Looked like a tidy car
Bought me an Escort rs turbo this time last year , looked like a real tidy car , planned to give it a quick respray in time for the summer... NOW BALLS DEEP IN A TOTAL RESTORATION. Starting to lose the will , thought I might share some of the journey with The Ford community for a bit of an offload . First time on trying to learn how to upload pics?
Regards Steve

Planning to paint the car so I Removed bumpers and body kit , starting to see there’s a hidden world beneath. Body kit had been bonded on and the front bumper covered some crappy body Shultz job on front panel , decided there and then to strip her out completely and see what was what
so sent her to a friend to have the engine out. This was February last year

Stripping begins

Sent her off to be blasted in and under

Hit a wet coat of acid based anti corrosion etch primer over all the blasted metal before setting the car in the work shop . Pretty much forgot about the shell then for a while concentrated on all the other removed bits

These pics are about a year ago .. it’s coming on a fair bit now but fk I’m tired 😂

Had all the suspension parts blasted and then sent them and every other possible part to be dipped and coated

Really pleased with the master cylinder




I got the coatings guys to treat the suspension the same as the bolts then rubbed the coating off and primed them in acid and then black high build primer

Drums to bare metal

Then acid prime

Then high build black primer And fk me no image recorded after I painted them but they are semi Matt two pk black


Front brakes are refurbished as well

Look forward to seeing this progress,doing a cracking job so far m8 ��

Serious metal work needed on the shell , but after a fair amount of chasing parts and repair panels we have busted our way through a fair bit now

Bare metal refurbs all round


There’s those drums in paint



Steering rack stripped and cleaned new arms and ends but was in good order



Wiper motor and mech it’s really nice

Once all the suspension and running gear was finished wrapped up and stored I stripped all the plastics to bare fixed any imperfections and primed them up

Just literally sanded the paint and undercoat off with a Festo and p180 disc , laborious but does a good job




The door you see in this image was scrapped , it was the original drivers door but it was rotting in the upper from the mirror corner across to the middle of the door .We cut out the section and welded in a metal strengthener that we made welded the repair piece in and repaired the door but after I primed it we just were not happy wit it it was swelly looking slightly bowed , so I set about looking for new doors

We set small sections of new metal in to patch the tailgate.






Each panel was primed and cured for around about 8 weeks the blocked and reprimed a second time to ensure perfection






Plastics all in primer I turned to the panels , we scrapped both the original doors, although the drivers wasn’t the worst , it still was always going to go tits up again a few years down the line so we had the bonnet and the tailgate to get on with . Tailgate had minor rust at the point where the spoiler bolts on , easy peasy, and the bonnet was rust free but had a couple of dents to repair . I stripped both panels to bare metal and did the repairs and anti corrosion and high build primed both panels.

One new one second hand









Each panel was cured and blocked down and re primed just to be sure it’s perfect


I know a guy in Antrim has a fair eBay shop selling only genuine Nos ford parts , almost anything you need he seems to have it , goes by the seller name Clomoco, I gave him a shout and bought two doors, one brand new old stock drivers door and one second hand passenger door. The second hand door was better than the new door! It was completely rust free , stone mint! The new door was in that black factory primer and it was failing in spots here and there but little buns to fix , both panels were completely stripped to metal anti corrosion primed and high build primed,

I’ll post some pics of the shell restoration next

Your doing a thorough job here. It’s amazing how good it looked before the strip down, looking forward to the updates.

Get the pics of the shell up m8

Closed my workshop for st Patrick’s day on Monday, I spent a solid seven hours cleaning metal and doing filler repairs , had lost the will to live but after starting this thread and seeing a bit of enthusiasm from you lads I’m feeling a bit like Rocky and I’m up for another round, most all this work is either holiday or Wednesday nights , I’ve agreed with the wife on a one night a week, lol She knows I’d spend every waking second working at it if she let me 😂😂

Added these images again, just to highlight what it looked like , I mean it needs floors ,sills ,inner and outer arches , 2 Chassis legs , rear inner 1/4s front panel and cross member . SERIOUSLY

Some bollox had covered all the trouble with crappy patches , isopon and under Shultz, it was just MOTd paint job was average but ok , Engine went well it is fast. sounded ok , so I bought it . I’m not sure you can get much better for 5k but I’ve definitely spent more than that again since and the car isn’t painted lol

Must say the interior is magnificent , one real big plus, but I’m still going to repaint the backs of the rear seats , I did them on my fiesta , it takes years of the car , you know when you open the boot and the backs of the seats are tired and marky, lift them out quick sand mask off the material and paint 2k satin 25 / 30% gloss , makes them just class

I will image and upload that whole process

The screen and some deft sealer work hid this problem


We just had a night where we cut the shit out, front panel and wigs are great so I decided to keep them in , I bought a new front pane and x member, but we only fitted from the headlights down . I’ll show a pic of that job later

Inner and outer arches cut off

Sills cut off





Inner silk out


We cut about an inch off the floor and got a folded length of steel right angle the full length to make a new floor outer edge, recommended for spot welding outer sill back on

This is the inner sill being tried in , the new floor edge is fitted , see how the new inner sill sits on it , when the outer sill goes on the two lips are clamped and spot welded, like factory. It’s the only way to do sills, any metal shop will fold two lengths for a few quid



Managed to fit the floor edge and not annoy the chassis number

We tried everything in and out several times until we were sure it was all sized and cut perfectly, nothing was welded until every piece was ready to be welded then put it all in like a jigsaw

I’ll check back in later tonight with a few more pics got some things to do right now

Started bare metal inspection,

Piece by piece, panel by panel I’m working my way through the entire car

We hand made this section of the inner guard

Under the left front arch

Once bare and checked always etched in anti corrosion primer straight away

Talked about putting her on a spit , but decided against it, we felt she was always being weakened then re welded then cut and weakened again and worried about her flexing on a spit, might be wrong but that was my decision, so we lifted her up and turned her on her side and set her on tyres

The tyres are in under the inner guards front and rear , she is fully off the ground on the tyres it was a bit scary at first but she never budged once and we flipped her from side to side at will , took 6 guys to lift her each time