Cortina Rebuild continues

Wings are going on the time has finally come we can put the wings on , seems like a simple task , but we have had to spray all the inner wings and spray the wings inside as well .

Lining everything up, is a major task, getting the gaps right along the bonnet , then lining the wings with the headlamp panels and front panel takes some time ,

eventually we get everything lined up and spot weld the wings in position , gaps are perfect

cortina refurb

The car is the right way up ...time to start on the bodywork , new front panels finally aquired off ebay ...so expensive for genuine new parts £120 for a front panel headlamp bezel £60 second hand but new .....lets get building ,

Inner wings were striped back to bare metal and given the full treatment took us ages to line all the front panel up , we kept putting the wings on and fitting the bonnet ...just to get the gaps right , finally welded all the front end on ....sprayed the inner wings before the wings went on , same treatment etch prime , 2 primer ,2 base ,2 laquer...what a finish!!!!!

Cortina restoration continues

Havent posted for a few months ...problems with my computer, but we have progressed , pictures show the underneath ,having took it to bare metal , the floor got etch primed ,2 coats of primer 2 base coats and 2 coats of laquer , the finish was amazing !!!,

Time to take the car off the jig and start on the rest of the bodywork

cortina mk2 underneath wheelarch

stripped right back to bare metal ...note the no rust you can still see the brown undercoat from the factory over 40 years ago

Cortina mk2 Rebuild...doors going on

The doors are on!! , not properly , but just checking the fit and the Gaps , simon is paranoid about the gaps ...must be equal all the way round seem to be a pretty good fit to me , Just been down to the classic car show at NEC , every gap checked on every car !!, and paint finishes , Simon says this car will have the best finish of any car at the NEC , must admit some cars seem to have badly fitting panels and rough finishes

ford cortina rebuild

Interior has been sprayed ....how good does that look (apart from colour) its a special etch primer designed to bond to the metal work , smells terrible but seems to do the job , managed to get the stone chip from under the seats , hot air gun and sraped soon got it down to bare metal .

Cortina 1600e restoration

Not been able to upload pictures for a while as my son took the camera to uni , anyway got it back now, as you can see from the pictures we took the floor to bear metal again , any minor repairs have been carried out but as with the rest of the car its in great condition , it looked that good we thought about just varnishing it lol...

as you can see the floor looks great got to get ready for a
coat of etch primer , under the back seats and boot needs striping next , its sprayed in stone chip stuff , such a pain to remove

cortina 1600e owners club

Just joined the ford cortina mk11 and 1600e owners club , i spoke to a nice guy Howard over the phone , seemed extremely helpful , regarding parts , seems like the club has a great amount of parts that they sell via their website and he advised me of a few places where i can get new parts . We have found two places where you can get brand new parts , would you believe it one place is only 1 mile from my house a small mill full of old ford parts in abbey village , near chorley, never even new it was there. Just enquired about the front panel wow £195 for new part , bloody hell , time to find the old one in the scrap bin , no seriously still searching for a replacement please email me if you have one for sale . Anyway the club is great , recieved monthly magazine today , some great cars in there , need to research this car anybody ever owned this car before ....see the number plate , it is a 1969 ford cortina mk2 1600e originally in fox silver , but had a respray in black some time in its life , been kept somewhere dry judging by the condition

cortina mk2 sill replacement

mike has been at it again , this time the poor victim was the drivers sill removed because it had been ill fitted and didnt quite line up ...doh... any way we could actually get this part , found one one on ebay .. result , finally can put some parts back on the car , was going to end up with just the floor pan rotating on the spit at this rate ..the floor is starting to look good, clean bright metal under loads of paint no holes yet

Cortina bare shell

well we have finally finished underneath , its now bare metal any inperfections repaired awaiting paint , the car is now in the upright position again . Mikes been at it again cutting out any panel that either has any sign of rust, or doesnt fit right , this week he has removed the slightly rusty front panel , and head lamp panel , new ones needed he says ....looked on the internet for new ones cant find any anywhere and prices quoted if they had them wow!! anybody got any panels hidden away in their garage contact us please!!!, i keep seaching ebay everynight ..anyways front end is all cleaned up down to bare metal ready for new panels and inner wings are cleaned up metal work is near perfect , where has this car been stored for all these years ?? we have moved onto the interior floor removing a few layers on black paint and schultz seems like the car was given a black respray at sometime including full interior painting

