Hello everyone,
Allow me to give a brief intro, my name is Colin, and I'm from Holland. I've been following all these awesome threads for a year or so, and I have a Escort mk4 XR3i for a year and six months now. This site has given me a lot of inspiration and I want to restore the '3i back to its glory.
Its an 1990 model with and EFI engine setup. When I bought it it had no MOT, a lot of holes and a louzy interior. My uncle knew someone who could help with the welding, so off it went, the floor and sills were ok , for just a quick MOT not a beauty-contest unfortunatly. Bought it in February 2009, collected parts througout March, worked on it in April and had it MOT-ed end of May, just days before my birthday, the 1st of June..
Well enough talks i'll post some pics and explain some more
i love this picture:
But , lets start at the beginning:
The day I got it:
As you can see, bad bodywork ( havent got any pics of the floor)
After welding, got it back home and started to work for MOT, it needed new tires, so bought a used set of mk3 XR3 wheels, love them!
was gutted to see how they f*cked up my wheelarch ( rather had some crust rust then this
)
This was the workshop ( parking back home, havent got a garage )
Some mates helping me , thanks again!
(I'm the one in the blue)
After giving the engine a real big service, a good polish, some new seats and the MOT it was time to drive around in my First Ford
Had a awesome summer with the car, drove it everywhere offcourse, took it to the meeting of the Dutch XR/RS-club and in september to the EFE. Then in august the best thing ever happend, i started working for a Ford-dealership in my home town!, no I'm not a real greasemonkey, I sell new Fords ( well try at least) but it gave me a lot of help with the car and got to order original FoMoCo parts offcourse. But then the winter came..
I thought i was lucky having and EFI setup, but all the sensors had a hard time in the winter. Temperature-gauge was doing all sorts of things, as was the cold start, real weird RPMs.. turned out to be old thermostat and sensor.
Then the real snow came down.... loved the pirellis on the front in the summer, hated them in winter..
Switched to some winter-tyres after busting up one of the mk3 wheels (
hate myself) and these are still of of the best things ever!
After its first year i wanted to change a lot of things, I saw a lot of threads here of full resto's , really wanted to do mine after seeing the most holy-ist thread of all, the Red S2 RS Turbo, the EDAN of Twins ( LEGEND!!!)
But, work, money, experience, help and my education wouldnt allow it..
I did bought some nice things for it, Like this:
Allso got me a S2 side skirt set in black, almost mounted it, but I didnt liked it in the end so want to spray them red some day..
Changed back to the original wheels because one of the XR3 wheels got dented in the winter wich caused a lot of vibrations on the steering.
What I saw after the wheel change was horrific:
the rear chassis beam:
I though well this is it then, because this happend 2 weeks before the MOT..
I couldnt fix it myself and it looked so bad..
Considering a lot of options, I thought it would be best to take it of the road and fix it properly.. Without any hesitation, I took out the interior the same day.
Then I thought what the hell was I doing, I couldnt get it totally repaired in just a few months, I wanted to go to the Ford Fair in august!..
Calling some friends, turned out one mate was a good welder!
Drove the 3i over there, jacked it up and he started to do his thing, we couldnt get it properly fixed cause we didnt knew how to take out all the rear suspension and exhaust, so he worked around it and managed to get it welded for MOT... I still know there is rust.. someday I'll get it all out.
Well got her trough MOT, to the 2nd Ford-club meeting and hoped to get her ready for Ford Fair..
Bought this, wish I did it a year earlier, its so much fun!
2 weeks before Ford Fair I took her to the NurburgRing in Germany.. still waiting on some photo's a friend of mine took. I'm realy proud on the old girl, not on my own driving skills though... i spun around in on of the last corners and the car rolled out onto the curbstones and came to a halt a the wall.. really gently but still damaged the rear bumper and the metalwork above the taillights... damned
After the drive home, she was giving me a hard time in the mountains, weird noise coming out of the transmission...Back home, took her into the garage at work, turned out the clutch was gone... f*ck... couldnt get it fixed in time, so had to cancel Ford Fair...was really gutted..
have parts waiting for her, managed to buy some 15 inch with wider tyres for some extra bite, think of spraying them black.. for now, here she is currently..
been working for almost 2 hours on this post, like I said everythings still a first so I hope you like what i have so far, i'll give a little away about want I have planned:
* new clutch
duh
* headlights
* the wheel and tyre upgrade
* electric windows and mirrors
This to be done before the EFE in about two weeks!
Then, I'm gonna ask around for help with the rust... permantly..
See you in the next post mates!
Signed,
Colin