Restoration Diary
(Click on any photo to see a larger version)

October 2002

Apologies for the long time since an update was last done; within the last few weeks I have just began to resume normal activities since injuring my knee (it is 95% better now), Tony has also been busy with work commitments. Anyway, I have some good news to report.

The engine runs, oh so sweetly!

As you know we successfully got the engine back into the chassis, we then spent the next few weeks installing the various ancillaries including a new exhaust manifold that didn’t fit to start with! We also made up mini wiring loom to allow us to start the engine with no body, and without needing the original loom. As you can see from the pictures it is not pretty, but it is functional - including our virtual dashboard resting on the chassis. This mini-loom was mostly made up using the wiring diagram and a little brainpower! We also took the chance to fit our new electronic ignition, and very easy that was too, I hope our battery cut out switch is just as simple. We also wired up some instruments, the rev counter, temperature gauge and oil pressure gauge, that way we could monitor the engine’s behaviour. For the cooling system we bypassed the heater matrix hence the one really long pipe in the pics at the rear of the engine. The fuel tank was simply a 5-litre jerry can with the feed and return tubes both fed into the hole. As it only has a small battery we jumped it from my car to give it enough juice.

I will now summarise about 15 hours effort that we spent trying to start the engine, starting one Sunday and finishing when we finally got it going the following Sunday. So, in brief, we first forgot to earth the engine so the starter motor (recon unit)) was only able to turn it over at about half the correct speed. Now we got it turning over quite quickly we then managed to get flames coming out of the air filter, now I didn’t know much about starting engines, but I knew that was bad! We checked and double-checked the timing... More perseverance, reading of the Haynes, counseling sessions from fellow Pistonheaders. Stupid things being rechecked like sparking, fuel, and our new electronic ignition. We were able to turn the engine over but it wasn’t really firing at all. We worked through every suggestion, following the whole sequence of suck, bang, blow! In the end we called Adrian Venn who suggested our timing may still be out, which, ahem, it was, by 180 degrees. Much embarrassment later (in fact about 60 seconds later) and the V6 growled into life. With some tweaking of the carb settings it ran like a dream, sounding very sweet with two distinct noises, the burbly rasp of the exhaust note and the jet-like whine of our steel timing gear. Initially the tacho didn’t work, but when we checked the connections and realised we hadn’t earthed it, it then worked fine. The bottle of champagne visible in one of pictures shows just how pleased we were!

The pictures also show a puddle on the floor where one of our cooling hoses came off. Not having received our Kenlowe fans cooling was provided by Tony’s garden vacuum set on blow that kept the temperature rock steady. After several hours running over a couple of days we managed to use up our 5 litres of fuel. The oil pressure is very strong, and so far there is no evidence of any oil having been consumed or indeed any leaks. We were (eventually) able to check the timing with a strobe light that we bought, getting it spot on the 14 degrees for our engine set-up, we will re-check this later once the car is up and running.

A success. The real running in will begin when we get the car back on the road but for now we will start it occasionally just to splash the oil around (special running-in oil). Video's of the startup can be seen here. 

Recent weeks have been spent on several more minor jobs. We have begun making a new dashboard using some wood purchased from Europa, basically some MDF with a wood finish laminate on one surface. This isn’t finished yet but already looks excellent, and we have also made a complimentary switchboard that mounts below the main dash.

No more orange!!

At long last we sanded off the last of the 1970s orange paint to leave us a fully bare body. We have already completed repairs on the main body and we began priming the two doors yesterday. Our latest workshop tool is a compressor including a spray gun. We tested it out by spraying the underside of the bonnet with high temperature black paint, giving an excellent coverage and finish, and was relatively simple to use. We later progressed onto priming doing the two doors. The spraying was so good that one door is absolutely excellent, but the other one that we had to do some minor repairs to now shows up every minor flaw in our repair work. This is an easy lesson learned as we will need to strip that door back again to get it perfect, but we know the sprayer is first class as the other ‘good’ door has came out without fault.

Our basic plan of action is to get the engine bay primed and apply the topcoat of paint (red); we can then get the body back on the chassis. This is in fact now imminent as Tony and Helen need their garden back, and the poor gazebo is getting a right bashing from the elements. With the body on and back in the garage, the garage will be cleared so that we have space to spray (a neighbour of Tony’s successfully managed to spray his Escort in a similar sized garage so we know space will be ok). We will then be able to work on the car panel by panel. We will be using several coats of etch primer followed by several coats of topcoat (cellulose based paint). We will do a detailed report on this in the next update. We are not short of experts to call on for advice and Tony and myself both know ex-body shop workers, and there is always plenty of advice waiting both here on the internet and in local paint factors etc.

The next update should be with you much sooner; in fact I’m sure it will, as I can’t wait to see this 3000M in glorious Flamey Red

Editor's note (well, ok, Tony's note)

What should we expect exhaust clearance to be in the M? We've got everything on now, and it's nice and central from the rear, but the ground clearance is minimal to say the least, down as low as three inches at the front of the middle box? Is this normal??!