Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2024 i Classic Ford

This magazine has been around for 27 years, and in that time the classic Ford scene has changed almost beyond recognition. One of the biggest changes is how – and sometimes why – we modify our cars. It’s fair to say that in the late 1990s years ago, some of the modifications could be described as a being carried out for the sake of it rather than for any need to improve on what was already there. Now though, we’re all a lot more clued-up and more switched-on to the times. There’s been a definite trend in the last few years to take all the benefits of 21st Century technology and hide them in package that looks distinctly of its time. That’s not to say we’re all building identikit Fords…

Revised Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) rates introduced from the Rstart of this month have increased the cost burden on running classic and modern classics under 40 years old, with many enthusiasts pointing out an unfair dichotomy between costs and mileage typically covered. It’s also feared that the latest increases could put the appeal of younger classics under threat, as enthusiasts struggle to justify the rising costs of owing such vehicles amid a cost-of-living crisis. VED changes were part of the Spring Budget announced by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt last month. Like most years, an increase in rates in-line with the Retail Price Index was rather buried in the official document, but it means the cost of taxing an older diesel or petrol car that’s not classified as Historic has increased for…

Blasting around the B-roads on a sunny weekend day is the stuff of dreams. Building cars may be great but when the weather’s good it’s the best feeling in the world to get in your classic Ford for a bit of road-hugging cornering — maybe to that tea van on the moors then blast it back to the chippie. Isn’t it always the way though, you’ll get stuck behind people towing a caravan, plus the 1000 other cars marooned in the slow-moving convoy that’s impossible to pass. What you need is plenty of power, so when the right opportunity arises, you can nail it past the lot; treating them all to the addictive roar of some 48s! A recipe to get you blasting is what you need then — a…

We’ve all heard of mistaken identity before, but it’s rare to find many cases in the car world. However, this Escort van would certainly have anyone fooled when it comes to its real roots. “It’s an Escort van that identifies as a Mk3.5,” as owner Jake Palmer puts it. By that, he means it’s actually a 1991 Mk4 Escort that has been expertly fitted out with a Mk3 conversion, which is a fair amount of work in itself, but then Jake has modified it with the perfect blend of parts to create a very cool combo. Jake is a self-employed bus mechanic and blames his interest in old Fords growing up with his stepdad, who attended meets and shows in his beloved Sierra Cosworth. Since then, Jake has gone onto own…

MAY Retro Rides Weekender May 11-12 Goodwood Circuit, Chichester, UK https://retroridesevents.com/weekender Classic Ford Show May 12 South Of England Event Centre, West Sussex UK www.classicfordshow.co.uk Beaulieu Spring Autojumble May 18-19 National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, UK www.beaulieu.co.uk Scottish Ford Live May 19 Knockhill Racing Circuit, UK www.knockhill.com Enfield Pageant May 25-26 Enfield Playing Fields, Enfield UK pageant@whitewebbsmuseum.org JUNE Duchy Ford Show Weekend June 1-2 Constantine Bay, Cornwall, UK https://www.facebook.com/DuchyFordClub Cosworth Drivers’ Club Day June 8 Hever Castle, Kent UK www.facebook.com Cortina Day June 9 Symonds Yat West, Herefordshire UK mk45cortinaclub@gmail.com Ford Capri Club Nederland Internationale Meeting June 14-16 Beekbergen, The Netherlands www.fordcapriclubnederland.nl Le Mans 24 Hours June 15-16 Le Mans, France www.lemans.org/en/24-hours-of-le-mans Squires Classic Fordmeet June 16 Squires Cafe, Leeds UK www.facebook.com Ford Nationals June 23 British Motor Museum, Gaydon, UK…

Show us yours! Email hi-res photos and details of your pride and joy or project to classicford.ed@kelsey.co.uk, or write to us at the address on page 6. Chris Bartlett From: New Zealand Car: Mk1 Escort “I bought this project as a rolling shell back in 2015 — my son was 15 and this was to be our project car,” says Chris. “Time went by, life intervened, my son grew up and here we are eight years later. This project has been slow to say the least! It’s fair to say things got quite out of hand with the bodywork. As it is with so many projects this one turned out to be a mess beneath the surface. In the end a second body was bought, the roof grafted to the…

