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I have to admit that I wasn't in the market to buy a mark 1, certainly not a 3 litre!!
What I was really after was a cheap to run Capri to use whilst my Laser came off the road for a make over…
However, one Friday afternoon I received an e-mail from a friend. She had heard about a Capri that was for sale by a work colleague. The ad was brief - make model, description and price. However, my interest was peaked - I just had to go take a look….
Driving over to see it, I convinced myself it would be a wreck, that way I'd have a good excuse not to buy it! Mind you, the thought of a nice usable 3 litre was tempting, especially for those hot summer late-night cruises around Bournemouth.
I'd just about talked myself out of it when I saw it parked in a driveway. Wow! What a gorgeous car! I fell in love with it straight away, it looked 'right'. The sensible part of my mind (now in the minority) was still clinging to the hope that it might be a wreck.
I had a good poke around the car whilst the chap who was selling gave me some details. It had been rebuilt about 10 years earlier and came with a stack of bills. The underneath was solid and there were no nasty bits on the bodywork (bar a few festery stone chips on the rear wings behind the rear wheels)
The engine bay was immaculate. Everything had been painted or polished with blue colour coding of rocker covers, even the radiator!
The owner cranked up the V6 (from cold, I might add) and I was instantly hooked on the sound!! She ran as sweet as a nut, with a noise to die for! That was it, even the sensible part of my mind was won over, I had to have it!!
On the downside, there were a few problems (plus a few more I didn't notice - more later) It needed new tyres - plenty of tread left, but they were old and had gone very hard and badly cracked. The drivers seat needed a re-trim, there were some festering stone chips on the rear wing (probably caused by stones flung up from the rear wheels) and the paintwork, whilst passable (and not the cars' original colour), wasn't the best job in the world. Plus the MOT was about to expire.
Still, there was no rust underneath, no rust in the panels and the mechanicals seemed good. Plus, I had a hunch the blue interior was quite rare.
And it was just so damn cool!!!!!
I took the car for the customary test drive and…oh my god what an animal!! The first thing that struck me was just how heavy everything was, brakes, clutch, steering and even accelerator!! It made my Laser seem positively modern!!
But that V6 and that lovely classic Mk1 shape won me over. After all, it was 28 years old!
A deal was struck and the owner said he would MOT it for me too. Bargain!
A few days later and the car was back from it's MOT (it needed new inner TCA bushes, but it later turned out to be a few other things I don't think it should've passed on!!!) and the dreaded first drive came around.
I say 'dreaded' because I had a) never driven a 3 litre before, b) never driven a mark 1 before and c) hadn't done a) & b) in heavy rain!!
The drive home (about 5 miles) was interesting. As any Mk1 owner will tell you, the controls for lights and wipers are mounted on the bottom edge of the dashboard surround, not on the steering column stalks as on later cars. Plus, there's no intermittent on the wipers!
Speaking of the wipers, they juddered badly and didn't really want to clear the screen properly. No problem, I thought, I'll get new ones. But shouldn't they have failed the MOT??
Getting the clutch/accelerator balance right caused a few embarrassing stalls! The V6 seemed a tad reluctant to pull cleanly off idle at light throttle, resulting in a bit more throttle needed than in the Laser. And as for the steering, you'd need to be Superman to park it in a tight space!!
Still, the initial nerves settled down and once the clutch/accelerator combination was sorted out things went better. Glancing down at the petrol gauge showed that a fuel stop was imminent (the first of many!!!!)
Nearing home I became braver. The V6 was docile on light throttle. I wonder what would happen if I pressed it down a bit further?? Waiting for a gap in the traffic, I eased the accelerator down whilst in 2nd….which promptly caused the engine to misfire badly!!
The engine was fine as long as you didn't try to put it under load! At which point it would misfire very very badly. I put this down to lack of use and old, dirty petrol (wrong!!!)
A trip to Tesco petrol station
and a quick blast down a local dual carriageway persuaded me that perhaps I
ought to investigate the misfire problem further…
Having got the car home and locked away, I began to make a plan of attack. A
good clean inside and out, followed by some work in the engine bay to sort the
misfire. Easy!
The following day saw an 8 hour clean-a-thon! Unfortunately, one of the previous owners had been a smoker and I was able to get a bucketful of very dirty water by shampooing the interior!
However, a good clean made the world of difference, the car really shone (and smelled nice inside too!)
Pumping the tyres up to their correct pressure eased the heavy steering a little.
First attempt to solve the misfire was to give the car a full service. Oil and filter, plugs, distributor cap and rotor arm and leads. The car had a K&N airfilter and Lumenition ignition fitted, so no nasty points to bother with.
This helped, but still the misfire was there. Not all the time though and definitely worse when cornering or going uphill. Then the next problem manifested itself. Whilst trying to pull out on a roundabout the engine died, just cut out dead.
Uh-oh! I'd had this before when the Lumenition packed up on my Laser (very disconcerting to have the engine switch itself off on the motorway!!) Drifting to the side of the road I tried to re-start the engine. It was well and truly dead!
