My Blog

Neil Fletcher Racing

My Blog

This page will give details of what I'm doing at any particular time to the various Mk1 Escorts I own. I hope to update this page with little snapshots on a fairly regular basis, at least once a fortnight if not more frequently. Some of these stories may be moved to their own specific page at a later date.

The latest additions are at the top.

	Sept 2010 The
	Sept 2010 The
	Sept 2010 The
	Sept 2010 The
	August 2010 The
	August 2010 The
	August 2010 This is just another bit of a tractor that I bought for spares - Carmel was not too happy about more scrap starting to appear about the house.
	July 2010 This was my Grandfather's "Wee Grey Fergie" which I'm hoping to restore over the next few years but at the moment I just want to get it going so I can plough the back garden and make it ready for sowing-out.
	July 2010 This year I wasn't competing at the Loughgall Festival of Motorsport but I did go along to watch. One of the more interesting cars on display was this ex-Monte Escort as rebuilt by the Montegomerys.
	June 2010 And my yearly trip to AVO Day, I'll hopefully get more of my photos uploaded in a few days.
	May 2010 The good spring weather persuaded Carmel that rather than messing in the garage at old Escorts etc I should be spending all this free time sorting out the back garden which was still full of piles of soil etc since building my shed a few years ago. Andrea, my youngest had great fun trying out the mini digger which I had hired out for a few days.
	March 2010 The next six weeks were spent repairing the old Mini, it needed a few panels, sills etc, a new rear subframe, suspension bushes and brake parts etc. Compared to a Mk1 Escort the panels cost peanuts and everything is available off the shelf - it almost persuaded me to sell all the Escort stuff and get into Minis again.
	February 2010 My sister tried to persuade my mother to trade her old Mini in for a Nissan Micra under the scrapage scheme but mother was having none of it as she's driven nothing but Minis from 1959. Mum said "sure now that Neil has all this time on his hands he can fix up my old Mini".
	January 2010 Meanwhile I was still working away at building up a crossflow engine, unfortunately all projects were put on hold for a while as at the end on January, the day after my 52nd birthday in fact, the American firm that I worked for (the old Hughes Tool Company) announced that it was pulling out of Belfast after 55 years and we were all being made redundant.
	January 2010 Carmel, my wife complained that her diesel Zafira was getting hard to start in the cold weather, I tested the glow plugs with a digital meter and found a faulty one which I replaced but a week or two later the car was worse than ever. On further investigation I found that the wiring to the glow plug relay was shorting out against the inner wing, she was lucky the car hadn't gone on fire.
	December 2009 A little while with some heat, a hammer and the mig welder I at last had a useable sump - good job I didn't throw it out all those years ago.
	December 2009 This one had been lying unused in the back of my garage since an engine blow-up many years ago, now with the current prices it was suddenly worth fixing it up.
	December 2009 I needed a big wing sump for my new 1660 engine, it used to be that you could pick them up for peanuts but the last couple I've seen on eBay have gone for about £150.
	December 2009 I have now removed the back panel on Project Mexico so that it can be replaced with the proper one, this will also give me a chance to fix the bootfloor properly see details at EIJ 5885 Year 3.
	November 2009 There was nothing obviously wrong with it but it just wasn't letting the spark through. UPDATE - this was to happen twice more in 2010 with new rotor arms that would be OK for one rally or so and then fail, I still haven't got to the bottom of why?
	November 2009 At a non-championship rally in Omagh the BDA in the rally car starts to run badly and then finally gives up the ghost with no spark. It turns out to be a faulty rotor arm and it was a new Lucas one which had only done a few rallies.
	October 2009 A new Lumenition system was obtained, more details on the complete fitting procedure are given in Running Reports No2.
	October 2009 Sometime ago my old Piranha electronic ignition system had given up the ghost, for some time the BDA had been running on points etc but now was time for a change.
	October 2009 A few months ago on eBay I managed to pick up a rebuilt 1660 short motor for very humble money, £173 + carraige, at that price it was just too good to miss. I decided to look out one of my old big valve heads to build up an engine - I'm not really sure what I'll be doing with it yet.