Info Contacts: Bogg Bros 01944 738234 www.boggbros.co.uk DanST Engineering 01274 580213 https://danstengineering.co.uk Trigger Wheels http://trigger-wheels.com There was a time when a fuelling system was cheaper than a second-hand engine. Nowadays, a new pair of 40 mm carbs and an inlet manifold can almost be as expensive as a set of throttle bodies or an aftermarket fuel-injection system. One alternative solution is to fit a set of motorbike carburettors. This is a popular solution for inline four-cylinder engines with four inlet ports in the cylinder head. A set of four carburettors from a Honda Fireblade, Blackbird, Kawasaki ZX, Suzuki Bandit or Yahama R1 for instance, can be fitted using a suitable inlet manifold, which is manufactured by a number of specialists including DanST Engineering. Budget for around £200 for a suitable…

QUERY OF THE MONTH Cleaner bay Q I’m currently rebuilding a Capri 2.0S. I want to have a nice, minimalist engine bay and I’m not sure what to do with the braking. I’d like to get rid of the servo unit and have the engine bay looking as good as some of the cars featured in your mag, but I haven’t a clue how to go about this. I’d appreciate your help, as this is the next thing I’m going to tackle. David Costello UK A We’re guessing you want to remove all of the brake components from the engine bay — the master cylinder as well as the servo, for that ‘clean’ look. It’s a fairly straightforward if costly modification. You need to mount the master cylinder and the…

The lever arm or lever action damper is a component many 1950s and 1960s classic Ford owners are familiar with. Though outdated by the end of the decade, they work quite well, but over time, however, the seal around the spindle, to which the lever arm is attached, can degrade and lead to loss of the hydraulic oil. Not only does this result in an unsightly coating of oil on the bodywork, but it also means a loss of performance in the damping abilities of the shock absorber itself, which ultimately will have a detrimental effect on handling. We show you how to restore standard factory damping to your car as the manufacturer intended – by pressing out the spindle to which the lever arm is attached, the seal can…

SUPERVAN 1 SLOT RACER KIT £65 Pendle Slot Racing How cool is this? Pendle can now supply a kit to recreate Supervan 1 in 1/32 scale for your Scalextric track. You can choose from two kit options the Body Kit which includes the unpainted resin shell, interior details, unpainted driver, windows headlamps and decals, or the Body And Chassis Kit (£105) which includes all the parts needed to build a complete slot car for use on Scalextric and other brands of analogue 1/32-scale tracks. Contact: www.pendleslotracing.co.uk TWIN WEBER IDF INLET MANIFOLD FOR PINTO £454.87 Webcon Cast and machined in the UK, this twin Weber IDF inlet manifold for Pinto engines can be fitted with 40, 44 or 48 IDF carbs. It is essential for anyone wishing to recreate a Group…

For those of us predisposed to view the world through the lens of old-school Fords, Finland will forever be associated with rallying. To us, Finland is shorthand for dense pine forests, off-camber, semi-blind crests, and, of course, yumps — tricky, give-no-quarter gravel launchpads of the sort found nowhere else on earth. Factor an Escort into the mix — preferably an arched, Group 4 Escort being hurled between the pines by a softly-spoken local raised on a diet of oversteer and sisu, seemingly unconstrained by the laws of physics — and you really do have peak Finland as far as most of us are concerned. Yet to define Finland as a land of gravel-chucking sideways merchants alone would be to do the country a disservice. Yes, it is all those…

You could say Sean Moore has taken on his fair share of projects over the years and reassuringly, his enthusiasm for messing around with old cars remains just as strong today as it did almost 40 years ago. “I acquired my first project when I was 13,” he recalls. “It was a Mini Clubman that I tarted up with my dad, Iain and then sold for a profit after a year.” This was followed by a Mk2 Escort which on the face of it appeared to be a good solid project base. “Unfortunately the more we got into it, this particular Mk2 turned out to be a never-ending welding job so it was also sold on,” Sean smiles. By the time he’d passed his driving test Sean had made a…

Sometimes the British weather makes sure things don’t go quite to plan, but Ford fans are a resourceful bunch and usually find a way out of such a problem. Thanks to what seems like non-stop rain for the past six months, the start-of-season Fordmeet at the all-grass venue of Squires Café near Leeds had to be postponed at the 11th hour. “Had there not been a long heavy downpour the night before, we’d have been OK,” organiser Simon Shipley tells us, “postponing the event was a regrettable last resort, but safety always comes first.” Fortunately, just down the road from Squires is the superb venue of The Motorist with its wealth of facilities, café and most importantly right now, plenty of Tarmac. Thanks to Simon and the power of social…

