Author: 407484pwpadmin

Seeing Bertie sitting there looking sad, especially after we removed the engine and gear box, it reminded me of vehicles I watched my dad take apart, (with the occasional assistance of little fingered Lilith (me)) and then sit in the garage or driveway for years whilst the daily drive required repairs and houses were rebuilt. From the three wheeler Berkeley (no idea what he was thinking there, that was acquired before I was born),

the Eagle SS (those doors were really stupid idea from the off)

and the start of fake Caterham a ‘Fakerham’ (I wanted to take up racing. We couldn’t afford that so my dad decided he’d make me a race car – knowing I’d have moved out by the time it was ready).

Still now there is a Porsche 944 sitting in the local garage waiting for the electrics to be looked at (I don’t think the electrics ever worked. You open the sun visor and it switches on the windscreen wipers).

So there was really nothing I could think about except making it look pretty.

I took some inspiration from a @garrymk1escorttvr who had built on Mk. I fibreglass car with a 4 L Tasmin V8 TVR engine. There is a nice photo on Marcus Hayes’ site

NEW VIDEO! 28/12/20 – Marcus Hayes: (5) A Dashing Dash – Part 1 Designing and Building the Plug

He is currently building a mark one with a Corvette Chevy LS25 L lump. It has two turbos and is making 800 brake horsepower. Another guided tour by Marcus Hayes is worth a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yu6XgiLRmQ

The car is phenomenal. His expertise is in fibre glass and carbon fibre. Garry explained to me how to make a plug for a mould, so I thought I’d have a go. I have watched Blue Peter and I made a cracking Tracy Island so I thought I’d have a go at making a plug for a carbon fibre dashboard (I never actually made a Tracy Island because only losers made the Tracy Island. But I know I could’ve done if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to).

I started with the drawings.

Then I went to cardboard.

Then I bought some MDF, clingfilm and sealant.

Then I made a right mess with the sealant and took a photo. I messaged it to Garry who told me to lose a sealant, as it was a shit idea.

So I went back to the drawing board and bought some body filler.

Now that is something I know about. It didn’t smell quite as good as it used to (I’m sure that is down to those bastards in Europe caring about our lungs and long-term health). The results looked really good, as I smooth it out.

When high on body filler fumes I had a conversation with metal Mickey about how much the rebuild would cost. He thought it would probably only cost about five thousand pounds to get her back on the road. I was rather sceptical. Perhaps if we have been back in the 90s when people would put Subarus into all the hedges all the time and there was a surfeit of spare parts. I had my eye on a RCM turbo and saw some bits of bodywork that needed some care. I thought that alone would probably cost 5K. However, sometime it’s nice to dream. I wanted to do the rebuild properly rather than having to keep taking her off the road to do little bits. I know it will keep needing work – it is a car.

I finished the plug for the dashboard and stood back to admire my work. It might have just been because I was high on filler fumes, but I thought it looked like a really good dashboard shape, even as just a plug.

It was a little disconcerting as to how surprised everyone was as to the epic job I had done. But they didn’t know I’d made a Tracy Island (in my head). I took the plug down to Garry, who despite his poker face, I could tell he was very impressed. And I’m sure he was close to offering me a full-time plug making contract with all the cat food I could eat and a range the Pirelli titty calendars to look at*. I left the plug with the expert and hoped it would work.

*clearly a lie, he was suitably underwhelmed!

I finally built up the mental courage to take a look at the wiring behind the dashboard.

The 16 million cable ties were lovingly cut down and a tangle of Rapunzel’s locks revealed themselves. The number of wires a Mk I Escort is born with is a fair fewer than that required by a Subaru Impreza. So many of the wires were redundant – for example the air-conditioning, rear fog lights, fog light switches, interior lights. However, there were some that were still required like the cooling fans.

I found, to my disgust, that the under car lighting had been stripped out – as a style choice being forced upon me “ you can’t have under car lighting. It is unacceptable”. That did make me realise Mr Plump Pinkies really had no idea who he was dealing with, and signalled things to come. Had I not yet mentioned that I am from Essex? There were clearly going to be differences in sartorial choices.

I needed the help so I made the executive decision to let this one go. The lights hadn’t worked and I would put them back on later. I won’t mention that I want the Ford Subaru logo to project onto the pavement when you open the door, just yet.

I took out the plastic centre console, ripped up the carpet, and took out everything inside the cab back to bare metal, wires and pipes. I had left the seats in for comfort. However, I eventually relented and took out the seats. I found that despite doing hot yoga, I am not as flexible as your average mechanic, and I needed the space.

The air-conditioning unit was absolutely huge and would remain unused. If I needed heating I could always put in an after market unit. So that came out first. The air conditioning unit was in the passenger foot well taking up at least 2 ft.².

There was a loom running to the rear with over 40 cables, only four of those cables actually being used.

The speaker wires were a rats nest of pending disastrous proportions. These were all ripped out. It was still a mess under the dash so I had to make a plan of all the wires that were actually needed and work back from there: ECU check, lights, Horn, wipers, ignition… 

I got bored of playing around with wires and set to designing the dashboard layout out. Because when you’ve broken your car so completely the first thing you need to work on is the dashboard and think about how pretty it should look…

Well that seemed logical to me at the time. I think it was the sheer panic of having little faith that I would ever see Bertie back on the road. I was clutching at straws for things I could easily do right at that moment.

After running Bertie in the workshop, I was assured that, it didn’t look like there was anything loose or hanging off that would cause any further issues / damage.

It looked just like the engine was tired and sounded lumpy. It could, in theory, go on a little longer as it was. However, it was not pulling anything like the same power as it did previously. It almost felt just like driving a genuine mark one escort 1.6. – as nature intended.