	October 2009 AThe next little mod to the rally car was to convert my period Lucas 25ACR alternator to works type spec with external rectifier etc, more details soon.
	September 2009 A couple of weeks hard work and the power steering is all sorted, it's a great job down the tight twisty lanes and classic trial events that we do - the other guys in my local motor club say it's just my old age showing.
	September 2009 A rather major project was undertaken, that of fitting Corsa power steering to the rally car - rather than spending £600 plus on some of the kits available I did it myself for less than £100 - full step by step details in Running Reports No2.
	August 2009 Some bodywork gets done to the rally car, the rear quarter had been damaged in a "racing incident" quite some time ago, more details in Running Reports No2.
	July 2009 The car was booked onto the rolling road in August to get the new carbs on the BDA set properly, preparations including welding in a union to take a lambda sensor. On the rolling road the car show 128 BHP at the rear wheels, around 165 at the flywheel which was quite good for a self built BDA.
	July 2009 There were a number of small jobs that I hadn't really had time to do in the rush of getting the BDA ready for AVO Day, more details are given in Running Reports No1.
	June 2009 While I was over at AVO Day I stopped off with John and Rita Wilcox and dropped off another BDA head which required some work - this would be for my next project, more details to follow at a later date.
	June 2009 AVO Day was the fist outing for the car with the new engine fitted, it was literally started for the first time just two n ights before and the total mileage so far consisted of driving it out of the garage and onto and off the trailer.
	June 2009 All my spare time over the next few weeks is spent building up a 1700 BDA - full details of the build process are given in Running Reports No1.
	May 2009 And that more interesting project is............. a BDA engine for the rally car - oh happy days. This is one of my old BDAs which was last used in the rally car maybe 12 or 15 years ago.
	May 2009 At last the skin is on the door and I'm doing a trial fit but then the door gets forgotten about as a more interesting project takes over.
	May 2009 And it's the time of year when my road car, the Freelander gets Mot'd. During the test the guy had to really pull the handbrake extremely hard to get a decent reading on the rollers - they very next day one of the handbrake cables breaks on me.
	April 2009 Another rally and another repair, I discover a small leak in one of the soldered joints in our big header rad which luckily enough just needs resoldered.
	April 2009 What with Rebecca and I being out every other Friday night rallying and all the other minor repairs to the rally car progress on the door has been rather slow but at least I've got it dismantled and the outer skim off.
	March 2009 A few days later I discover that the inner end of the track rod had also got damaged and needs to be replaced - more details can be found in Running Reports No1.
	March 2009 During a rally round the shores of Lough Neagh we hit a massive hole in the road, it almost pulls the front wheel off the car, an investigation the next days shows a destroyed TCA rubber.
	February 2009 Well OK, I'll admit it, I'm really only washing all the mud off that accumulates after a Friday nights rallying.
	February 2009 Being a bit of a closet buftie I spent many saturday afternoons during the wintertime polishing and cleaning the rally car.

	January 2009 The rally car still has a damaged door from an accident way back in early 2007, this one is an old door which was taken off in 2003 so I'm going to reskin it and then replace the one that's currently on her.
	December 2008 An early Christmas present to myself is a new Mig welder, my old SIP welder gave up the ghost a few months ago - well I guess it didn't owe me much as I had bought it secondhand back in 1988. This last month or so I've been using a friend's modern SIP but the build quality seems to have gone downhill in the last 20 odd years. After looking round at a few welders I eventually settled on a Portamig 185, partly because the lowest power settings on it are quite a bit lower than most and it also has 12 power settings whereas many have only 4 or 6 and it's British made.
	December 2008 A start has been made on replacing the middle and front chassis legs. For more details see EIJ 5885 Year 2.
	November 2008 And I have started to the front panel etc.
	October 2008 Next up it's the drivers Inner Wing which is getting the full treatment. For more details see EIJ 5885.
	October 2008 And I move back to the driver's side, firstly fitting a new sill, being a Hadrian sill I had to fit the little recessed piece first.
	September 2008 And two weeks later at North Armagh it's the mounting bolts for the alternator, luckily we still manage to finish both events and Rebecca still holds a slender lead in her class of the N.I. Navigation Rally Championship.