See all this and so much more in your July 2024 issue of the world’s biggest and best-selling Ford magazine! PAY LESS AND NEVER MISS AN ISSUE! SEE PAGE 24 This season’s hottest Fords ON SALE June 7! All-steel expained in detail The 4x4 from Spender returns! Contents correct as we go to press, and will change… One for the (fast) road Meanwhile, get your classic Ford fix at https://linktr.ee/classicford Ask for it in your friendly local newsagents, or call us now on 01959 543747…

What’s been done this month: Fitted refurbished Series 2 alloys, lost the sunstrip, installed new front suspension bushes Next on the to-do list Fit new ’plates, take it to the Classic Ford Show! Thanks to Dave Poole NHP Motorsport, 01698 351203 The Wheel Repair Shop, 07817 393215, www.thewheelrepairshop.co.uk In the last instalment we had got the Orion both running reliably and lowered. Next the pretty essential job of making the wheels fit had to be dealt with. The 8x16 Rota D154s look superb, but I wasn’t sure on the style being right for the car and the rear arches definitely were not keen on accommodating their width. I opted not to get involved in arch work and instead got thinking about other options. I have a set of Orion Pepperpots…

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It took a mighty performance from rising star Dan Mennell and co-driver Richard Wise to top the Mk2 Escort pack in the second round of the British Historic Rally Championship. However, overall historic glory went to Nick Elliott and Dave Price in their Fiat 131 as Elliott used his renowned pace in Wales, and further tweaks on the Fiat, to set a pace that no-one else could match. By any measure, the 2024 edition of Rally North Wales was a tough event in the demanding forests of Dyfi, Gartheiniog and Dyfnant. These are forests steeped in rallying history and the challenging, high-speed forest roads were made ever more difficult by persistent rain before and during the event. On a day of wet and slippery stages, the retirements were many and…

Few safety features boast a success record like the humble car seatbelt. Now compulsory equipment to all new cars produced around the world, for most drivers their use is second nature. But as vital and familiar as the seat belt is today, when the concept was conceived, many automotive manufacturers were actually against their fitment. “It sounds strange, but back in the late 1940s and early 1950s car makers worried that offering seat belts as an option, let alone standard equipment, would give buyers the impression the cars were unsafe,” explains managing director of Quickfit Safety Belt Service, Stuart Quick. “Obviously, we now know this couldn’t be further from the truth, but even when seatbelts were added as an additional factory option, only around 2 per cent of customers actually…

Buoyed by the success of its Sierra XR4x4, it was only natural that Ford would capitalise on car buyers’ new-found fondness for all-wheel-drive and throw the advanced underpinnings under more versions of the family-focused model. The XR4x4 first flashed its donor card with the April 1986 launch of the Ghia 4x4 Estate. Sitting at the top of the range and costing circa £15,000, it didn’t exactly bring four-wheel-drive within reach of mainstream Sierra customers, but it did enable Ford to offer an upmarket V6 estate car to replace the much-missed Granada estate. The new estate was a lesson in discretion and refinement too, with only seven-spoke RS alloy wheels and a small 4x4 badge on the tailgate hinting at its performance potential on- and off-road. With its 34/66 per cent…

SUNDAY, MAY 12, SOUTH OF ENGLAND EVENT CENTRE, WEST SUSSEX, UK GET YOUR TICKETS! £20* in advance—saveup to £8 on the gate price! Camping £20 per pitch. BOOK NOW www.classicfordshow.co.uk 1. THE GREAT UNVEILING In association with Car Gods, don’t miss these epic project builds as they are revealed to the public for the first time ever. Head to the Classic Ford magazine stand to witness them break cover as the sheets are pulled back. 2. INTRODUCING FUSION EXTREME For 2024 we’re pleased to welcome Fusion Extreme’s BMX display to the Classic Ford Show, featuring some of the UK’s best riders from BMX and MTB going head to head in this epic stunt show battle to find out who is king of pushing the limits. Witness jaw dropping stunts including;…

