MkII Cortina running gear needed

[cuz]

Hi all,

I've been quietly keeping an eye out for a rust free car for a while now and managed to pick up a $50 rust free-ish shell on ebay this week. As its shell only, it does have the interior, I'm going to need the running gear for it. The basic plan for it is to rwc it and then slowly improve it over time for a 1st car for my eldest girl.

Does anyone out there know of a rusty old runner or a few parts to help me out? I don't know of a wreckers that will stock many of these older cortina parts in Melb's west, as I've been to most and probably rung the rest in search of other ford parts, any ideas?

The other solution would be to get info on updating the old girl to new school technology. I understand that a mondeo engine and box will bolt in without major mods and maybe a mitsi L300 front end too??

Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks.

[mk2maniac]

Hi mate, I offered my reply to your thread over on FAF, but saw this one also, so I'll just copy and paste my reply for you.


I can't help you in regards to the running gear, as it's likely I'm not even in the same country as you, and I haven't got any running gear available anyway. But in regards to the L300 front end, I can offer you some information.

I'm fitting an L300 front end to my Mk2. I can't really say how much work the L300 front end involves to fit, as I'm not at that stage yet with my project. It may or may not require narrowing, if it does, only about 20mm. The mounts need to be modified to bolt to the Mk2 front rails. It will bolt much the same as the original cross member, but because of the L300s design there are no struts. A small hole/recess will need to be cut in the inner guards of the Mk2 to clear the top A arm of the L300 unit, which will potrude into the engine bay a little. I'm looking at completely smoothing the inner guards, removing the strut towers etc, so this will involve fabricating a panel to cover the top A arm in the engine bay.

For your purpose, I think the L300 front end is WAY overkill, depending on what engine you're fitting. I'm not familiar with the physical size of a Mondeo donk, nor how much it weighs, but I wouldn't expect it to be more than the 289 I'm fitting. I couldn't be certain on the fitment of the Mondeo engine either. I wouldn't imagine any firewall mods would be neccessary, but certainly engine mount work would be required if you were to stick with the original front end or similar. You might want to look at a Japanese engine (can't believe I'm actually suggesting it!), because they have been done before, and information in plentiful, but by the sounds of it you want to stick with a Ford engine and be a bit different, which is much better in my opinion!

You might want to look at adapting an Escort cross member, to gain rack and pinion, or adapting the rack to the original Mk2 front end, and possibly even fitting struts and brakes from a Jap car, I've heard of Madza RX7 gear being used with great sucess. This would greatly improve handling and braking. Then it's up to you for what you want to do with the rear end, if you want to do anything at all. Maybe a four ling setup with panhard bar, I've seen this done nicely in an Escort, and would be fairly similar with the Corty.

Just a few suggestions there for you to explore. Just for your reference, this is brownman's (Terry) XK Falcon project with an L300 front end grafted very nicely into it, which is largely what is involved with the Cortina, though the strut towers in the Mk2 aren't as large and intrusive into the engine bay, so not quite so much cutting would be involved. There are plenty of links around for Mk2s with various engines fitted to them, I'll dig some out for you, find some pics. Also have a look at my site in my sig for a few pics and some details on the L300 front end and my planned rear suspension setup



I'd be keen to see some pics of the shell you're starting with if you've got some, I can relate having a bare shell myself, and the first one I had was also a cheapy like yours.

[cuz]

Thanks for that info mate, sounds a bit complicated for a quick build up tho. I will post up pics of the shell when I pick it up next weekend.
Cheers

[camfraser]

Hi have you tried Blue Oval Motor Wreckers in Geelong? They deal with corti's