	September 2008 Speaking of break, that's exactly what I do over the next couple of events, firstly it's the gearstick at a Dungannon event.
	September 2008 With our rally season about to restart I spend some time ready my rally car after the long summer break.
	August 2008 The new Inner Wing Top is now fitted along with a new H/D Top Plate, next up will be all the panels under the wing.
	August 2008 Next up I move to the front end of the car, most of the panels here will need replaced or at least repaired. Here I am cutting out the old wing top, I'm going to be fitting a new ex-pressed Panel's item.
	August 2008 All four floor pans and one sill are now fitted.
	July 2008 With the shell back at my own garage I can continue on by fitting the outer sill etc to the passenger side.
	July 2008 After a lay off of over 3 months I finally get back to working on EIJ 5885, I take her round to the farm to blast some more areas of the shell before continuing with the repairs.
	June 2008 The next day is AVO Day 2008 at Stanford Hall
	June 2008 Tim, the "Events & PR" guy of the AVO club organizes a visit to the Historic Motorsport Museum and Workshops. It is particularly appreciated by those of us who live "across the water" and don't get to many club meets.
	May 2008 Time to weld on the wings to the Daytona Mexico project, it's really being kept here so we can take reference measurements when I start to replace the Inner Wing Tops on EIJ 5885.
	May 2008 And a bit of a gathering at Laurence's house to see his new shed and growing collection of tasty Mk1's.
	April 2008 Carmel has been passing remarks about the colour of her car for months now, nothing for it but for us all to get stuck in with the T-cut, it's amazing the difference it makes and by the time we're finished everyone thinks she has a new car.
	April 2008 By the start of April I'm doing a trial fit on the driver's side floor pans of EIJ 5885, unfortunately this project now takes a bit of a "back seat" or a while - 3 months in fact before I start to it again.
	March 2008 With Race/Retro at Stoneleigh being the same weekend as Donington Spares Day it gave us the chance to see some great rally cars and kill two birds with one stone so to speak.
	March 2008 Rebecca, my 13 year old daughter and Navigator is no longer a "Beginner", from the start of this year she has been competing in the "Novice" class of the Northern Ireland Championship. With 4 events gone she has won her class 3 times and leads her class in the championship.
	March 2008 The wipers on our rally car give some trouble on a particularly wet night spent rallying round Cookstown. The motor needs some repairs but half the wiring behind the dash along with the steering etc need moved before I can get the wiper motor out.
	February 2008 Finally I get round to welding in the passenger floor pans to EIJ 5885.
	January 2008 By now I'm starting to trial fit the floor pans and make patches to mate up with the bulkhead etc.
	December 2007 Just before Christmas I take my wife Carmel off to Paris for a long weekend break - an early Christmas present for her, once there I reveal the real reason behind the trip, Springsteen is playing at "The Bercy".
	December 2007 At the same time the pile of twisted scrap metal on the floor gets bigger and bigger.
	December 2007 Work on EIJ 5885 is coming along slowly, the complete floor down one side has now been cut out.
	November 2007 After a particularly wet Night Rally where we had lots of floods to contend with I discover that one of the headlights has half filled with water, a closer look reveals that the silvering is starting to dull down quite a bit - it'll soon be time to invest in a new set.
	November 2007 Work has now started on EIJ 5885, the floor pans are the first of many items to get replaced.
	October 2007 The latest addition to the "Fletcher Mk1 Collection" is this 1973 Sebring Red Mexico - it's a complete restoration project and more details can be found at EIJ 5885.
	October 2007 There is no back bumper on my rally car to hide the normal number plate light behind, so I decided to do what Ford did with many of the works cars and fit a Lucas light as fitted to many British classic cars of the 60's and we went for the proper metal one rather than the modern plastic repro item.
	October 2007 These included no number plate light, sliding joints in the exhaust, non E-marked rally tyres, etc. Ah well nothing for it but sort them out and take her back again in a couple of weeks.
	October 2007 The car was due for her yearly MoT test in October, I wasn't overly surprised when she failed, but I was shocked to be given a list of no less than 9 failure points. I'd never had more than 3 or 4 with any car before. At least 3 of them were minor things that other MoT Testers had turned a blind eye to for the past 20 years.
