'76 Escort RS continual project.

[Joe O'dMoors]

Greetings all, I've owned my 1976 RS Mex/2000 for quite a few years now and have done a bit of work to it.
I'll be posting up some timeline shots here eventually.
This Escort RS Mexico was originally sold in Wales and was built as a tarmac race car. It later was built to a rally car specification and was a learner car at one of the rally instructional schools in the UK. It then sat for a few years and was saved and built as a proper stage rally car. It was later converted to RS2000 spec and eventually built again to Historic Spec before I bought it.

To start out,
Here's the oldest known photo of the car that I have. Circa 1999 from the MSA logbook.


This picture, just like the previous pic, is taken from the MSA logbook.
It was sprayed yellow for a time (it still has a lot of yellow paint to this day in certain areas)


When the previous (to me) owner bought it, he had the car redone and modified in 2003 with RS1800 arches.



And had the car sprayed in a Belga themed livery.


It looked very sharp!

[Joe O'dMoors]

To the best of my knowledge, the car went up for sale in either 2011, or 2014 and for some reason was never sold. This is when the car was converted to Historic Spec and had continued to see stage events.







The previous owner bought a Chevette HSR and sold this car to me in 2018.

I had it promptly shipped overseas to its new home in the states.
I had dreamed of having a RWD Escort for many years, so it was absolutely fabulous to finally have one in the garage.

[zephyrgary]

Very nice and that's quite a garage you have there, I must say.
Gary in AZ

[angliagt]

Cool Escort! - Where are you located?
I've seen about four Escorts in the US,& almost
bought one a few years back,when they were
still semi-affordable.
My dream car.

[Joe O'dMoors]

Thanks Gents!
I am super fortunate to have a large shop here at the house, there's a lot of projects going on, and not a whole lot of time to dedicate to them...but it's cheap storage for the non-runners haha!

I'm located near Portland, Oregon. I know of a few Escorts around the country, all in pretty good condition which is really cool.

It took nearly a month for the car to arrive and I set right in, getting it sorted.




The car started, but ran very very rough, and wanted to stall out on tickover.
I found some issues with the car, and I was surprised that it ran at all!
The cap was missing the conductor pin, so the spark had to jump from the top of the cap, down to the rotor top!
Luckily, this car has a Bosch distributor, so a quick run to the parts store and ended up with a VW Corrado cap, Porsche 911E rotor and Audi wires.


The carbs were in poor shape, in fact one caught on fire.


And the venturi (chokes) were destroyed, leaving metal fragments imbedded in the filter screen.



I had both carbs rebuilt at the local British Car repair shop and after a good while adjusting them to get everything right, all was well. A full tune up and it was running decent again.

[Joe O'dMoors]

The bonnet was in need of some attention....it's a fiberglass piece, and has begun to look a little ratty.


So it received a lot of work and some new paint. (2 part epoxy) which closely resembles the original Ford Diamond White.

It took a bit of wet sanding and more paint to get it to look decent


And when buffed out, looked nice.


The boot had some rusty pots luring underneath the spoiler, so it received the same treatment.





After a weekend of prep/paint, it was back on the car again!


I had some extra time during the carb rebuilds to do some more touch up painting of the car, in this case..highlighting the grille.





And doing a bit of a reset in the wheel wells. I started with just the near side front for now..The gravel stages really did some paint damage over the years. Luckily all of the rust was just surface corrosion.
The same 2 part epoxy was used as a top coat.

[angliagt]

I saw this Alan Mann Escort in Danville,VA.
The owner worked for Mann,& built it in '69.Later
he worked for Broadspeed.

Danville,Greensboro,Stuart Trip 006.JPG (89.5 KiB) Viewed 21349 times

Danville,Greensboro,Stuart Trip 017.JPG (90.48 KiB) Viewed 21349 times

Danville,Greensboro,Stuart Trip 007.JPG (115.94 KiB) Viewed 21349 times

[angliagt]

Missed one.

