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By way of an introduction, the car you see on this Web page is my 3rd Capri. I first got into Capri's at the age of 17. A mate had broken his leg in a cycling accident, and needed a cheap automatic car. He 'phoned me to say he had bought a car, but wouldn't say what, except that he was on his way round to show it off.
The car in question was a 1978 Capri 2.0GL auto in diamond white. It had a chocolate brown interior, and more rust than an Austin Princess! However, he loved it, and it certainly sounded the business! We bombed around in this old shed, frightening the locals for the best part of a year, performing major mechanical surgery every week until rust finally consumed the remaining body shell! Never mind, the bug had truly bitten...
So, I began looking for a Capri of my own. Ludicrous insurance cost ruled out any V6 models, and even a two litre would be bad, so I was looking at 1.6's. Eventually I found a nice A-reg 1.6LS in dark metallic grey (not quite it's original colour I later discovered!), and handed over the green folding stuff. That was a nice car which never let me down in two years and 33,000 miles, but the performance was dire, to say the least!!
I hadn't really been looking for a replacement until I spotted an advert in the local paper which read something like '2.0 Laser, White, 20k miles, Tickford Body kit' I had to have a look!!! Well, the Tickford kit turned out to be an RGA skirting kit, with a Tickford boot spoiler! However, the car was in very good condition all round, with genuine mileage and a nice set of pepperpot alloys. The black bumpers, corner bumpers and side bars had been colour coded, and there was a nice 'Tailblazer' reflector kit on the back too. So, I ended up part-exchanging my old 1.6 called Florence, and drove home my new 2.0, called Zebedee.
In the first week I had the car, I covered a thousand miles. By comparison to the old car, this one was a dream!! It was quiter, stayed on the road, accelerated when told, and the steering shake was almost civilised!
Well, that was June 1994, and here it is in July 1999, 53,000 miles later. I had always wanted to build up a modified car, but had shied away from doing much to the old 1.6, as it was in good, original condition. However, the Laser was already fitted with a body kit and different wheels, so it wasn't like I was spoiling an original car. The first thing to go were the wheels, as they were buckled. Apparently they had bonded themselves to the hubs at some point in the past, and had been removed with a mallet! First off, I went back to the original RS 4-spoke wheels, but then bought a set of 2.8i 7-spokes as they looked neater.
This really set off a bit of a craze, as you will see when you read the TechSpec. Some of these mods are great, others still need a little tweaking to get the best, and others are just a waste of hard earned cash!!! Read my write ups on the modifications for the lowdown.
The car has been 100% reliable, and has never failed (yet) to get me home. It gets a lot of attention, with the usual comment being 'you've obviously had that re-sprayed!'. No actually, it's largely the original paint...
Owning a car that still has its
original panels and paintwork does make you paranoid about having an accident.
Which is exactly what happened in April this year. Whilst waiting to turn right,
the person behind failed to see me and used the back of the car as a brake!
Luckily the chassis rails weren't bent, but it did need a new rear valance and
the boot floor reshaping. By a stroke of luck, the valance was the only rusty
panel that was in need of some attention!
Sadly, this accident meant the end of the tailblazer! In its place I had a CCI Tickford style infill panel sprayed to match the rear lights, and it does look cool if I say so myself!
The engine hasn't
escaped a little tweakery either. The work completed so far focuses on breathing,
with air filter, carb, head, cam and exhaust work adding up to 123bhp at the
flywheel, and a lot more torque. Pinto tuning is a funny old game, I've seen
normally aspirated motors pushing out up to 244bhp (althought this wouldn't
be too traffic-jam friendly!), and I've heard of twincam 16v conversions that
will do 300+bhp in race trim. The holy grail of Pinto's must be the legendary
400bhp ex-race unit that lots of people seem to talk about, but never turns
up in anyones' car!!
Mk 3 update
For all you Mk3 fans out there, fear not, the old Laser hasn’t been abandoned!
First off, the magic 100,000 mile mark has passed (best of all, it turned 100k on the day of the MOT, so the MOT slip for this year shows 00000 miles!!!)
There have been a number of jobs that I’ve been meaning to do for some time now, not least of which the whole oil consumption/smoking thing. Very antisocial.
As a result, the Laser has had a mid life mechanical facelift. Details as follows:
Engine: Off with her head! The smoking/oil burning were caused primarily by valve stem oil seals that had gone hard and perished with age. There is a fair bit of valve guide wear too, although this doesn’t seem to be causing any problems by itself at the mo. I refrained from having new guides machined in as in the long run I have much bigger and better plans…
The head was also chock full of carbon. A good de-coke has resulted in a much livelier engine. The flat spot has gone, along with the annoying misfire at full throttle (must’ve been hot carbon pre-igniting the mixture – not good!!)
The bottom end of the engine looks great, so no problems there. A new head gasket and timing belt and that’s the engine good for a few more years yet.
Result? A much cleaner and more responsive engine. Fuel consumption has dropped too. Bonus!
Suspension: An odd knocking sound from the passenger side front damper caused me to pull the front suspension apart in case a damper was on its way out. Good news as everything was in good nick. However, now was a good opportunity to remove the roller bearing strut mounts. These are a pain as they make the suspension very hard and raise the front suspension by an inch, resulting in a very arse-down look to the car!
The result? Slammed. Dumped. Ground-bound. Very very cool…
Brakes: Whilst bleeding the brakes, one of the calliper bleed nipples refused to budge. This resulted in a new calliper. However, once removed, the old calliper was found to have a broken seal on the piston. I had never been overly impressed with the Caprisport brake conversion that I’d had fitted, a lot of which I think was down to this slightly duff calliper. There was always an annoying bit of slack when I pressed the brake pedal and this has now gone.
I also took the opportunity to fit braided hoses from the joint on the strut to the calliper. Bearing in mind the Granada brake calliper is a ‘floating’ design and therefore prone to bending fixed hoses, this is a much needed safety mod.
Result? The brakes are now as good as I thought they were going to be when I ordered the conversion kit 3 years ago.
Transmission: The gearbox has leaked oil profusely from the rear propshaft seal for some years now. Once again I had it refilled (from empty) Whilst I was at it I had the rear differential oil changed (the old gasket had started to leak too)
Result? No messes on the garage floor anymore!
Now the bad news. Rust has been busy at various points of the body, converting steel into ferrous oxide. Not good. At some point the car needs both front wings removing and work to the scuttle, a-posts and inner wings will be needed. It’s not terminal yet though.
Also, there are some tiny rust spots that have made there way through onto the roof panel above the tailgate hinge box. Not good either!
At some point in the future I hope to get all this sorted out. As every panel has either rust, a dent or scratch, I shall have the whole car resprayed.
I’ve tried with no success to get New Old Stock front wings and people tell me not to use repro panels. What’s a guy to do? I’ll let you know the outcome…
Laser update – April 2003
There wasn’t going to be much to report on the Laser over the winter – bar a service I’ve not had time for anything else. However, life got spiced up a bit a few weeks ago when someone drove into the drivers side rear wing!
Fortunately it wasn’t a high-speed accident, no one was hurt and the car was in the bodyshop for repairs within two weeks of the incident.
I was a bit worried at first that it would need a new rear wing. I had nightmares about trying to track down a new-old-stock item (I’m still looking for front wings remember) so it was a good piece of luck that the bodyshop were able to panel beat it out.
I had the car back within three days, which was good, but could’ve done without the hassle really.
I’m still on the search for new front wings – I’ve decided once I’ve got them I will get the bodywork done completely and get all the rust out and perhaps have a style update. I have an idea on the look I’m going for – shan’t say too much at the mo…
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