	September 2007 The top coats of paint finally went on leaving a few days to screw everything back together before our next event. Unfortunately we ending up missing the event anyway as Rebecca had to go into hospital for a minor operation.
	September 2007 The next week or so saw plenty of sandpapering etc before finally getting a couple of coats of primer onto the car.
	End August 2007 There's only 2 weeks to go before our next event and the wing and front panel are finally welded on. Now I can start to prepare for paint etc.
	Late August 2007 With all the edges finally cleaned up I can get round to doing a trial fit on the wing and front panel. I find that these repro front wings which were made a few years ago are not as good "fit wise" as the ones which were available in the late 70's and 80's.
	Late August 2007 The radiator and oil cooler etc are finally removed and I finish off removing the final bits of the old wing and front panel. As well as cleaning up the edges I give them a coat of primer.
	Late August 2007 The RS lip is welded on with a spot of weld every couple of inches.
	Mid August 2007 I cleaned the paint off the inner edges which will be overlapped and welded, I then repainted them with weld-thro primer. I normally just use etch primer but my local motor factors had given me this to try out.
	Mid August 2007 With doing other work and taking holidays etc it has been a while since we got any work done on the rally car. With only 4 weeks to go before our season restarts in mid September we finally get round the preparing the wing and lip for welding etc.
	Early August 2007 With more work still to be done on the storm drains down the back garden, I hired out a Mini Digger for the weekend. It was the best fun I've had in a long time and was certainly £100 well spent.
	Late July 2007 With the floor of the shed finally all painted the "Grand Opening Barn Dance and Bar-b-que" took place on the 28th July. It did mean moving out some cars and other bits and pieces to make room for the tables, bar and dance floor.
	Mid July 2007 No, it's my wife making use of one of my AVO boiler suits while she paints the fence in preparation for the "Grand Opening" of the shed.
	Mid July 2007 Is this the "Tea Lady" at the AVO factory making tea for the early shift on the "Merry-go-round."
	Early July 2007 A few months ago I discovered a bit of a problem with the pit in my garage. It was flooding and the false floor was rotting from underneath. I had to get a digger in to dig a massive hole outside the garage to try and sort out the storm drains. To give you an idea of the size of the hole, the pipe you see coming out under the wall is my new drain pipe from the bottom of the pit and that's about 7 feet deep.
	Early July 2007 With the door post needing some repair and welding I needed a way to stop hot sparks from the grinder and welder doing any damage to the seats etc. I cut up an old piece of floor covering and stuck it in the door opening with masking tape.
	Late June 2007 The most of the front panel and wing have been removed, just the edges etc to tidy up. I think I now need to remove the engine etc to do proper repairs - more work.
	Late June 2007 When you see how much the headlight bowl is twisted out of shape it's surprising that the headlight itself was undamaged in the accident.
	Mid June 2007 Once back from AVO Day I get her into the garage and get stuck into the repairs. There's no real hurry as we're not competing again until the end of August but it's surprising how quickly the time will fly in.
	Mid June 2007 The annual trek to AVO Day, Carmel, my wife, is surprised, no shocked to hear that I'm taking the smashed up rally car to the show. Unfortunately we didn't win any prizes in the Concourse de Elegance!
	Early June 2007 Competing in the Festival of Motorsport at Loughgall, I once again manage to toss it into the scenery, luckily it's the same side as last time but we'll definately have to change that wing and front panel now.
	June 2007 The involves the use of a solid lump of copper. Something like the head of a copper mallet, or in my case the insert which has fallen out of an old mallet. This is held behind the hole you are trying to fill up, tight against the metal.
	June 2007 After much thought I decide to try and weld up all these tiny holes. I use a technique which was taught to me by one of the welders in my work, well they are professionals after all.
	June 2007 The shell is now upside down again and we are working at the boot floor. For some unknown reason there were quite a few tiny holes in this area, some little more than a pin hole, others were the diameter of a pencil or bigger.
	May 2007 It took a couple of evenings of careful drilling, welding etc before the front panel eventually gets welded on, the wings were removed again to make it a little easier.