After contemplating how to get the car home, I gave it one last go and to my relief it fired (it was very flooded from the earlier attempts to start it too) so I limped it home.
Suspecting a joint fuelling/electrical problem I first tackled the Lumenition. Immediately I found one problem - the live power feed for the ignition control module was connected properly! Judging by the state of the connectors, it probably hadn't been for while. Having re-made all the connections for the Lumenition ignition system, I turned my attention to the fuel system.
The car had an in-line filter fitted just before the pump and it didn't look healthy! Fitting a new filter and fuel lines, I also cleaned out the filter on the top of the pump, which had some specks of dirt in it.
After this, I thought it best to clean out the carburettor too. Removing the carb from an Essex V6 is actually very easy, due to its location in-between the banks of cylinders.
Not wanting to remove the top (as I'd need a re-build kit with gaskets) I contented myself with spraying liberal amounts of carb cleaner down the choke barrels and into the fuel inlet.
This yielded surprising results, with a lot of black specs pouring out the inlet!
Feeling I must've solved the problem,
I re-assembled it all and went for a test drive. The car ran well and I soon
learnt why a lot of people like this engine!
But…all was not over yet with the rough running problem…
I then decided to have a look at the electric cooling fan that the car had gained at some point in its past. It worked, but seemed very slow. As the motor turned freely by hand I decided to take a look at the wiring connections.
The fan is mounted ahead of the radiator, below the radiator shroud and so is in line to get water and muck thrown at it. When I began looking at the power feed connections and relay box, I found a lot of corroded and dirty connections. A couple of hours and some new connectors later, the fan was working much better. As a safeguard against problems, all the connections were thoroughly coated in Copper-ease.
The next problem surfaced one night when trying to reverse park in my garage - no reversing lights. Again, the problem was tracked down to a corroded connector on the reversing light switch (attached to the side of the gearbox)
Electrical gremlins surfaced again a few days later when the rear number plate light (mounted on the rear bumper) stopped working. Whilst changing the bulb the power feed wire simply fell off! There was no way of re-attaching it inside the moulded bulb holder so a new one was ordered. Problem solved!
The next electrical item to stop was the horn. Actually I hadn't tested it and I think it hadn't worked for a while. As you may have already guessed, the culprit was some superbly corroded terminals on the horn's relay. A lot of sanding with fine sandpaper and a small flat blade screwdriver was required, but the horn now also works.
I used the car for a month in the latter half of the summer, thoroughly enjoying the look, sound and feel of the car. No further problems were encountered. With the onset of winter, the car was put into storage to await the better weather.
During the winter I ran the engine every 6 weeks or so and ran it up and down the drive as weather allowed to keep the drivetrain in good order. As winter went on, the handbrake became more and more stuck and the radiator hoses began to worry me as they had become very hard and brittle. The fuel hoses in the engine bay looked none too healthy either.
At some point in the winter, the suspect Lumenition packed up completely. Swapping the power module for a spare I had (another faulty one, from the Laser) got the car running well enough to work on, but couldn't be relied upon to work when the car was out on the road.
Planning to get the car back on
the road for spring, I began to look for parts.
The first job I tackled was to change the radiator and heater matrix hoses.
I couldn't track down any genuine Ford items, so purchased a complete set from
Capri Club International.
They were advertised simply as '3 litre' items. I was reliably informed they would fit a Mk1.
When I came to fit them I found they didn't!! I can only assume the later Mk2/3 3 litre cars had different size inlets/outlets on the block and radiator. I know for a fact that there was a larger gap between engine and radiator on the later models.
As a consequence, it took several
hours of careful cutting, leaving them to soften in boiling water and my long-suffering
Dad's help to get them fitted.
The internal diameter of the heater matrix hoses were a fraction too large,
the main radiator hoses too small by some considerable distance!
Looking in some books and magazines, I can see the top hose is a different length
to the one supplied by CCI. I can only assume they've copied the hoses from
a later car. To be honest, this is just a long line of items I've got from CCI
that are of poor quality or simply don't fit.
Next I tackled the rear brakes. Suspecting the rear cylinders had seized I began scouting round for new ones, which I found without problems. I also decided to change the shoes at the same time, as although they weren't completely worn out, it seemed like sense.
Here again I ran into problems. No-one had any Ford (or aftermarket) replacements available. CCI advertise shoes for 'all models' - except the Mk1 3 litre! I decided to get the old ones refaced, which a local company did for next to nothing, even painting the metal carrier!
I also decided to change the rubber brake hoses for braided items - more for longevity and safety than anything else.
I tackled the brakes with a reasonable amount of confidence….
What a rotten job! The worst part is removing the interlocking 'C'-clips that holds the cylinders in place. This is a job that needs 3 hands and a contortionist's neck to get into all manner of weird positions!!
The C-clips had stuck together firmly, but persuasion with screwdrivers, hammer and releasing fluid finally had them free. I did one side of the car at a time, in order to leave the other side undisturbed for reference.
Releasing the brake pipe from one calliper resulted in much rusty water pouring out!
