything so I’ve dug out some suitable washers and added spring washers too just to be sure it stays tight and won’t rattle.

 

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Im not 100% sure putting this in now will be the best idea but my plan was to get it in and finished now while there’s such good access. We’ll soon see however as the next job in here will probably be the cabin wiring loom and I did notice there’s two of the loom retaining tangs under where the heater box sits but I’m fairly sure these ones are not used on this car. Fingers crossed!

The next task was to try to get the heater hoses installed in the engine bay which is where I ran into a slight problem. I’d bought a new seal kit for the heater box which includes a big foam O ring seal for around the air intake/motor, which fits great. It also includes a small oval foam seal for in the engine bay, which fits around the two heater matrix outlet pipe stubs. These are designed for the mk3 so are the wrong shape to fit and not leave a gap around part of the hole! I don’t think you can get early mk1/2 ones so I’ve had to make one from some old foam gasket left over from something else. Once that was done I’ve refitted the metal cover plate that holds the gasket in place and tightened it down. It certainly seems to be a very snug fit around the pipe stubs so it should do the job.

Once that was done I’ve put the hoses on and fitted the little clamp brackets too.

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I also bought a new radiator over flow pipe and two clips and got that fitted too, not exactly a priority item but it’s a nice little finishing touch!

Lastly, I mentioned earlier in the thread about door mirrors.

This car being so early it should have a type of door mirror specific to the mk2’s from January - November 1974. They look similar to those fitted to late mk1’s but are slightly different. As you can imagine they’re not easy to find these days so most (mine included) end up having the later mk2/3 style mirrors fitted. I want the right ones because I’m an awkward fucker!!

Anyway, I thought I’d got this sorted last year but the supplier couldn’t get them anymore which killed that off. Then the other day I was browsing eBay and spotted one! It’s a new old stock part (left hand) and came from Germany. 

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It’s like new! The chrome is perfect! I think these are absolutely the right way to go for this car, I love these mirrors but getting a pair of these on should be another little period correct item that sets the car apart from others. And I ‘might’ have secured the other side mirror, also new old stock since that one arrived! So all being well I’ll be sorted for the mirrors soon.

Ive got a day off work tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll have a go getting the cabin wiring out of its box and maybe into the car.

 

 

 

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Cheers guys!

I only intend to do this once... might aswell do it right!

 

I got the front grill fixings (new) fitted earlier and decided to trial fit the grill. I know stuff like that is one of the things you’re meant to do last but I couldn’t help myself! It’s amazing how you can add something like that and all of a sudden it looks like what it’s supposed to be!

The grill of course is filthy and in desperate need of a thorough clean up but it still looked great.

Also dug the horn out, as that can be fitted soon before the grill and headlights go back on. The horn looks like absolute shit! It’s very rusty and dirty but I thought I’d test it and at least see. Hooked it up onto the Volvo’s battery and... it sounds shit too! It seems to vibrate more than make noise, and bits of rust fall out of it when it does. I’ll find a new one I think.

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1 hour ago, Tamworthbay said:

Not far to go now!

 

Hopefully! I was looking at the boxes of parts still to go back on today and there really isn’t that much of it. Granted, the interior isn’t with all the boxes but that’s all big parts that go in quickly. The time consuming bit is ensuring everything is clean, painted and fit for re-use.

Just been shopping to!

New horn - check. Genuine Ford item, never used. For a mk3 really but it’s good enough!

also ordered a pair of shaped heater to manifold/carb hoses. The one I've got isn’t shaped, it’s just a length of generic hose cut to size. So the shaped ones will look better. And I’ve got another of the chrome wheel centre caps off eBay, new old stock again but it’s mint!

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Haven’t had as much time as I thought I was going to, but I’ve made more progress.

 

A few more bits and bobs done around the front end. First up was the horn, by no means an essential job at this stage but I bought the new part so got it fitted regardless. 

The original. It sort of works but it’s rotten and vibrates like hell!

