Timmeh's RS2000 Project Feedback Thread

[Timmeh]

After spending several months away from home, today marked the start of my RS2000 Project.

The vehicle is a 1979 four door RS2000 in white, manual (not sure if RS's ever came in auto? maybe), with 13 inch Cheviot rims, Scheel interior, mild cam, extractors, and running a 40mm Capri Weber, one of 1000 made.

Bought late last year from Brisbane, the car was running flawlessly for a couple of months until rego expired (except one of the alternator bolts kept disappearing, but not on the trip down fortunately), so the car came off the road and into the garage for its much awaited rebuild!

AusXH came up for the day and helped me out, provided great moral support. Had many laughs and good conversations, I really appreciate it, so thanks mate!



First off, the bonnet and nosecone removed. I am not a fan of the RS2000 one peice nosecone, so will be fabricating alot of replacement and strengthing parts for it soon. Battery disconnected and gone, along with the ignition leads and coil, and the headlights. How soft does the car look without the nosecone though!



The car was wheeled out onto the grass to remove the coolant and oil, just in case of a spill, where we found lots of sludge coming out of the radiator, as expected I guess. The oil looked good though. Back in the garage, anything else we could remove got removed, like the alternator, starter motor, fan, and anything attached to the engine and gearbox! An alarmingly large amount of parts just weren't connected, or in the case of the electrics, some were extremely dodgy! Seeing as it is my trade on the jets at work, all looms and connections will be replaced with new ones!!



Next, the car went up onto stands, the wheels removed, and it was under the vehicle to remove more things. There wasn't a single flange in the whole exhaust system, and the extractors were deteriorated so badly they were unuseable anyway, so we hack sawed the exhaust off. Next, we unbolted the tailshaft and removed it as well, the gearbox oil was really clean, which is a good sign. The underside of the car needs a good clean, no real rust worries but a couple small areas to get attended to.



More to come...

[Damo]

Nice work Timmeh. Great progress pics, keep em coming.


"Timmeeeeeeh" i luf South Park.

I allways enjoy readin your posts. That Escort of yours is gunna be a real beaut. Good luck with it all.

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Yuk! Bet you're glad to get that crap out of the cooling system!

Alternator bolts, yes, I know what you mean, I always say it's part of the "charm" of the 2L Pinto while I curse them under my breath, LOL!

Hehehe, yeah, the RS2000's do look soft without the nosecone, but dodgy electrics in an Escort? Never! Hahaha!

Best of luck with it mate, great pics, keep us all posted on the progress, maybe your RS2000 will be among the crowd at Small Ford Sunday 2006...

[Timmeh]

I had a set of 17 inch Focus MP3 rims laying around, so we threw them on the Eski for a good laugh. Boy do they look massive, the stud pattern fits too, although the offset is a little off. The wheels sit a bit too far inboard.



The whole exhaust system was well past its use by date, in the end was cut into three parts to remove it entirely from the vehicle. You can see the state the extractors are in, this as just one of many problems in the system.



Everything was disconnected from the engine and gearbox, although we could not work out how to remove the gear selector. The Gregorys manual on the car was useless, the procedure was no help at all (remove the gear selector - how!?). We attempted to remove the whole engine gearbox package, with selector and all, but that was a good waste of an hour or more, and many laughs and various attempted solutions. We re-lowered the engine and removed the gearbox in the engine bay, and removed the engine by itself.



The clutch was easy to remove, but the flywheel was a bit more firmly attached and required some unorthodox engineering to get the thing off. While we didnt have bolts long enough to get the engine on the stand tonight, it is at least out, along with the gearbox, and a whole bunch of other things. The engine bay is empty and ready to be detailed though.




More to come...

[Timmeh]

The 2.0L OHC Pinto engine is out and ready to be completely stripped down. You can see the Rust Prevention System well in place (the oil all over the block), and the coolant crystals on the water pump! This engine has some serious rebuilding to take place, but is in an otherwise really good condition. X-rays and pressure testing will confirm that though. I am hunting a fuel injection setup for the engine though, it needs it (well, will need it more with my plans).




The gearbox and clutch look new, the four speed is a very short shift, a very tight package. The clutch still looks new, but may be replaces with a stronger unit with my planned modifications. Still, the box is good.



And the last one from todays work, Ryan trying to convince me we can fit an RS front to my Focus!

!

Good greif it's late, more work to do tomorrow, though mostly cleaning up a bit.

