Buying a Cortina
Any car you are offered now has survived at least one round in the battle against the elements. Rust and road accidents have whittled away the numbers over the years, so the chances are that anything restorable has either been well protected (by paint and underseal) or has already been repaired.
All Fords of this era suffer much the same maladies, such as the M.O.T. tester's favourite -- the MacPherson strut top mountings. This can be plated, with the repair panels still available. Make sure that there is still something left to plate.
Other points to look at are front jacking points, chassis outriggers, rear chassis legs and sills. Many small Fords seem to develop a rust hole on the vertical section of the inner wing, just in front of the front outrigger. Again a repair patch is available, or can be made quite simply. The spare wheel well will probably have suffered, as the car will have transported a few gallons of rainwater around until the well floor gives way through rust and releases the water! This can be repaired too.
Have a look under the carpets, where the inner sill meets the floor pan. This can corrode without the owner knowing and can be a bit more costly to put right.
All the engines suffer the same problems, with the 1200 and 1340 needing most attention. One trouble is the crankcase breather which needs to be kept clear, otherwise the crankcase will pressurise and send oil out past the seals. This can be messy.
We've all seen an old Ford leaving a trail of smoke from the breather under the engine. If you opened the bonnet on one of these cars and removed the oil filler cap with the engine still running you would feel the back pressure as the pistons leaked under compression and forced high pressure gas into the crankcase. The good news is it can all be repaired.
The rocker shaft and rockers get noisy in high mileage engines but this is something to be noted rather than worried about.
Rear wheel arches can corrode but repair panels are available.
Doors rust in a fairly predictable pattern. The front wing suffers round the headlamp ring, but much more so at the bottom of the rear of the wing, just in front of the door.
All these rust problems can be cured. The problem is trading time against cost. If you can do all the work, the cost will be very low. If you have to get someone else to do the work the cost rapidly rises until ,the point where you must ask yourself, "Is it worth it?"
Inspecting a car
Imagine you are going to look at a Cortina offered for sale. I want to give some broad advice about making lists of problems as you choose a car to buy. Don't buy the first car offered unless you are absolutely sure it is what you want and is restorable. Read this section first.
The best plan of action is to take a note pad and pen to the car and start at the front and work towards the back. Write down each and every fault you notice. Don't worry if things look trivial, write everything down and sift through it all later.
Let's take an imaginary look at a second-hand Cortina. I've got my pad and pen, and I'm going to start from the front. The first thing I notice is the badge which I think should be on the radiator grill. It is missing, so I write that down. The near-side indicator lens is cracked, but not too badly. That might be an M.O.T. problem. I'll write that down too. Under the bumper, the lower part of the front panel is a bit rusty. A closer inspection will show that it is mostly surface rust, where paint is missing. That is jotted down in the book.
Having followed this plan on the front and sides of the car, its now time to look inside. Okay, the driver's seat is ripped, well not so much ripped, more some stitching has broken. That's very common! That can be fixed quite easily, so I'll jot it down. Now it is time to turn on the ignition and see what engine and electrical faults are present.
I've turned on the sidelights and noticed that the right hand side of the dashboard does not seem to light up very brightly. I suspect that a bulb or bulbs are blown behind the dashboard. Most people can't be bothered to replace blown dashboard bulbs so don't be surprised if some don't work. They do make a big difference to a restored car.
Turning on the ignition ONLY (I've not tried to start the car yet) I find the indicators work. I know that because the dashboard lights wink steadily. If there was a problem the light would either stay on steady or flash very quickly. (The correct flashing rate is between 60 and 120 flashes per minute for the M.O.T. test).
The chrome work round the instruments looks a bit tarnished, but that can be cleaned up with a cotton bud and some cleaning fluid. I'll note that down.
Most things seem to work, including the windscreen wipers.
Smells a bit in here. I wonder if the carpet is wet. Thought so. A soggy wet carpet and under felt, covering a rusty floor panel. Looks like the carpet can be dried out and saved, but I might need to weld in a new floor panel. I'll note that down in the book and try and remember to look at the same panel when I'm under the car. I should be able to knock something off the price if I am going to have to spend money having it welded. (Don't tell the owner you can weld! He'll only stick to his original asking price).
Time to try and start the car. It is turning over okay, but is reluctant to start. Right, it started on the fourth try, so it may need attention, or it might be my technique on this particular car. Once the motor has warmed up, I'll blip the throttle a few times and look for smoke from the exhaust. Talking of exhaust, there is a hissing noise, so I now suspect either a leaking exhaust or a leaking intake manifold gasket.
Time to have a look under the bonnet. Seems like a lot of wet oil around the top of the rocker box. That usually means that there is a lot of back pressure within the engine caused by worn piston rings. It might just be that the crankcase breather is blocked -- I'll hope that is the explanation as it is a lot quicker and cheaper to fix than piston rings!
