Exhausting exhausts

Way back in December 2021 I bought a couple of exhaust manifolds on eBay with the intention of fitting them over the Christmas holiday. Three months later I finally get around to finding the energy to do something about them. With the car turned around in the garage and supported on axel stands I begun to undo the exhaust clamps and manifold bolts. I knew I had a bent manifold bolt to deal with and used my Christmas money to purchase a Dremel drill. Thankfully I chose a Dremel 4000 (175W) kit to cut off the bolt that a socket or spanner could no longer get a purchase on. It was just as well I had gone for the kit with the flexi extension, as the Dremel would not have got in to the tight space under the manifold to cut the bolt head off. The job of removing the manifolds had taken about 1.5 hours as the down pipe clamps to the exhaust system were tricky to reach from under the car. As can be seen in the picture (below) they were in a poor state and the gaskets had crumbled away to nothing hence the severe blowing experienced.

Ford Corsair exhaust manifolds
Ford Corsair exhaust manifolds that were removed
Ford Corsair & exhaust manifolds
Corsair (V4) in the garage with it’s exhaust manifolds removed
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Name that tune – Gunson Colortune

I finally got a round to trying out the Gunson Colortune I got last October. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be with the instructions in clear English and to the point. The most difficult part was putting in the spark inspection plug in, without burning my fingers on the exhaust manifolds.

On the instructions it said you only needed to use one cylinder on a single carburettor and one inlet manifold design as per my V4. It was a simple task of removing a spark plug from any one of the four cylinders and replacing it with the Gunson spark inspection plug. It advised on having a clear view as possible of the plug which would become evident later. As mentioned earlier, the awkward part was fitting the inspection plug with its copper washer as it was quite a lot shorter and stubbier than a spark plug and difficult to get a decent grip with finger tips especially with a warm/hot manifold nearby. A deep 14 mm socket would have been best to tighten the plug but finger tight with a normal socket was good enough. After that, a long thin rod from the set was screwed in place so the HT lead could be connected.

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3 Events and an Alternator

When I got the Corsair back on the Friday (26th July) my main goal was to get it to the local classic and bike show at the Barton Hill Recreation ground, on Sunday. There was an existing problem that I had forgotten about which was the ignition light staying on and glowing brighter with more revs. I spent an hour or so on the Saturday diagnosing it to be a failed alternator. The Barton Hill show wasn’t far, and I sensed the Corsair had enough battery life to at least make it to the show which I had missed for the last 3 years. The show was a peaceful informal affair, with a few people taking an interest in the car.

Barton Hill, Shaftesbury 2019
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Engine Work

Corsair empty engine bay
The Corsair’s empty engine bay.

Earlier, back in May, I got the Corsair to John Midwood’s for some long over due engine work to be carried out, as the oil leaks were getting worse and the nearside cylinder head, rear core plug needed replacing. In readiness, I had got new core plugs and crankshaft seals (front and rear) on eBay, but then needed a bottom end gasket set available from Burton Power which also came with crankshaft seals and ‘O’ rings. Also, John advised I got a gearbox front oil seal which I purchased from Bearing Kits UK but ended up getting a gearbox oil seal set just in case.

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New Year, New MOT

The Corsair had been a bit tricky to start since it’s last outing to Blandford before Christmas. Unfortunately, it let me down on New Years Day as I had planned to go to a classic meet at Sturminster Newton but it failed to start and I drained the battery in the process. A couple of weeks later, with the battery on trickle charge, I tried it again and after several turn overs I just caught it enough for it to cough in to life on minimal choke and after several pumps of the accelerator (gas) pedal.

Ford Corsair in for an MOT inspection at 5 Square Motors, Shaftesbury
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The Fuel Shenanigans

Friday evening (10th Aug), I had just eaten my dinner and I get a phone call from John saying he was at the side of the road on the B3081 just before Zig Zag Hill and was I available this evening? The washing up could wait until I got home. And no, he hadn’t broken down – there was plenty of that the day before, but John said the Corsair was running well and he had been out to Six-Penny Handley and back without a hitch or hiccup and could come over to pick me up in it. After collecting me and with John driving it back to his workshop, I  could feel the car was running so much smoother, even as the passenger and it seemed responsive on the throttle.