Thanks for those who replied so far - you're up late too!

Tim!

[Timmeh]

Oh yeah, the gallery of the cars work will always be at http://www.eurofordclub.com/gallery/rs2000 but I will post updates here too. There are just extra photos in the gallery, with comments, as I don't want to flood this place with photos.

Tim!

[Teki04]

Any chance you could have a look at my Fiesta? lol jks... nice work.... i cant wait to see it when its all done!! Also, i thought the car was already quick....am i wrong? But yea... the car looks clean and ready for some tunning......

[fordel]

Nice work Tim !

Looks like you will have a good fun time ahead of you there, will be a lot of work getting that going

Keep us informed of how its going

Great pics in the club gallery as well

Cheers

Chris

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Originally Posted by Timmeh

Everything was disconnected from the engine and gearbox, although we could not work out how to remove the gear selector. The Gregorys manual on the car was useless, the procedure was no help at all (remove the gear selector - how!?).

Yes, the Gregorys manuals are next to useless aren't they? Thankfully, my better half found me a copy of the official Ford workshop manual, which is much better (goes into as much detail as you like, has several pages just on how to rebuild the carbies) then the "would-be-useful-as-a-door-stop-if-it-was-bigger" Gregorys manual. Thanks for the workshop manual honey. :

Thankfully, Escorts are pretty easy to work on.

[XR_Strider_GuY]

Great to see the RS comming up nicely. Guess the fun will begin now as now begins the hand built massage of the engine. Something a mass produced engine will never be able to achieve. I can see this car being a real weapon.

I noticed you hired our crazy 3FB resident mechanic and BMW tuner. And tell us the thruth Timmeh, you can't enough of the Bling scene at the foreshores Newcastle that you had to stuff the biggest rims possible on the RS and earn those style points ROFL.

[LUXO_8]

looking good tim, certainly getting stuck into her...

[AusXH]

Not a problem Tim. I fullfiled my part of the job by dropping tools, scratching paintwork, generally spreading oil and grease from one end of the car to another (not to mention the concrete, you can actually see my handprint in one of the shots lol) and most importantly engineering the re-horizontalising rope.

Photo's look good and I cant wait to get stuck into the engine.

[Timmeh]

Originally Posted by AusXH

and most importantly engineering the re-horizontalising rope.

Yeah, mark that down as Failed Project Number One. Can't say we didn't try!

Thanks for all your replies.

Have been a little pre-occupied with other things over the last couple days, so now it's time to get this engine onto the stand and start stripping it down!

Ryan, prepare the re-horizontaliser.

Tim

[zetec]

LOVING those rims on the car!! Fantastic work Tim, we all know anything you lay a hand to will be of 100% top level quality and painstaking effort and I for one will fly up just to have a ride in this baby when it's done!!! Are you getting a respray or keeping it white?

[Timmeh]

We're not sure yet, 99% going to go with a white and blue paint job, but white will probably remain the base colour, no matter what we go for. Stay tuned! ;)

Tim

[XR6WGN]

Just looking at the photo of the Gearbox - the shifter looks the same as the X series single rails - Firstly just above the spring there should be a C Clip - pull that out to take the tension off the shifter. Where those tabs are, one should be bent down - if you bend it back up, you should then be able to unscrew it.

I hope it helps you. Of course you could always put a Sierra 5spd back in to replace it - oh bugger it - go the sierra turbo motor too HeHe

Paul B
XR6WGN

[Timmeh]

Yeah, the Gregorys said something similar - but where is this C-clip? We poked and prodded everywhere and could not find it. You say just above the spring - where is this spring? Above the rubber boot, or below it?

I'll get a better photo and label all the parts we can see so you may be able to help us locate this C-clip.

Thanks for your help though, any assistance is appreciated.

(Oh yeah, it's not of great importance, and I'll be having a closer look at the gearbox soon, this is just out of curiosity at this stage now, haha. Would have made life a bit easier to get it off before removing the box.)

Tim

[Polyal]

Thats awesome...I soo wanted that car when it was for sale. Atleats its gone to a caring owner.

I cant remember where I read it, but im sure a mondeo zetec engine fits tim...just food for thought.

[Timmeh]

Yeah, thanks.

The Focus engine is the same engine, only the next evolution. And I have seen some Zetec conversions, for sure. For me, the problem with the Zetec engine is that it is a torque engine, not a horsepower engine. Big horsepower can be made, but brings me onto my next point...