The battery looks pretty old. There is a lot of horrible white "gunge" around the terminals and there is a suspect wire dangling from the battery post. Perhaps the owner has had some accessory connected directly to the battery.
I don't want to labour this example, but you should have the idea by now. Note down everything you discover about the car, either problems, or things you need to check later.
While you are making this inspection and compiling an ever-growing list, the current owner is making disapproving noises, wanting to know why you are putting so much effort into what he thinks is a "banger". The answer is that you are going to have to spend a lot of your valuable time working on this car to get it back into a satisfactory state of repair. Whether you are spending 20 pounds, 200 pounds or 2,000 pounds, make a thorough examination of what you are buying. As the old saying says, "Marry in haste and repent at leisure." Now ask for a test drive.
Which Cortina?
Let's pretend you have the choice of every Cortina in the land. Which one should you go for?
Cortinas were made in 1200cc and 1500cc versions but the 1200cc had the three bearing crankshaft. If you have the choice, go for the 1500cc example as the extra power makes for a smoother, nicer car to drive.
There is also little to choose between an early or late model, but the later ones have disc brakes, so let's go for one of them. Saloon, Super, Estate or G.T.? If you want a G.T., then you know what you are looking for and should be prepared to pay a little more, both for the car and for insurance. The car may also have been worked bloody hard at some time in the last thirty-five years, so have an extra careful look before buying. You don't really want someone's rally car right-off. If you are looking for a Lotus, heed the advice given a few paragraphs ahead!
Cortina Estates are more difficult to find so you may have to look quite hard to find the one you want.
That leaves us with a 1500cc, disc braked saloon. I much prefer a two-door car as it seems they are simpler to restore. Those two extra doors can add a lot to the bill especially if they are rusty. So why not look for a two door Super, with some extra chrome-work on the side.
Cortinas are some of the most practical every-day classics ever built. Although the scrap yard spare parts source is drying up quickly there are still plenty of cheap spares around. Quite why the Anglia and Cortina don't have their own horde of specialist dealers like the Morris Minor is hard to understand. The cars still turn heads, are completely practical even today and are very cheap to run. Why wait?
Lotus - Friend or Fraud!
Finding a genuine Lotus Cortina can be a problem. The safest answer is first to check with the Lotus Cortina Register to find out if the car is known to the club, and second to take an expert with you when you look at the car.
The following tips may be helpful when taking an initial look. Mike Jordan, ex-Chairman of the MK1 Cortina Owners Club provided this information in an article in the owners club magazine a few years ago.
The Lotus battery sat in the boot. Look for signs of the battery tray being removed from the engine compartment.
"Lotus xx" should be hand-painted on the metal panel below the rear windscreen, under the trim. This could have been painted onto a 2-door G.T. shell.
The bodyshell was always white, so look out for signs of a respray hiding another colour.
There should be a big nut brazed under the boot floor to locate the spare wheel which lay on the floor rather than in the well as on standard cars.
If there are signs of three badge holes on the rear wings, suspect a G.T. or Super bodyshell.
This is by no means a complete list. As stated, take an expert with you!
Driving a Cortina
I learned to drive in a Cortina 1200 and I remember I had some problems. That was in 1965. I sold my MK1 in 1972 and returned to Cortinas in 1982. The first thing I noticed when getting back behind the wheel, is the size of the steering wheel itself. It feels BIG. However, after ten minutes this feeling disappears and you begin to enjoy the car.
Braking is excellent, even with drum brakes, and unless you tune the engine, you need have no worries about the brakes. If you intend to modify the engine (and they do respond well) you should fit the later disc brakes.
Steering is difficult to describe. Vague is the wrong word, but it does take a bit of getting used to after driving any other car, especially one with rack and pinion steering. There are a number of rubber bushes in the steering mechanisms and if there is any wear, it will show up right away as sloppiness or "play" at the steering wheel.
Gear change is again, well, distinctly Ford. It's an easy box to use but the gear lever has a lot of travelling to do between 1st and 2nd and again between 3rd and 4th. Most early gearboxes on 997cc Anglias and 1340cc Classic and Capri have a "crash" first gear but all later boxes should have synchromesh on first gear. However, I seem to remember a few of the early Cortina 1200s escaped from the factory with early Anglia boxes fitted in September 1962. These were all recalled at the time under a project known (if memory serves) as "Project T".
Seating is comfortable without being sensational, and as with most cars of this era there is little side support. The seat back is relatively flat. Having said that I have done a lot of long distance driving in my Cortina and never had any back aches.
The petrol tanks generally hold around eight gallons, giving a useful cruising range of up to 240 miles, depending on how hard you push the car. The later MK2 tank can be fitted easily, giving ten gallon capacity, but giving you a few headaches with the fuel inlet pipe!