Ford Capri 3.0S: £15K Competition Update

And the Essex V6 rebuild begins!

If you have been following our updates on Matt Purdon's Capri you'll know that it was requiring some rather serious engine work. Missed the last installment? See here.

So this month he's been on the search for many new parts, stripping down the engine and rolling out his Series One Land Rover as a temporary substitute.

As soon as John Crook has stopped enjoying his Delta Integrale in the sunshine we'll endeavour to get the very latest from him as well.

Thanks again to Adrian Flux for sponsoring the competition.

This time last month, I watched my Capri disappear off into the sunset on the back of a Big Yellow (well, white in this case) Taxi with suspected timing gear failure. What came next included lots of calls, e-mails, and attempts to make light of the situation on various platforms, but mostly a lot of moping around feeling sorry for myself.

Welcome back old friend!

My mate had let me down. 5,000 miles of fun was all it took to show his Achilles heel, leaving me with a sump full of shattered teeth and the prospect of some serious parts bills.

Like a faithful old dog, Bernard, my 1952 Land Rover came to see if I was alright. He'd taken somewhat of a back seat since Tony's surprise arrival over a year ago; the majority of his time was spent sat in my back garden, complete with a string of tin hearts tied to the canvas to improve my mum's view from the kitchen.

It seems Series ones are flavour of the month here at PistonHeads; but unlike Chris Harris's recent efforts to find a fast way out of Series ownership, I couldn't wait to jump back into it. Brushing the cobwebs out of the way, I reconnected the battery, turned the key, hit the big Bakelite starter button and remembered just why I loved my little Landie quite so much. Bernard was happy too, spraying thick black soot up the fence in excitement.

Keep pulling lads...

He started, stopped in a fashion and nothing was imminently going to fall off. A bit of insurance later (no tax or test for me, officer!) and we were good to take on the several hundred mile round trip to see how his little brother was.

I met up with Jon Holmes from the first installment of the Capri saga on Tuesday afternoon. By the evening Tony was on the freshly concreted workshop floor in eager anticipation of his open-heart surgery.

Despite a few low car/ high jack interface issues, little in the way of protest was offered in losing his engine. The only real trouble came from the bellhousing bolts behind the furthest back cylinder heads, but Jon managed to bend space and time, freeing off those I couldn't fathom.

After the removal of a surprising amount of ancillaries for such a basic engine, the crane came over and out came the Essex (albeit after a stop for a forgotten bellhousing bolt and a fuel line, but we can gloss over that small detail)

... and it's out!

With the engine on the floor, I was truly amazed by how Ford crammed quite so much iron into such a small package. Weighing the best part of 170kg, I could see why the near 40kg weight gain earned the Essex so much stick from the Pinto boys.

As you may have learnt by now, luck and helpful friends always seem to play a big part in any of my car-related exploits, and this was no exception. I'd arrived with no engine stand. Don't ask me why, it just slipped my mind on the checklist and it's something I've never had a use for before now. Fortunately, our friend Graham Masters answered the call on Facebook and dropped one round.

At this point we should have lifted it with the crane and gone away happy, but as that was in use rolling a Suzuki SJ for welding, it came down to manpower. Like a seasoned dictator, I ended up with the role of moving the engine stand while Jon and Graham hauled the Essex up. Thanks for that gentlemen, I'm sure there's a beer in there somewhere.

Oh.

All that was left to do now was swing a socket around and get the engine apart. As the timing case came off, what seemed like a tsunami of sludge, grit and broken teeth showered out into the oil pan. Just as we all thought, the cam gear didn't exist anymore. Further investigation revealed more shattered fibre, a slightly clogged oil pick up, several bent push rods, a little slap from the valves on the pistons but overall a surprisingly good engine.

All looked good up top with no severe scoring and the bores still showing their hone marks. The bottom end was even better, the shells being near immaculate standard size, only let down a bit by original main bearings that had started to wear through.

On the face of it, it almost looked like I could have put new timing gear on and been up and running again; but where's the fun in that? While having a mental debate with myself, Toby from the brake failure story told me of a possible parts-source, sent me a number over and advised I give it a call.

Should be salvageable though. Phew

At the end of the line was a fantastic bloke named Jon whose heart belonged to Scimitars. He told me about a powerful blueprinted engine he used to run that eventually shattered the timing gear: a familiar predicament. With the timing wheel gone, he chose to move on from what was somewhat of a temperamental engine and stick to a known good one from a TVR 3000S, but not without stripping the hot engine for parts first. It was at this point I was offered some heads and a camshaft.

"What do you want to give me for them?" Jon asked.

Through the grapevine, I'd heard he'd take around the £200 mark. I knew as well as anyone else that this was a bargain, but even so it would have stretched my limited budget. Sheepishly, I put forward my offer.

"200 quid?! Give over, who told you that? 200... No, no, no" came the reply.

Fantastic. I've insulted him and lost the parts. I asked what he'd like for them, and was genuinely dumbfounded by the response. On the agreement that I was to make good use of them, Jon suggested I give him 50 pounds for both heads and the camshaft and he would deliver them to Toby's next week. To say I was over the moon wouldn't begin to cover it, and at that moment I saw the Capri's future pan out ahead of me.

The only way, it would seem, is Essex.

Previous updates:
Matt explains why it had to be a Capri and how he found his dream car
The Capri project starts in earnest
Matt reports in after a summer of fun in his Capri
Burning the midnight oil
Capri goes well; stopping it is more of an issue
MoT reveals some rust ... quite a lot of rust
And it was all going so nicely too...

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paulmaurice99

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