Repairing/Restoring my damaged Ford Capri 2.8i

Iamzod

Iamzod

Iamzod

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Joined
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I know some of you people like project threads so thought i'd make one, however this one is gonna take ages as i don't have lots of spare time to work on this thing and i'm definately an amatuer at this kind of thing.

Back in October 2009 had a minor bump in my Capri 2.8i which due to me moving in with my girlfriend a few months later left me with no spare cash to pay for someone else to repair it (didn't want to use insurance) and at the time had no garage to work on it in, so it got left sat outside on the drive, in the rain, collecting bird poo and occasionally getting buried under large amounts of snow for about 20 Months.

Up until the and of July it was still sat there looking like this -

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The actual accident resulted in a ruined front panel, headlight bowl (possibly salvageable), Bonnet (apparently repairable), wrecked bumper, and a slightly bent lower inner wing tip (again repairable) as well as misc bits like I need a new headlight & plastic bonnet lip.

I paid a fair bit to have the car resprayed about 6 years ago, as well as replace both rear arhces & rear lower 1/4 panels, it seems the company that did it did a pants job so their work is being re-done, i'm not even convinced they fully replaced the parts I paid for, guess i'll be finding out soon, it'll be interesting to see if any horrors lie underneath their work.

Now that the garage that me and my dad were building at his house is at a point that it is weathertight work can begin on it.

Thankfully i now have a decent amount of dry workspace :D

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I also thought that by the time the car is done it'll have been off the road for 3-4 years so i'd buy it a little gift, it's also a nice incentive for me to keep at it on a weekend, picked this up on Monday along with all the electrics and ECU -

Engine.jpg


I'll stick some more pic's up later this evening of what's been done so far.
 
frozennova said:
Capri's are slowly growing on me, is that a 2.9 cosworth v6

I'm guessing the cosworth lump has a better head design, than the siamese ports on the 2.8i
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Yeah, gone are the siamese ports, pushrods & the overhead valves.

Replaced with a quad cam setup with 24 Valve Aluminium heads. Was really happy with the engine, only has 77K on it and i've heard it run in the car it came out of before I bought it so know it runs niceley, the timing gear is being checked anyway at a later date as well as the sump coming off (needs modifying slightly) and a new set of cams going in, the ECU has already been played with.

Anyway, a week or so after we got it in the garage I started trying to get the drivers side wing off, the spot welds were proving to be a pain in the bum to remove, and as the wing had a crease in it and was therefore scrap anyway I decided to just butcher it with an angle grinder and sort out the fiddly bits afterwards when access was a bit easier.

Choppy.jpg


FrontStrip.jpg


I've since stripped the whole inner wing area back to bare metal to check for rust, found a tiny bit of surface corrosion but nothing much which i was really happy with. Found a nasty bit right at the bottom of the A-Panel which has to be cut out totally where it joins the floor and a new section of panel put in which i've already purchased, found far less than I expected though so was really happy.

I have since decided that whilst underseal is technically a good thing, removing it should be a task reserved for convicted criminals, nasty time consuming job! :-(
 
Will be watching this one. Im also undertaking a complete strip and rebuild of my XR2.. However mines gone right down to bareshell! Just dont loose interest in it if things get you down! Ive seen so many projects end up on ebay not completed :(
 
frozennova said:
Any reason you went V6 and not some sort of Ford or Chevy small block V8, would have certainly made the right noises.
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Ah, a Cosworth V6 - mine make the most awesome noise :-) It's not a V8 but it's the nicest sounding V6 I've ever heard imo.

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This one will be going in my Westfield at one point.

Nice restoration you have there. I had a Brooklands Capri for a few months once.
 
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Thought i'd post a little update although not really very much has been done due to me going on holiday so i've not had much time to spend on it in the last two weeks.

I've spent about 4 hours today trying to get the front drivers side suspension off but all the split pins & bolts just looked like blobs of rust, did manage to clean them up but there is still one in place stopping me from getting the shock & spring out so that i can get the last bit of inner wing back down to bare metal & then etch primer it. It took forever to get the inner wing back to bare metal as it was really thickly caked in a rubbery substance, i need to get more of the stuff as the metal underneath is in really good condition so it's done it's job well.

So basically i've got the inner wing as far as this, you can see the damage to the front of it where it's slightly folded because of the accident but it should be repairable.

innerwing.jpg


The bottom of the A-Panel has some nasty rust which needs cutting out which is pictured below, that section is normally covered by the wing so is pretty much inaccesible, i've already picked up a replacment section for it but i'm not doing the welding myself so this has to be fitted probably after Christmas. Also where the wing was welded on in front of the door there was a lot of surface rust where there seems to have been a bit of a water trap, the metal has been perforated in 3 places so it's going to need cutting out and a new strip welding in, these are pretty common issues on Capri's, in fact I was honestly expecting worse under the wing so i'm still quite happy with it.

LowerApillar.jpg


A rather nice collection of replacment panels -

Panels.jpg


Which includes this one which was bloody hard to get my hands on as it's not a pattern part, genuine Ford Capri panels are real hard to come by now unless you are happy to pay silly money, it had been sat at the back of some guys garage for nearly 20 years collecting dust!

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Most of the interior is out now too.
 
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Aha! Can you do me a big favour please?

I really need the dimensions of the lower rear corner repair panels. Sounds like an odd question but the Manta is a very similar shape and repair panels are hard to find, I reckon Capri ones might be adaptable.
 
Lopéz said:
Aha! Can you do me a big favour please?

I really need the dimensions of the lower rear corner repair panels. Sounds like an odd question but the Manta is a very similar shape and repair panels are hard to find, I reckon Capri ones might be adaptable.
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Yeah, i can get them measured up for you if you like, it'll probably not be until Saturday now though as the car & panels are all 16 miles away at my dads house and i've promised the girlfriend one of my amazing Sunday Dinners tomorrow, is there any particular measurment you are after or just the general dimensions?
 
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