If the standard engine X-rays and pressure tests ok, it's just alot cheaper to get our target horsepower out of it, rather than the initial cost of a whole new engine, rebuilding that as well and having to do the same work to it for our targets, plus engineering that new engine. However, if the current original engine is not suitable for a high performance build up when we get back the results of the tests, then other options will have to be considered, and certainly the Zetec is one of those.

Thanks for the comment, it's appreciated!

Tim

[Polyal]

Fair enough..is a low boost an option with the current engine is all is well? I have been in a slightly turbo'd 4dr RS because (spewing I didn't buy that one aswell $6.5k!) and that thing hauled **** like you wouldn't believe.

[Perana]

Good work Tim! Can't wait to see this thing going.

I will take a pic of the tool we have got to remove the shifter in because of the quick shifter in the RS's it will just unscrew out of the box without having to worry about the tabs too btw :P

[Timmeh]

I am not sure what you mean by low boost, I could be aiming a bit higher than that...

I'll wait to see what the engine is like when I pull it apart before making any firm decisions in the end though.

Tim

[Timmeh]

Ben - that'd be really cool. From what we saw (and I'd have to have a better look over it), non of those tabs were actually pressed down, though some were missing altogether, some of which may or may not have been our fault.

Tim

[Perana]

On Dad's Escort we actually cut and ground off the tabs completely because with the quickshift they do nothing at all.

[Lad_of_MBFNW]

i wish my esky was that cleen lol.
that looks like a very big job tim. i hope when i wash my car it isnt a bad as it looks
have fun tim

stephen

[Perana]

I have finally taken some pics of the tool that we made up. This can also be used on Falcon single rail boxes and you can remove the gearlever with the gearbox still mounted in position as well.

Here are some pics :P



The square at the bottom is 42mm x 42mm which will slot onto the flats on the gearlever and just turn to unscrew it.

[Timmeh]

Interesting, thanks Ben! I'll have a closer look at the gear selector. And thanks for the comments guys.

I finally found an engineering shop that has the right very high quality bolts to strap this engine onto the stand, so finally that will happen. Just been mad busy with life in general, but cannot wait to start stripping the engine down.

out:

I also found out extensive information on my gearbox, it is indeed a brand new box, rescued from a wrecked Escort in 1980, and kept as a spare for a Group C race Escort. It was fitted to my RS when the Group C racer was purchased by the previous owner of the Escort, according to the previous owner of all these things. It's a small world!

Still not sure it will be suitable for my application, and I can't see myself destroying a perfectly good box to just 'find out' if it can handle the power. One option is to get straight cut gears, as suggested to me by the same person, but at $1600 a set, you'd really want to like the four speed. But it would be bullet proof.

I've already started designing the custom inlet manifold, this is proving to be a very exciting project!

More to come once I get this engine stripped!

Tim

[Timmeh]

Originally Posted by XR_Strider_GuY

Great to see the RS comming up nicely. Guess the fun will begin now as now begins the hand built massage of the engine. Something a mass produced engine will never be able to achieve. I can see this car being a real weapon.

I noticed you hired our crazy 3FB resident mechanic and BMW tuner. And tell us the thruth Timmeh, you can't enough of the Bling scene at the foreshores Newcastle that you had to stuff the biggest rims possible on the RS and earn those style points ROFL.

I know this a very delayed reply, but I just noticed soemthing.



Recognise the shoe in the photo? : Hahaha.

The resident 3FB mechanic and BMW tuner has been most excellent value, getting the rims onto the car was his idea. I think we are slowly converting him to the dark (bling) side! :the_finge

Tim!

[Perana]

You can also get 5 speed gear kits i think Tim...

Quaife do various kits for the single rail 4 speed btw

[XP6]

Those gear sticks are dead easy to remove, like the others say make sure all the tabs are straight. Should only be 2 bent down.
You'll find the plastic nut that the stick go'es through has a square shape that a big shifting spanner will fit on, you must push down on the stick during removal, unscrew with caution tho as the plastic thread strips real easy!(dont let the pressure off the stick)
The only time you need to remove the circlip is for when your replacing the plastic piece.(because its just been stripped... Doh)

The quick shift kit is just a piece of steel tube which screws in the box(where the stick went in!)then the stick screws into this spacer tube, in affect it just lifts up the pivot point a little giving a longer throw on the shifter fork and a shorter throw up top on the stick itself.