Once stripped down, I thoroughly cleaned the back plates and drums and purchased new retaining pins for the shoes as the old ones were corroded and bent (Feredo XR2 kit, although the springs and retainer cups are different) As suspected, one cylinder was seized solid. The mechanical handbrake mechanism was thoroughly cleaned and covered in Copper-ease.
Re-assembly was an absolute nightmare. Doing the job over an inspection pit would've made the job a lot easier, but as one wasn't available, axle stands did the job!
The problem lay in attaching the C-clips to hold the cylinders in place and then re-connecting the various copper brake pipes.
If I attached the cylinder first with the clips, then the pipes wouldn't line up quite right. If I did it the other way round, then I couldn't get the clips on the cylinder!
Eventually I managed to attach the pipes loosely and persuade (read swear at!!) the C-clips into place.
Replacing the old rubber pipes wasn't as bad, once all the connections and nuts were cleaned and persuaded to undo!!
This part of the job took 2.5 full days of blood (a lot of blood!) tears, sweat and swearing (a LOT of swearing!!)
The time came to refill the system with fresh fluid and bleed the system (the old fluid had looked like hot chocolate, I had to clean out the reservoir it was so dirty)
Unfortunately, the copper pipe that ran from the cylinder to the flexi pipe decided to leak at one join. Not badly, but any leak on the braking system is bad news!!
I did try to re-make a new pipe but failed miserably and entrusted the job to a long suffering mechanic friend (cheers Graham!)
Mk 1 Update
With brakes now functioning, it has been time to actually get the Mk1 out on the road and use it. However, it seems to be cursed as every time it comes out, down comes the rain!
There’s a couple of classic car events round my way, which I decided would be a good debut for the Mk 1.
The first is a weekly event held on the pier approach, Bournemouth, entitled ‘Classic cars on the prom’ This is open to cars built before August 1983 and is sponsored by Roger Taylor Classic Cars.
This has turned into quite an event, sometimes with over 120 cars in attendance. The Mk 1 has gone down well (although I’d like a pound for every time someone has said to me ‘I had one of those – I wrote it off!’) especially with the kids for some reason.
I also took the car on a run from Poole to Weymouth with the Wessex Vehicle Preservation club. Again, she proved popular at the post-run show on Weymouth seafront.
Until the Weymouth trip, I had only driven the car locally, so I was a bit apprehensive about long trips. Not that I should have worried, as she now has several long trips under her belt.
Two minor problems have reared their heads. Firstly, the replacement radiator houses from CCI perished and cracked very badly within months of fitting them (not chuffed) I’m now a regular reader of Practical Classics magazine and decided to try a company called Parts for Older Cars.
I can thoroughly recommend this guy (see links for details) As promised, the hoses (the correct ones) arrived within two days, best of all though, this guy doesn’t do the usual ‘ooh, no, can’t get them’ nonsense!!
Second problem proved a bit more problematic. The indicators suddenly decided to have a Go-Slow. Suspecting the relay, I located and removed it to find it wasn’t a Ford one, but a Halfords replacement. 20 minutes later a new one was installed and the indicators worked fine.
3 weeks later the problem came back. Taking more time to check the catalogue, I found that the relay listed for the Mk 1 Capri in Halfords will only run 2 x 21w bulbs, not 4. This was easily solved by fitting the relay listed for the Mk 2/3. This needs an extra earth connection, but now works the indicators as advertised.
Much to my surprise/relief, the car passed its MOT first time of asking!
I now also have an aluminium (or aluminum, for our American readers) dash fascia, made out of a piece of scrap ali by my Dad (cheers!) This really suits the feel of the car and may well be joined by a matching gearknob.
Some other jobs are now beginning to loom on the horizon and probably will be tackled over the winter:
3.0 GXL update – April 2003
I’ve not had time to do much with the Mk 1 over the winter either, although it has been garaged the whole time which has been a real bonus in preserving it.
I’ve run the engine up to operating temperature every 4-6 weeks and kept the clutch from seizing up.
I have had the drivers seat rebuilt, which was getting into a right old state last year and it looks brilliant. The seat used to be covered completely in vinyl, which was very hot and sweaty in the summer! I’ve now had the centre section done in matching fabric, which looks almost identical and is a lot nicer to sit in.
I’ve also purchased a new exhaust as the old one has been steadily disintegrating over the winter. The car had at some point been set up to use a Mk3 V6 system with twin exits at the rear. I’ve decided to keep this set up, as I don’t know if a Mk1 single exit system is easily available and cheap. Also it would mean opening up the cutout in the rear valance, which has been plated over.
Therefore, I bought a complete 3.0l V6 performance system from Capri Club International. I’m anticipating this will make the car sound and go a bit better than the peashooter 2.8I system it currently has.
The engine also needs new valve stem oil seals and a new thermostat, so as the heads had to come off I thought it would be a good point to put in some steel timing gear to replace the standard compressed cat-hair originals!
The car is now out and about for a week or so pending all this work being done and has so far behaved perfectly after its 7-month lay-up.