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And the new one fitted. It’s a NOS item, for a mk3 really but in the absence of a new mk2 part it’s good enough for me! It sits in the gap behind the grill next to the headlight bowl, I had to remove a patch of paint for it under the mounting tab as it’s earth, again I’ve put a thin dab of conductive grease in to prevent corrosion in future. I could have got some generic replacement horn, they’re cheap enough but that’s the problem! They’re so cheap I can’t imagine they’re any good and won’t last very long. At least a genuine old stock part is what it should use, it’ll fit properly and it’s going to last.

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Also got the last of the heater hoses made up. I needed a new moulded hose to go between the heater and inlet manifold. Where the hose has to run behind the engine is quite tight so a moulded purpose made hose will look and fit better. Unfortunately the one you can still get new is for cars with an auto choke, mine is manual. This means the carb/manifold end of the new hose is both the wrong shape and too short. Luckily I had a plan B! I’ve bought the hose, cut off the end of it I don’t need (keeping the shaped bit for behind the engine), my car was fitted with an in-line bleed valve which it’s managed to retain so this means I can use that to join hoses together. The other half of the hose is just a length of generic heater hose cut to length. It all fits well but the bleed valve is currently sat in a tub of rust remover so I’ll fit that to finish the job once it’s been painted. There’s two clamps to fit here too which should hold the hoses in place and stop any movement.

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Next job was definitely not needed yet, but I wanted to do it just to see what it looks like!

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The grill!! It’s the one that came off the car but I’ve cleaned it up and put some trim shine on it. All the clips and screws are new.

Next up, the wiring loom...

 

 

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...Which was a pain in the arse in the end!

I got it out of the box it's been sat in for 3 years and checked it over. It’s in surprisingly good shape, clean, minimal damage and the old tape is still soft and flexible. So I’ve decided to save myself some work and just use it as it is. There’s a soldered connector to a bulb holder that needs resoldering and a couple of other connectors that might need replacing. Also, there’s a bit of shit wiring to replace on the spur for the radio, the radio being a later addition (this car wouldn’t of had a radio new!). This should be easy with the loom fitted though.

First was to have a look at things and see how best to tackle this job. Annoyingly, the loom has been sat in the box for so long it’s lost it’s shape a bit, which made refitting it more difficult as I can’t remember exactly how it was routed around the dash frame. Also, the two cable ties holding the steering column in place were right in my way so I decided to cut these off and fit the pedal box which has a clamp for the column on it. Once that was in place the pedal box and steering column shouldn’t need touching again.

This is how it looked to start.

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Heres the pedal box back in place with the steering column bolted back to it.

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This job was actually a bastard! Space is tight and it wasn’t helped by the sun being right in my eyes all afternoon while laying on my back with my head up in the footwell trying to bolt it back in. There’s six bolts to hold it in, two are through the dash frame, two go up through the bulkhead next to the fuse box, and the final two? They go through the bulkhead... right behind the sodding servo!! So that had to come back out again to get access! Annoying but I should have known that really. It’s in now though and the steering column is bolted to it so that’s that sorted.

Wiring loom thrown back into the car ready.

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And the loom ‘hung’ sort of in the right place! It’ll need a fair bit of adjustment and messing with later to get a good fit but I don’t think I’ll be able to do that until the shell of the dashboard is back in place, as then I can see how/where things are supposed to go.

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While I was under the dash I took a couple of pics of the metal work under there. You can just see where the welding had to be done to fix the rotten front scuttle panel ends and screen surrounds. Very solid and clean now though! I’ll be splashing a bit of wax up here in the near future though just in case.

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This is the area where the cabin loom and engine bay looms pass through the bulkhead and connect together (two round holes) and where the cabin loom connects to the fuse box from underneath (rectangular hole). There’s not a great deal of space under here though...

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That’s as far as I got today on the car itself. I’ve stripped the air filter box though this afternoon, cleaned it all and used trim shine to buff it up a bit. The metal end has been stripped to bare metal and painted in black VHT paint too.

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Haha!

Look what Ive got!

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Oh yes! A matched pair of the door mirrors of my dreams.

The left hand one came from Germany, as I mentioned in a previous post, but the right hand one was a bit of a gamble. I spotted it online, advertised as a left hand mirror. The pics weren’t too easy to make out but it looked different to my left hand one from Germany and the part number was one digit different, so despite the seller advertising it as a left hand I had a good idea it might actually be the elusive right hand one. I took a chance and bought it. I’m well happy that little gamble payed off! And they’re both new old stock, still even boxed.

