This meet was just as productive as the first, even if I do say so myself!

Priorities for this session were:

• Remove head from Zetec for skimming
• Asses general condition of Zetec
• Install Mondeo brakes on Escort

We had a bit of a late start, due to Daz getting lost, but eventually we got underway... 

And we thought we were late...

Me and Jo managed to get away around 8:45 - the plan was to meet at Matt's place around half nine so that we could get to the scrappy in reasonable time.  I knew it was gonna take at least an hour to get there and didn't want to get left behind, but the ol' Mondeo (Cossie's stuck off the road with no brakes!) got us there in plenty of time! Just...

So in we go, and we hear that Churchy's hurt his foot (more like third leg), and won't be coming.  Then it turns out that Daz has got lost!  Next time, I'll actually go slow enough to spot the speed traps!

You'll be pleased to know that the Radiant Pink example shown below is NOT our track car, but is a potential donor, as it's an XR3i.  Well, just.

While Matt set to work on fitting the Mondeo's brakes to the Escort, the rest of us proceeded to disect the Zetec, to find out if we needed another engine.  Luckily, it was all there and appears to be in good nick, however...

For anyone interested in bulking up, try weightgain 4000 coupled with a few Zetec lifting sessions - four of us JUST managed to get it into daylight!  You'll be able to spot me whipping the exhaust manifold off, which came off dead easy, after I'd undone the final hidden bolt.

The rocker, ahem, cam cover came off next, along with the belt covers as we needed to check the state of the head and pistons.  The head gasket's gonna get done as a matter of course anyway.  To get the head off a Zetec, you need to remove the cams.  Both of which were bolted down tighter than the Chancellor's wallet.  Ford must have some natty tools for getting the bearing cap bolts out - but believe me, you don't strictly need them!

The cams came out and the belt fell off.  Next were the head bolts.  By this time, Matt had fashioned the first bracket to mount the bigger Mondeo calipers in place of the inadequate originals.  As Daz was unwinding the head bolts, I noticed something BIG that might have made the project  stop dead - a great big '18' was cast into the side of the block.  As with most Ford engines, this huge number tells you the capacity of the engine, in this case, it means that the engine's a 1.8 - not the 2.0 litre that we thought we had.  A quick check in the Mondeo Haynes comic confirmed that the engine we had was an 'RK' - 1.8 Zetec.

Oh cock.

A third check - comparing the new head gasket kit we'd bought showed that the gasket was made for wider cylinders - and finally measuring the diameter of the cylinder bores showed for sure that we were working on a 1.8.

However, we'd gotten this far, and weren't going to let 200cc and 15 factory BHP get in our way.  We whipped the head off to find four perfectly flat pistons, nice un-scored bores, uncracked chambers and 16 perfect valves.  To all intents an purposes, this engine looks like a peach, and much less like a lemon.

We lifted the head into Daz's car, and set about getting the clutch and flywheel off.  In order to speed up the flywheel's removal, we devised an ingenius removal method...but I don't think we'll be moving to Ford's rally team just yet...

Once they were off, we were pretty much done, except for tidying up after ourselves.  As Matt completed the caliper installation on the Escort, I removed the last useful pieces (except that damn steering wheel!!!) from the Mondeo, then helped the others clear up.  Once we'd packed up, the Mondeo was shifted out ready for collection by the local scrapper.

So now, we have a track car with big brakes, so it can potentially stop, even though it can't go!  We'll get there.  At the next session, we hope to rebuild the Zetec after the head has been skimmed - watch this space!