	May 2007 In the area which would be hidden behind the Grille I once again drilled holes in the front panel and welded from the front side.
	May 2007 Other areas called for holes to be drilled, here the holes are drilled in the lower crossmember and the welding is done from the rear, it takes practice to get just the right amount of weld penetration etc.
	May 2007 The weld holes along this edge were easy to make with the punch part of my Joddler, now I just have to try and keep the plug welds neat and tidy.
	May 2007 It's not really obvious but I had to set a piece into this end of the slam panel, the L shaped hole still needs a little work with a small file to get it to the right shape - notice once again this is the wing which we repaired much further down this page, at that time it was Sebring Red in colour!
	May 2007 Once I'm happy with the fit of all these panels, I start to weld on the front panel.
	May 2007 I have owned this car for about 23 years and this is the first time that I've had a bonnet fitted to it, when I bought the car the bonnet was inside the shell. The wings etc are now ready for a trial fit. First they are screwed on with self tapers etc until everything lines up reasonably well.
	April 2007 At long last we get back to working at the Yellow Mexico again. This is a wing that we started to work on about 2 years ago, somewhere down near the bottom of this page. I had to replace the section in round the headlight.
	Late March 2007 Then I start and clear the other side of the shed ready for painting over the Easter Holidays. My blue 1300 is only in here until the good weather comes along.
	Late March 2007 Three weeks later the paint has had time to dry and I can move the first car in. No that tatty old Escort isn't towing the Freelander :-) The car has no brakes and it's quite steep down to the shed, I don't want the car to take off down the hill otherwise it wouldn't stop until it is about two fields away.
	Early March 2007 I finally get round to painting the floor of the shed, it helps keep the dust down and means any oil leaks from old cars are easy to clean up.
	February 2007 With the car into the garage I discovered that the wing was so badly stretched that it was almost impossible to get it back into shape. I had to make a cut from the bottom almost up to the headlight aperture just to get it straightened. Once straightened the two sides of the cut ended up overlapping each other by almost an inch. The car will be a bit narrower at the front for a while, at least until we get a new front panel fitted.
	February 2007 To make matters worse we had another event lined up for the following Friday night and it was one I really wanted to do. Repairs started the following day with the front wing being winched back out even before the car came off the trailer.
	February 2007 With the front wing catching the bank a mighty thump the car slewed sideways and smacked a very large H-iron gatepost, it was one of those occasions when it might have been better to go straight off into the muddy field, unfortunately with a rear wheel drive car we would never have been able to reverse back up out of the mud - we would have needed a tow.
	February 2007 We came out over a blind crest at rather high speed, what appeared to be the road going straight was actually a downhill gateway into a muddy field, the road went sharp left. Without even thinking the handbrake was ripped on and we very nearly made it, unfortunately my front wing caught the bank.
	February 2007 What a sorry sight, Rebecca experiences her first "big off" on a Northern Ireland Championship event in the lanes round Omagh. A bigger problem than the damage to the car, was the fact that her glasses flew off, we had to stop down the road a bit and eventually found them in a rear footwell, she then managed to navigate us on to yet another class win!
	September 2006 Rebecca navigates me to a class win on her first proper rally. She has taken to navigating like a duck to water, over the next few months she turns out to be practically unbeatable in the beginners class with 6 class wins out of 8 starts.
	September 2006 Progress with our latest project is very slow. If much more rubbish gets thrown in below the shell we wont be able to turn it on the spit.
	August 2006 My eldest daughter, 12 year old Rebecca is sitting at my computer one night when an e-mail from the chairman of my local motor club arrives. It's about a Rallyschool we are going to run. Rebecca reads it and enquires "What's a Rallyschool", when I explain, she announces - much to her mothers disgust that she wants to go. Here she is ready to set off on her first practice event.
	June 2006 The annual trip to AVO Day, as I get older the day seems to fly in quicker every year, roll on 2008 when there will hopefully be another whole weekend event for us to attend.
	Easter 2006 I get the shell up onto the new updated spit. This one is an improved version of the original, more details will be given on the following page "The Spit".
	Spring 2006 I finally get Project Mexico round from my mothers house to my own garage, I built myself this little A-frame so I could move the shell about with just the back axle in it.