Also got a new old stock oil filler cap as mines damaged. The top cap part keeps popping off.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just caught up on this thread so may be behind the times.

The shots of the engine bay and the engine remind me of my dad's Mk III Cortina. The one where Ford made a fuck up of the design of the oil feed to the ohc and the cams went circular very quickly due to oil starvation. It was a known* fault (no interweb or such in the 70's) to dealers and fortunately one of my father's friend's worked for the Ford dealers (Brook Shaw in Sheffield). He bought a replacement cam and gasket set plus the splined tool for the head bolts.

We changed it one Saturday morning, none of your cam locking tools, set it tdc, put it in gear and got on with it. Same belt, checked it afterwards and away we went.

My dad sent the bill for parts to Ford UK, and after a lot of letters back and forth Ford sent him a cheque for the parts

 

 

 

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Progress slowed a bit on this lately. I’d planned to get more done last weekend but I ended up getting some nasty cold! Yes, in May! I did try to do something at least but gave up after an hour as I felt shit.

 

I did get a few little bits done yesterday though and today I got most of the sound deadening pads cut and down on the floors. I decided to do this now as access up under the dash is still good and I wanted this stuff well up there. It’s actually both sound deadening and heat proofing as it’s got an aluminium face to reflect heat away. Should be good for the inside of the bulkhead and floors to keep the heat and noise from the engine and exhaust down. From new this car had a few of those old fashioned bitumen pads stuck to the floor pans here and there but I’ve gone one better this time and used this new stuff in much greater quantity than it had before. Should make it a bit more comfortable and quieter now.

 

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There’s a few bits that need trimming a little to fit better but most of it’s on now. I’ve actually run out of the pads so I’ve ordered more for the boot area and inside the doors and rear quarters. It goes down pretty well, cuts easy with a Stanley knife and steel ruler too. When it comes to getting it in the car it can take a bit of perseverance and effort to make it mould around curves and those pressed ribs in the floor pans etc.

You can go mad with this stuff and cover everything in sight but I’ve decided not to go that far! I want to keep certain areas clear so it doesn’t interfere with getting things like the seats etc etc back in.

It does feel like a bit of a pity to cover over all that nice blue paint inside but it’s going to be hidden under the carpet and underlay anyway.

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Another little milestone reached today. The first real part of the interior is now installed! Yay!

First task of the day was to drag the new carpet and underlay set out of storage. The carpets been sat in its big bag for nearly 3 years unopened! It’s sat in the spare room now opened up to try to flatten out any creases and wrinkles. The underlay is all ok, I’ve trial fitted it just to see how it fits.

The next job then is to dig out my spare dashboard. The cars original one is utterly ruined unfortunately. As is common on these cars,  the years of sun has split the top and on mine the perforated speaker grill on top has completely rotted and disintegrated. It looked a mess before but there’s no way I could possibly fit this back in the car now.

You can’t buy original style dashboards for these cars anymore, there are new reproduction fibreglass outer shells available but I’m not particularly convinced about them tbh! Besides that they’re grey and I need black. Yes, I could paint one but how well that’d work long term I don’t know. That pretty much leaves one option - try to find a good used one. Not easy!

I did manage however! It took ages to find a suitable one in the right condition and colour and they don’t come up very often. Unfortunately even this one isn’t perfect but beggars can’t be choosers. It’s a 100% improvement over the old one, it’s black and the top is absolutely sound and undamaged. The downsides are that it’s got two small spots of damaged vinyl on the front. These can be glued back down afterwards to make it look better but you’ll never get rid of them completely. There’s also a faint scuff mark under the binnacle area where the dash facia has been taken out at some stage and it’s marked the vinyl on the way out. You can’t really see this unless you really look hard for it though. The last thing isn’t really a fault but it’s still technically wrong! This good dash is from a Ghia spec car, which sadly means it’s got the grab handle screwed onto the passenger side of the dash front. Not original for an L spec car! You can’t take it off either as it’ll leave two bolt holes. Still, sometimes you’ve got to take what you can get and compromise so I’ll just have to live with it.