Eddies and vortices. Everything that protrudes from a car, no matter how small or subtle, creates these tiny but significant areas of turbulence; microcosmic hurricanes that serve to disrupt airflow and diminish aerodynamics. You’ll have noticed that modern manufacturers of sports cars and EVs are keen to fit flush-mounted door handles to aid the aero, although this is actually a game that’s been played by custom car builders for generations. Smoothing has long been a device by which a car’s lines are cleaned up, from the deseamed Minis of the 1960s to the de-locked and de-handled RS Turbos of the 1990s. And as you can see here, Dean Cutler has embraced the concept with gusto to create what is quite possibly the slipperiest Mk1 Fiesta in existence. The inspiration for…

HERITAGE THROTTLE BODY This is a clever set-up that looks like a DCOE-style carb but is in fact a throttle body. Available in the usual 40, 45 and 4 8 mm choke sizes, they look and mount exactly as carbs but behave like EFi — the only giveaway is the wiring that can be hidden. www.jenvey.co.uk 15 INCH RS FOUR-SPOKES JBW supply one-piece RS four-spoke alloys in 15 inch format and they look absolutely fantastic. Supplied in original-style black with a machined face, the RS4 features an ET5 offset, standard Ford 4x108 PCD and wheelnuts and centre caps are included. www.johnbrownwheels.com BDA-STYLE CAM COVER Ford’s 16-valve Zetec engine makes a great choice of powerplant for a classic Ford, but it’s sadly lacking in the retro looks department. However, this BDA-style…

Judge not, lest ye be judged yourself.” Whether you recognise this quote as a Bible verse or a hard-rocking Metallica lyric, the meaning behind it remains the same, and it’s a mantra that many people, especially those over-zealous keyboard warriors in the car scene, could do well to remember at times. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of criticism and negative comments that I got when I put these wheels on my car!” reveals James Ellis when we meet him to photograph his low-slung, load lugging Granada GL Estate. “It’s always been my view that people should be able to do whatever they want with their cars, without judgement. But it seems that’s not a opinion held by many people on the internet,” he shrugs. Although obviously miffed that his choice…

Email hi-res images to classicford.ed@kelsey.co.uk or post them up on our Facebook page.…

SAFE TECH When working on cars and using tools of any kind — especially power tools — always use protective gear: goggles, gloves, ear defenders, masks and a decent set of overalls are essential. A fire extinguisher is also advisable. Never work under a car without supporting it with axle stands and if you’re not completely confident of your ability to complete any task safely, leave it to the experts. The A B C of tuning C is for… Camshaft A camshaft uses lobes that push against the valves to open them as the camshaft rotates. Their job is critical, and can have a great impact on an engine’s performance at different speeds. Choice of camshaft is crucial not only for unlocking the power potential of your engine, but it…

What’s been done this month? New suspension and interior design decisions Next on the to-do list More time prepping the interior Thanks to eBay Do you what know always slows a project car down? Parts. Whether it’s finding them, waiting for them to arrive or deciding which ones to go for, getting hold of the correct bits for your car usually always makes things harder. So it may be no surprise that parts have slowed me down recently, but not as you may think. Instead, I decided to make things harder for myself by replacing parts I already had; but there is method to the madness. While looking on eBay for Sierra Cosworth parts one night, I came across a set of Proflex three-way coil-overs with remote reservoirs in rare…

It was back in 1976 when Jake’s dad, Barry first began rallying. “I competed in various cars over the years, though I hold particularly fond memories of my Escort Twin Cam,” he says. “It goes without saying, building cars and rallying played a big part in Jake’s life from an early age too.” As you’d expect, Jake soon had the desire to own a car himself and Barry willingly obliged by building his son a Mini 1275GT, “I guess that was the definitive moment that sparked his interest in rallying,” Barry smiles. Now, the majority of novice rally drivers these days begin their exploits in a fully prepared, but often low-budget front-wheel-drive hot hatch of some description. It’s a sensible way of finding your feet and honing your skills without…

1. Don’t just renew It’s all too easy to let the direct debit continue and sign up for another year with your existing insurer. Before you do though, have a look at quotes from other insurers. If they come in cheaper and you don’t want to switch, call your existing insurer, quote the cheaper prices and quite often they will be able to bring your renewal quote down to a similar level. 2. Look at classic insurance They’re often tied into Agreed Value, limited-mileage polices but classic insurance specialists can offer some great-value policies. Most class a vehicle eligible for classic insurance as being over 20 or 25 years old, but some allow exceptions for modern classics, so do your research before you dismiss a classic insurance policy out of…