	October 2005 By now the walls are nearly all plastered, the door frames should come soon and then we can get the floor in.
	Late September 2005 Finally the roof arrives, four of us spent two days putting the whole thing on. I haven't worked as hard in years as I've worked over the last few months, working my normal nightshift, then helping the builders during the day, before grabbing a few hours in bed in the early evening.
	September 2005 Next up was to hire a vibrating roller to really pack the floor down before putting in the concrete floor.
	Late August 2005 Unfortunately there was still some proper work to be done with the "wrong" end of a long tail shovel.
	Late August 2005 Otherwise known as "skid steer frontloaders" because you skid the wheels to steer them, this was the best fun I had had in a long time.
	Late August 2005 During the following week I got 25 ton of stones delivered, these would be used to fill up both the floor and around the outside of the shed. The only practical way to move that amount of stones was to hire a Bobcat for the weekend.
	August 2005 Delivery of the roof would take about three weeks, in the meantime I started to put in the pipework for the drains etc. Andrea thought it was great fun helping daddy. You can also see our Labrador pup, Tess.
	Early August 2005 And the block work is finally finished and the rest of the steelwork for the roof goes on. At last we can take exact measurements and order the roof panels.
	Late July 2005 Another few feet have been added to some of the walls and we have also started to put in the steel beams and wooden joists to support the loft. July is normally holiday time in Northern Ireland but the two guys working at my shed are only taking a couple of days so hopefully the block work should soon be finished.
	Mid July 2005 I have finally got my little blue run-about out for its first run of the year. Laura, her cousin Hanna and I got it out of the garage one evening, we gave it a quick wash and took it for a run. It needs a couple of minor things done to get it ready for MoT.
	July 2005 This drivers side one was OK apart from the wing mounting part. I cut the old damaged bit off and added new metal right down this edge. Here I am at the stage of added little spot welds to hold it all together.
	July 2005 I haven't been able to get round to my mums to work at the shell of the Yellow Mex, but I have got a little done. When I removed her front wings many months ago they were not really re-useable for a road car so I decided to try and sort out a better pair from my stock of second-hand ones. I didn't think it was really worth putting a pair of new my ones on a road car.
	July 2005 While the builders have been working at the shed I have spent most of my time helping them or running about organizing stuff. This has meant that I've had almost no time to work at any of my cars. During my last event with the rallycar back in late May she developed a noise from the back axle, I removed the nearside halfshaft to check the bearing. She is still sitting like this almost 2 months later. I'll need to get it sorted soon as she's due for MoT in a few weeks.
	Early July 2005 With the floor now brought up to near its proper level with stones, and walls going up you now get a better idea of what size the shed will be. It should hold 9 cars with ease, or more if I make frames to double stack the spare shells ;-)
	Late June 2005 While I was over at AVO Day my builders started to the blockwork and after a week the walls were up to head height.
	June 2005 Another 3 weeks later the steel work for the middle section of the shed is now up and we are ready to start the block work.
	Late May 2005 After weeks of poor weather we finally get the foundations dug and in!
	May 2005 I ran out of time and didn't get her painted but at least I got most of the dent hammered out.
	April 2005 With my next event being the Drumhorc Hillclimb in early May, I had to get the front corner tidied a little.
	Whoops On Friday 8th April we went to Dungannon for a Night Navigation Rally, in one of the later sections I came round a tight right-hander a little too hard and popped a front wheel over a low bank. The wheel dropped over the bank and it took a few minutes to free her, luckily we still finished third in class which made up for this little off.
	Easter 2005 I have been talking about building a "Classic Vehicle Store" for over a year now. It took a while to get planning permission etc sorted. Over the Easter holidays we finally got a digger moved in.
	Spring 2005 During the winter I decided it was time to start another project so my old Daytona Yellow Mexico was pulled out of the barn where she had sat this last 20 odd years. After welding on a couple of sills and a floor pan or two I got down to doing some blasting to try a see what other work the shell needed. My intention is that this car, once finished, should be a regular use car rather than a show car etc. Sometime in the future I shall start a page dedicated to this rebuild.