The first thing to do was strip the two fresh air vents out of the old dash. These went straight into a bath of soapy warm water for a scrub as the backs were very dusty.

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Heres the two dashboards, some of the clips etc etc also had to be transferred over to the new dash with the air vents.

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 So with the bits transferred to the new dash it was time to get this into the car. It’s actually surprisingly easy to get it in! I’d expected a bit of a fight with it tbh but it pretty much fell straight into place first try! A light thump at one end had every one of the retaining bolt holes lined up perfectly. With all the bolts and screws tightened up it wasn’t going anywhere and there’s no rattles either.

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So for the first time in nearly three and a half years the cars got a dashboard in it again. I’ve sorted the wiring out more since the pics. With the dash back in place it makes it much easier to see where everything is supposed to go and fit. I’ve also refitted the two windscreen blower vents that fit up inside the dash, they’re not exactly easy to get at once all the other crap starts going back in.

It was pretty hot out today, the towels over the widescreen were to stop the sun shining straight onto me while I was laying on the floors up under the dash!

 

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1 minute ago, JeeExEll said:

Ahh well, worth a try Dan. (just messin)

It's all coming together now. Take your time and enjoy the resto.

Cheers mate!

It took me a while to get started on this earlier this year but I’m actually really enjoying doing it now. Trouble is, the day isn’t long enough. I’d happily carry on instead of packing up for the day!

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Anyone able to help with my wipers?

 

Today I decided before I go too far building everything under the dash back up, I’d double check the wiper mechanism is correctly installed and it’s properly sealed. Access now is as good as its ever going to be.

So I can’t remember exactly how it all fits together given the time it’s all been apart now. Basically, there’s a load of spacers, washers, nuts and a seal. The order of which is the trouble!

I've got the mechanism all in place, the two wiper spindles are pushed up through the scuttle panel from inside the car. There’s a thin rubber seal inside between the mechanism and inside of the scuttle. 

Outside the car, the two spindles poke up through the scuttle. Then I’ve slid on the new rubber seal washers (these are approx 2mm thick and about the size of an old penny washer), then there’s a large thick spacer, then a thin washer, then the larger top nut which when tightened down secures the whole lot together and squashes the rubber seal washer to seal the spindles against the scuttle. On top of the larger top nut is a ‘top hat’ plastic cap/cover, then the wiper arm slides on onto the tapered splines on the end of the spindles. Then finally there’s a thin small washer and securing nut to hold the wiper arm on.

It looks about right to me, and everything fits well. I’ve also poured some water over it and there’s no signs of any leaks. It looks good from inside too, like how it’s supposed to fit.

Trouble is, I’m not 100% sure how I’ve done it is right!? Anyone got any ideas? Or better yet, done this job before?

I want it right before I start building up the dash etc and it becomes much more difficult to get access to.

 

heres a couple of pics. Outside.

The ‘top hat’ plastic cover isn’t on in the pics but it fits on over the rusty bigger lower nut. The big rubber seal is right at the bottom under the grey spacer (the big grey bit with specs of old paint on it).

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Inside.

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Ive assembled it all temporarily using some old spare nuts/washers/spacer etc for now until I know it’s all in the right order.

The original bits have all been cleaned up, sprayed black and are drying at the moment. I won’t be putting those scabby rusty bits back on! 

Anyone see anything wrong or that I’ve missed?

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Windscreen wiper assy. Pics not too clear Dan but may be of use if you zoom in.

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Whole Capri Mk2 microfiche catalogue here, taken from a Polish Capri site. Assembly diagrams are still the same though. With a little translation and guesswork it's usable ↓.

https://www.capri.pl/library/microfilms/capri2

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Cheers for that! It does look the same as what I’ve got if zoomed in a bit.

Theres actually a hell of a lot more bits and pieces inside that wiper mechanism than you think there is. I haven’t stripped mine right down as it all seems to work perfectly fine but the majority of the washers and seals in that diagram are bits inside the spindle mech. On the outside of the car there’s actually not a huge amount.

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It would be so easy to put a spacer in the wrong place and then maybe have the whole mechanism trying to run slightly out of alignment. Very annoying and a real PITA to fix once the dash and interior is in place.

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