Once back at John’s, the Corsair was switched off with no over run even if the temperature gauge was, probably incorrectly, reading hot. John then went on to explain the shenanigans he had on the Thursday with it breaking down on him most times he took it out. It was as if the fuel system was being starved every so often and he thought it was the fuel tank not having a breather pipe (it does, as I fitted a new pipe with the recent tank re-install). He drilled two tiny vent holes in the filler can to help alleviate this, but still the problem occurred intermittently. He then noticed the over flow return pipe running back to the fuel tank had a leak, so he cut out the bad section and replaced with a section of pipe. From there the Corsair would continue to be starved of fuel but seemed worse on the next test drive, so he disconnected the return pipe from the carburettor running back to the fuel tank, and then the Corsair ran/drove normally.

An overflow pipe had since been connected and re-routed to over flow away from the engine bay, but not to the fuel tank, for now. At least all seemed well with the Corsair. John said he had tuned it with about 10° Advance and with the new carburettor, the mixture screw now allowed for more finer tuning. Test drives over the weekend beckoned but I had to have a quick cruise through the town’s high street before I took it home to put away in it’s garage.

A few little jobs to do over the coming months will be to replace the flexible brake pipes as the bores of them maybe too small and possibly causing a temporary lock up of the brakes, as John experienced when the car was parked up. I’ve also to put the drivers window back in, now that John has also repaired the window glass runner utilising a window runner from a MGB.

August Update

Since the tale of two fuel tanks and one breakdown, I did manage to get the Corsair to John’s (AJ Restoration) just and I mean only just. For the last half mile and going up a gentle hill, the car was reduced to chugging along at 5-10 miles an hour in first gear while I was waving on the stream of traffic that built up behind me. It was only so I could have a clear run up to John’s gates for it to stall  and then roll the last bit to be left unceremoniously in the middle of his yard. That was early July and the arrangement was as before, to fit it in with his other bigger paid jobs. Around this time I decided to buy an new old stock (NOS) Zenith Carburettor 36 IV (3046) with a 28 choke from the Carburettor Hospital, based in Essex. The photos below don’t do it justice – the camera on my phone was struggling to digitally process the clean flat grey colour.

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The Starting Problems Continue

Moprod fuel pump and filter. Original set up.

Since the Corsair spluttered to a halt on the on the driveway back on Christmas Eve, I’ve been tinkering away trying to solve the fault. Testing the fuel pump, checking the points and condenser, rebuilding the carburettor and fiddling with all manner of idle mixture settings, had not made any difference. The Corsair would start, fire on the first turn over then cut out.

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It’s Alive! (well, for the third time)

Ford Corsair V4 (1700cc) engine bay

Went to see John today as the Corsair is now up and running very nicely, especially now that it can be tuned properly and has many new ignition components. It has been booked for an MOT on Thursday – just to see if anything more needs doing. Fingers crossed, eh?

Thanks for viewing.

The 500 pound distributor

John and Peter at AJ Restorations had finally got the distributor out. They eventually used an aluminium drift from beneath and persuaded it out, after drilling the alloy body to release it from it’s infernal grip on the cast iron block.

It didn’t look too good but I was assured in a phone call to H&H Ignition in Dudley, Birmingham that they could refurbish anything so long as the internal main shaft was OK along with the cog drive. John also had a contact that may have a couple of spare distributors for future reference, just in case mine was unserviceable.

1700 Essex V4 Distributor in bits, literally.

Essex V4 1700 engine block with distributor removed

So that’s it for now. I’ll be taking this little lot up to H&H Ignition on Tuesday (15th Aug) and see what they have to say.