cortina mk2 wings are off

we have finally taken the wings off , i was resisting , trying to clean behind them without removing them but i have relented now , after much hassle from the mitchell brothers simon and mike , we where going to replace the wings with new , but after taking them off i realise that they are not bad at all. like the rest of the car they are in great condition with no rust, the only damage is on the top lip that will need some slight repairs . Anyway at least i can get behind the wings and clean out the years of dirt , still no rust just about 4" of waxoil and mud , Just look how clean the inner wings are , after much cleaning we have found the original silver fox painwork . looked on ebay for new wings nothing cheaper than £150 for second hand ...wow, definately keeping these ones they look better every time i look at them

cortina mk2 refurbing the doors

With the car came two sets of doors and all of them in pretty good condition , after looking how much the go for on ebay I'm glad they're ok , Simon covered them in nitromorse and stipped the paint down to the

bare metal again the doors where near perfect and needed just minor repairs

cortina mk wheel arches

wheel arch all sprayed up , and with a strip of seam sealer , how good does that look???

down to clean bare metal

June 22nd 2010,

with all the underseal and waxoil removed , the original paintwork was revealed , a light sanding soon brought the shiny metal work to light , just look at the pictures the floor is amazing this car is 41 years old!!!,

mike started work on the wheel arches here we found some surface rust...horror .. no it wasn't bad just surface rust that needed sanding back with the sander revealing the bright metal work , minor repair works were needed round the boot floor area, but the wheel arches are ready for painting

Cortina mk2 Dirty Job!!!

June 19th 2010


Hell .. remember me saying its a dirty job , well its an understatement ...simon and mike seem to have found more important things to do like ......anything but cleaning .. you can see from the pics that all the crap just scraps off so reveal a perfect brown painted floor , we thought it was rust at first ... but its the paint

Spinning the car on the Jig

June 15th 2010



We have started to remove all the underseal from under the car , unbelievably the underneath of the car is amazingly intact the car has been waxoiled from new, then seems to have been undersealed on top of this . It has preserved the floor and takes just a few scrapes to remove , to reveal a perfect floor.,

We have decided to take the floor back to the original paint work or down to the metal and completely respray it . I do wonder about this as this is what kept it from rusting for 40 years but simon reasures me that after he has resprayed it it will again be rustproofed with clear waxoil , he wants the spray job underneath to be as good as the top!! .

This mixture of waxoil , underseal and 40 years of dirt is not nice .....dirty job .. are you sure we cant get the car dipped???

making the jig for our cortina mk2

June 12th 2010

so we set about making a rotating jig for our car , we had bought some box section metal and set about with the welder , its suprising how high it has to be to be able to rotate the car fully , but first we bolted a piece of 2"x 1" box section to the chassis legs on the front (where the bumper had bolted to) and the same at the back , onto this was welded a 1" bar about 6" long . Then we made a triangular frame with feet to make it stable with a pivot at the top , it took four of us to lift the suposedly light car and slot the bar onto the pivot amazingly it spun so easily and we could get to the underneath of the car with ease . Once we had the car spinning we realised it is top heavy and wants to spin upsidedown so pegs were added to keep it in place

Striping the 1600e

June 8th 2010

we started off striping all the parts off the shell , it was basically a rolling shell , the car came with loads of other bits like full set of doors spare engine , spare diff etc etc so we stored all these then set about striping the back axle off the car and placed it on axle stands. next we tackled the front end removing the front struts and cross member we now had the whole car on axle stands , its bloody hard to work lying on your back ........we need a jig so we can spin the car on its back , back onto ebay .... found some at £100..maybe we can make one!!?? ,

anyway we decided to strip the back axle first and remove the diff so we can clean the axle prior to respraying , so we start by taking off all the brakes and back plates , and pull out the half shafts then remove all the bolts on the diff, and out pops the diff full of stinky oil , looks like brand new ,

June 3rd 2010

ok so have just got the car home , what an added bonus , the guy selling the car had a doner car as well , and have given all the bits .. extra engine extra set of doors gearbox, diffs and a big bags of mixed nuts bolts badges looms ...hell will this all go back together ??? shell looks in superb nick though the guy has started to respray it but we intend to strip it down to the last nut and bolt and down to bare metal for full respray

cortina 1600e refurb...." looking for a car"

May 29th 2010

we have looked every where for a cortina and to tell the truth everyone we found have been a rusted up wreck so here we are finally found one on ebay a half completed strip down of a classic 1600e here hoping, we have bought the car been well looked after with loads of history here a picture of it in its prime ... at the moment its a half striped shell time to get all the bits home ready for the complete strip down