• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Cortina is finally going!!

Share this page

TypeRboy

TypeRboy

Jedi Warrior
Offline
At Last, the Cortina is insured and on the road.. Much went wrong in the final hours of sorting, like the front wheel bearing seized on the way back from the exhaust shop ( Note to self, don't repack original bearings, even if they only have 30k on them..). The starter packed it in after about a day of playing with it, so the motor came out again to notch my cross member for one of those gear reduction starters which I had in reserve. I swear nothing really fits well in this car. The exhaust is beauty though, nice and quiet, and tucked up high for lot's of clearance ( the car is quite low.. )

The car was bloody slow and detonated like mad, even reving it in neutral.. I forgot that I was running regular gas with my old motor, and it was a year sitting to boot..

After the wheel bearing incident, I looked the throttle over to find that I was getting about 1/4 throttle. After figuring out that I really couldn't take up any more slack in the cable ( it was working at full throttle with these carbs on the old motor (, I realized the gas pedal was bending, limiting it's travel. When I tried to bend it back away from the floor, the gas pedal broke off the cross bar. The cheap factory weld just let go! Out came the heater box and up went the assy to the weld shop. While repairing that I was testing the throttle cable to make sure it wasn't unduly tough to pull, and the lead end on the carb side of the cable broke off.. That was a new cable.. Sometims you just have to laugh! Anyway, that was an easy fix for a change.

Anyway, the car has done it's worst, and I got it going anyway. Now that I have some good gas in it, it runs pretty fine. I'd say the motor makes a little less power than my Lotus, or maybe the extra 300 lbs of weight in the Cortina makes quite a difference, but it pulls strong.

And the sound! That BDA sounds like nothing I'm used to.. The most noticable thing is the whine of the timing belt, sounds like a gear drive.. it revs fast and has a pretty flat torque curve. It doesn't appreciate my close ratio tranny though, it's difficult to move off the line, so tonight I swapped back to a wide ratio tranny, which is just waiting for a trip to the store for some gear oil.

That will give me a nasty drop into third gear, but off a light should be much better.

Thanks everyone for all the kind words and support over the last year with this dumb thing.. So far the work and expense have been worth it. I think I have the only street BDA around these parts! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/driving.gif
 
Allright!
I always get excited when I hear anything like this about Cortinas!

- Doug
 
Great!
The BDA *does* sound cool!. I ran a few SCCA Pro-Rally events years ago (in a 510) and can recall the sound of the BDA Escorts. They always ran away with those events.

In case you are really crazy, we have a Mk II for sale right now. Full cage vintage racer. 1600 Kent. Not streetable. It's ~HERE~ and can be seen below (at Lime Rock). I'm used to open cars, so when I ran it in a 1-hour last Summer (at BeaveRun), I almost fainted driving it....much hotter to sit in than Spridget. Good handling and pretty speedy.

cortina_limerock.jpg
 
Congrats!

Can you drive it much yet? But I guess you don't get that much winter weather in Vancouver area...

Do you have any more recent pictures of the Cortina? The last ones I saw were when you first purchased the car.
 
Hmmmm, looks alot like a datsun /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

<ducks to avioding flying wrenches>
 
[ QUOTE ]
Hmmmm, looks alot like a datsun /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

<ducks to avioding flying wrenches>

[/ QUOTE ]

You better duck! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

That should read, Datsun's look a lot like Cortina's. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

My sig should say it all.


/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif
 
We'll gang up on Pinkerton. I got PLENTY of wrenches I'll fling his way.

I *MISS* my MkI Lotus Cortina. Badly.
 
Well, make sure you throw them towards middlewestern Alabama - not north Alabama!
 
One of the BIG differences between the Datsun & Cortina
is that you can walk on top of a Cortina without leaving lots of dents!

- Doug
 
Okay, Doug - let's hear how you know that....hehehe
 
Actually,I have a friend who was into 510's since the early 70's.He also worked for different Datsun/Nissan dealers.
He came over to my house to pick something up,which is
in a storage area above one side of my garage.I had my '65
Ford Corsair (variation of the Cortina MKI)parked in the garage,so I just walked over the trunk lid to get to the storage.I told him "Don't try this with your Datsun" -
- he shook his head,& said "No!".
You had to ask.

- Doug
 
Actually our blue/white Mk II (#444 in the picture I posted) has all it's steel hood bracing removed so the hood bulges in and out at speed. Made a weird sound when racing. We had to re-brace it to stop the noise.
When I first saw it, *I* thought it was a 510...and I used to own a Mk II plus I raced a Pro-Rally 510. They *do* look alike (and both neat cars in my view).
Oh yeah, the owner of #444 also has a decent "project" MK II street car (2 door) that is very rebuildable for sale....I have no time for another project!
 
[ QUOTE ]
When I first saw it, *I* thought it was a 510...and I used to own a Mk II plus I raced a Pro-Rally 510. They *do* look alike (and both neat cars in my view).


[/ QUOTE ]

See, I'm not the only one. I'd really never looked at a Cortina before. I just noticed it looked alot like a friend of mine's Datsun. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yesnod.gif
 
Well, you don't want to try walking on the hood of my GRM car...all it is is the aluminum outer skin!
 
Good to hear you got it up and running! Hopefully its smoother sailing from here on in.

Interesting Cortina related fact I've recently learned - the Hyundai Pony has a Cortina MkII rear axle!
 
Yea and the Hyundai Stellar uses the Cortina Mk2 struts and brakes, go figure! Some people have said that the Stellar makes a good source for newer front legs for the Cortina, except that Stellars are rarer than Cortinas now.

Thanks Doug for the phone call last night, it was great talking with you.

The Cortina continues to fight me, but is running just fine at this point ( crosses fingers... ) The throwout bearing is running off the end of the input collar and hanging up, but the cure is on the way ( an extended collar, aparently this is not a new problem with the diaphram clutch..)

The motor as it turns out has pretty good power, and revs smooth as silk. The cams are actually BD3 fast road grind, which I found out degreeing them in. The car makes enough power to go a bit sideways in the dry, and actually is a bit of a handfull in the rain ( he says with a big smile!!). And that's with the close ratio tranny back in it. ( I decide to switch back when I sorted my timing problems out and it stopped knocking under load )

The last bits are on their way to finish the valve lash off for good, and I just need to fixup some sort of tach mount for my positive earth Smiths. My car has the strip speedo and no spot for any tach.

The car is great fun to drive, and already I can feel my neighbors rising up against my driving habits...

Oh and I've owned a couple of 510's, and they were every bit as much fun as any British car I have owned, and mine were pretty fast too... I like em! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/driving.gif
 
Back
Top