Danville,Greensboro,Stuart Trip 003.JPG (98.23 KiB) Viewed 21349 times

[zephyrgary]

I've had a poster of XOO349F on my garage wall for 35 years. Yeah, Iknow it's not the same.
Gary in AZ

[Joe O'dMoors]

Wow, that's a really nice car! Thanks for sharing. I'm horrible with names, but there's a gent locally with a Mk1 like that who track races his with a twin cam in it. Sounds heavenly.

[Brett Wilkie]

Very nice car, as I mentioned before, I tried to buy an Escort back in the late 70s. It was a very nice Mk1 twin cam but it was a little too expensive for me at the time and the RHD was a little off putting. Is that the German 2 liter in your Escort, it must be full of torque? I once had a Mk2 Cortina with a modified 2 liter in it and it was very quick.

[Sideways]

Very nice car, as I mentioned before, I tried to buy an Escort back in the late 70s. It was a very nice Mk1 twin cam but it was a little too expensive for me at the time and the RHD was a little off putting. Is that the German 2 liter in your Escort, it must be full of torque? I once had a Mk2 Cortina with a modified 2 liter in it and it was very quick.

I want a Mk1 Twincam Escort as well, the only "Lotus" I have wanted and never owned.

Yes, I know other engines are 'better' but...

[Joe O'dMoors]

Yes, 2 litre. Even though the car is UK spec, it was built in Saarlouis. The car originally had the cross flow 1600, but when it was built to homologation 5566 spec, it of course had a spec built 2 litre installed. The regulations for that spec are limited and it was built to almost the limits.
205 block, cosworth internals, Weber 45 DOCEs, Piper Forest cam, etc,etc. It was dyno'd at 185 HP at the rear wheels. It retains the single cam, as the allowed twin cam head is worth twice what I paid for the car. The engine was built for reliability and it's finished every event the car has been entered in.
It also has a ton of other goodies on it,
Straight cut gears, Quaife rear diff, single piece propshaft, front coilovers, RS2000 rear drums etc,

A proper twincam BDA is always on the dream list, but not needed with this car in my current plans. It's so light that 185 at the wheels is plenty for me.


Before I even had a chance to wash the car, I spotted some bubbling on the front NS wing.



Being this an old Ford, I wasted no time getting it sorted.

Luckily, it was all just some older body filler coming apart.




And, that prompted a full respray


I used a piccie of a stripe kit for reference and free-taped off the side stripe.






A few coats of black..


followed by a few coats of BRG. Since I wanted to do something different and found a picture of a LoCort with a BRG stripe.




A full 2 weeks of the car sitting about, letting the paint fully cure.
And then, a full weekend of cut/buff...it all looked sharp.







The car looks transformed with the different paint scheme.


A new set of 8x13's arrived and promptly mounted...and I wasn't too sure about the wheels being silver.



So, a few coats of temporary/peelable gold paint was tried out...I like it better.

[angliagt]

VERY NICE! Now all you need is a bumper sticker that says -
"I'M PRO RALLY & I VOTE"

[Joe O'dMoors]

Thanks and haha! That's a great idea!

Since this was a working rally car, if things are not broken, they don't normally get replaced/updated.
The interior reminded me of a 1970's NASCAR, so I did a little personal touch ups/improvements.


I resprayed the steering wheel spokes and switch console in satin black..
as well as added in a 12v plug so I can charge my phone and run power to a GPS unit...since this car doesn't have a speedo.



...reset the NS door, it was a tad droopy.


And (further) customized the door cards...
To save weight, the glass windows/mechanisims/extra sheet metal was removed.
An aluminum door card was fabricated and if you reach through the hole in the card, you can pull on a horizontal cable to open the door.
It wasn't my style.


I filled in the cable grab hole...and wrapped the cards in marine vinyl..


And using the Porsche RS America as an influence, I used some red strapping for an open pull handle.
The doors and Jambs were properly painted at this time too.






And I eventually reset the OS front wheel well.