Therefore, instead of any more trailering, and before any more parts were removed, we took Bertie for a road trip to see an expert with a computer. I was keen to see if there were any more electrical faults and find out what was wrong. So I drove to RB tuning.

The first first thing was to try to find the computer port! On a Subaru is normally in the driver’s footwell, by the bonnet release. However, we had a sneaky suspicion it was probably in the hornets nest of wires under the dash. I looked up exactly what it looked like to make it easier to find. Then proceeded to locate myself in the drivers foot well searching through the wires. I finally spotted it and carefully released the cables down.

Once plugged into the laptop thousands of fault codes started to show. This was fully expected as various sensors were not connected to anything, so there would be no signal. The engine was making good boost pressure, so remarkably there was nothing wrong with the turbo. Despite the abuse it has received over the years .

However, when we took off the oil filler cap it was chuffing with steam. Further test carried out revealed that the engine was losing compression. The white smoke, that I first thought was the turbo, was, in fact, oil smoke and not quite as dense. Essentially, the rings on the piston were worn, letting oil past the pistons and into the combustion chamber. The breathers were all blocked. The expert opinion was that the engine needed replacing.

We talked about how much power the engine should make. There was talk of being able to easily create an engine to put out 600bhp. Whilst I love the idea of this, I drive Bertie most weekends during the summer. She is so light having anything too powerful – given her weight – could make her unwieldy.

Previous dyno read outs showed power of 356.5 HP. It makes no sense to me to make a ticking time bomb. I’d rather go for bulletproof. The conclusion was to build the engine to around 400 BHP using a close deck block to increase the strength of the block itself.

After the coffee (from a remarkably clean cup for a workshop) and a chat, I shoved the wiring back under the dash and drove Bertie carefully back to workshop. The last drive for a little while…

Bertie ended up spending the rest of 2023 – even over Christmas – and well into February 2024 being wheeled in and out of mechanics’ garages around Sussex. At one point I even had free storage when the mechanic went on a five week sabbatical!?!?

During this time there was a lot of teeth sucking and sighing and comments like ‘it’s going to cost you a fair bit love‘. I was very patient with the casual misogyny – the barely veiled implication that I could not possibly have my own means, skills and/or intellect. Smile and wave, smile and wave with (or without) a range of choice hand gestures.

I then had what appeared to be a genius idea – for all of 5 minutes. I would tow her to Essex, move back home and work on Bertie with my Dad. Then I came back to my senses. What on earth did me and my Dad know about turboed cars with ECUs? Just enough to know we should get someone else to look at it. Plus he had just acquired some custard yellow Triumph shitfire that he was determined to rebuild, for some unknown reason.

Then I had a properly genius idea to ask someone who had built their own Type R V Limited track car what to do. He had given me his number just in case I ever needed parts – knowing the location of an veritable Aladin’s Cave of Subaru spares. Having seen his work on the Revs Restore project Land Rover at Bicester Heritage, I knew he had some proper skills and knowledge.

So off she headed to be looked at properly by someone who would have a proper little look and a think before making shit up… I was dead chuffed, a proper Subaru enthusiast with the biggest hands I could find. I always find massive hands an incredibly reliable indication of the need for massive gloves, ability to open jars and classic car repair capabilities (I probably only believe this because my Dad has massive hands).

The event that made it clear it was more than just the engine that needed some work, was revealed by the ashen face of banana fingers on a video call shortly after the car was delivered to his workshop.

Having removed the dashboard and released the wiring looms down – as they fell down two wires that had previously been sitting side-by-side in close proximity – probably for years – dropped to embrace each other. There was a deep orange glow and a whistle of the fire whipping up a cable. Luckily the isolation switch was close by and was reached before the spark could spread. The fire safety stick, always on hand, was mercifully not needed.

Investigations behind the dashboard revealed a beautiful knitted tapestry of redundant and “what the hell does that do” wires. It was all woven together with 16 million cable ties, gaffer tape and chocolate block connectors.

There is no doubt as to how this happened. The guy who originally built Bertie, on finding what magic he had achieved in breeding a Subaru WR X and a Mark I Escort, shoved all of the wires together (with his best crochet skills) and got out on the road to enjoy the best car in the world. I suspect most of us would’ve done the same. And I was tempted, using the isolation switch as backup, to do exactly the same again. However, the fear of burning down my best friend was too much.

So it was agreed, regardless of what else might be wrong the wiring would require some tidying up too.

It was only ever meant to be a quick engine swap over. It’s ended up being quite a lot more than that.

How did I break Bertie? I think we can safely say the demo run and a sound off against a Roush Mustang didn’t help. However, I suspect it was probably always inevitable. What was broken really depends on who you asked.

And I asked a lot of people because I love a chat. The answers ranged from “it is the turbo that has disintegrated” (the turbo is fine) “the seal lost compression” (talk me through that), “ the head cracked” (the head is not cracked) and the very helpful“ you just blew it up”.

I was having a lovely day at the Supercar event at Beaulieu 2023 with the Sporting Bear crew. It started off with my isolator key going missing, which lead to many kind people from the GT40 owners’ club helping, Colin from Beaulieu giving me a present, a ride in a Alpine and great friends being made. It was the best sort of day.

Even if I got – rightly – told off by a lovely marshall for sending it on the wrong bit.

It ended in the rain with three AA vans three low loaders and a late night long wait in a dodgy lorry park waiting for another low loader. The only place to park was across from the sketchiest truck that could not look more like it was inhabited by a serial killer if it tried.

The suggestion from the AA that I should just leave ‘the car’ in that lorry park and make my way home was met with short shrift – “no thank you, I’ll take the chance on being murdered. I’m not leaving my car here”.

Whatever ever made Bertie blow enough white smoke to call in a new Pope, it was going to require some money, time and finding some expertise.