“Screwing” a car round a corner!

[Ron ColvinParticipant @roncolvin83430]

The late James Hunt former Grand Prix world champion, owned a Austin A35 van. He was quoted as saying that it was his favourite road car because he could drive it at the limit without driving illegally.

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

The most oversteer fun I ever had was in my 1930s Frazer Nash. Chain drive to a solid rear axle – no differential. The back would swing out at almost any speed. They don't make them like that anymore

Russell

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

A friend has an old Morgan that has been converted from 3 to 4 wheels, but without a diff! He says that the best way to take a roundabout is fast enough to lift one wheel. or hard in the wet.

Young and mad? No he is just over eighty!

The early 1.8 Single carb Marinas, without the multi bar rear axle location used on the twin carb ones, definitely steered on the throttle, especially in the wet! Reasonably predictable, but not a feature that i would use as a selling point!

I had a 1200 Anglia, with factory fitted uprate springs, and Willment extra front anti roll bar and ride valves in in the rear dampers. On Michelin Xs it had good road holding, (for the time ) but you had to be careful as you neared the limit. The difference between stuck to the road and lots of opposite lock was less that 5 mph, especially on wet bumpy tarmac!

The Renault 16 had very soft suspension, but if you could tolerate the roll angle, it would keep with a Mini in a corner.

The Skoda 110R with the weight at the back, and its wide tyres was superb in snow, as long as you were aware of the lack of weight on the front wheels. In a straight line, you could accelerate as if the road was dry. But DON'T lift off in a corner if you wanted to stay on the road. A typical swing axle car in that respect.

Ah! The joys of youth!

Howard

Edited By Howard Lewis on 29/04/2019 17:09:49

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Some of us could only afford an A30. It didn't drift but did tend to two wheels on tight corners. Good value at £27.10s and for an adrenaline surge drive use the overtaking lane of the A1 in rain. I blew the big ends after 18mths but still made it home from Henley on Thames to Bedford albeit at 25mph.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

We used to fit the Capri (consul variety of the early 60s) front struts and discs, along with a servo, to the Anglias. 1500GT engine, or warmer, and they went like ‘dung’ off a shovel. Almost stood on end when stopping with 185 Goodyear Grand Prix tyres (from a 3 litre capri of the late 60s early 70s). Much faster and more fun than the 1100 minis around at the time. The wheels and tryes filtered down to the Escort Mk 1 ex-panda car that eventually had nearly everything changed, apart from the body, in the early/mid 70s. A Mexico on a shoe string!

[JonParticipant @jon]

Wasnt the Capri 1 same running gear as the Anglias. Capri 2 and 3 was the same as Escorts interchangeable.

CN36 185X60X13 standard tyres on a 79 German made Capri 2 S, not the best for stopping but decent, Yoko A008 awesome in all weather when they were UK road legal. Coarse spline prop and gearbox used to wave by by to the 3ltr Capris and had the edge on the 2.8 Colognes baby used to handle as well unlike any other.

Always wanted a genuine Escort Twin Cam could have got plenty around £400 in 1980 but wanted £400 3rd party. Did refuse a Cooper S in 82 it had seat runners welded further back £225.
Just think what both would be worth nowadays

[Cornish JackParticipant @cornishjack]

Couldn't ever afford any 'performance' metal when I was young enough to enjoy it, so had to make do with our staff transport in Bangkok – a Morris J2!! Couple Thai tarmac with total front end weight and frustrated youth (speedwise) and the results were quite spectacular! All that AND a column change to boot!

Aaaaah – days of yore!

rgds

Bill

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Jon on 03/05/2019 19:51:34:

Wasnt the Capri 1 same running gear as the Anglias. Capri 2 and 3 was the same as Escorts interchangeable.

Can’t say that any of the consul capri parts were truly interchangeable. I only remember swapping the front suspension struts to my brother’s anglia. Springs were much longer and likely softer spring rate. The discs were the attraction at the time.

Some parts were interchangeable between Escort and Capri, but we had to mix and match a bit. I thought I had Mexico struts (they turned out to be RS versions) but needed capri steering arms to fit the Escort.

My Escort was a fair mixture of selected parts – including Corsair GT front springs and discs, especially heavy duty rear springs (I broke the heavy duty originals as fitted to the Panda cars). I think the servo was from the Corsair. Engine was a pre-crossflow 1600 short engine which had butchered pistons because it “rattled like a bag of beans” when fitted, so the pistons were ‘chiseled’ before it was eventually left under a bench, in a local garage, as scrap.

I found it had 7/16” cam followers fitted instead of 1/2”, so we were never sure of its origins! The pistons were turned down shorter along with valve pockets at March (racing car) engineering and a flat heron head fitted. With a 3.78 diff and 2000E gearbox it was great to drive! Scruffy car that blew away quite a few who tried to out-run us!

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Jon on 03/05/2019 19:51:34:

Wasnt the Capri 1 same running gear as the Anglias. Capri 2 and 3 was the same as Escorts interchangeable.

In a word, no.

Mk 1,2 and 3 Capri front suspensions are the same, and the design is the same as an Escort but wider. So you can fit Escort struts and arms to a Capri or vice versa. Capri/Escort crossmembers, steering racks and anti-rollbars look the same but are different widths. They're nothing like an Anglia!

Rear suspensions and floorpans are more like a mk2 Cortina, but nothing is quite the same. Mk1 Capri axles are basically the same as mk2/3(Ford never called them that, mk3 is actually a facelift mk2) but narrower. Small Capri axles are the same as Escort/Anglia(known as 'English axles&#39 but are different widths.

So you can build allsorts of hybrid combinations with factory parts: mk1s with 2.8injection engines and PAS using 2.8i crossmembers; mk3s with 3.0l and manual steering with mk1 crossmember and rack; mk1 3.0l with PAS using mk2 3.0l crossmember; mk3 2.8 with manual steering using 2.0l rackmounts welded to a V6 crossmember etc etc. I've done all of those for various reasons

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

The mention of Morris J2’s brings back numerous bad memories of how abysmal the gearchange was, remember sitting at a junction in Croydon High Street, back in the early 60’s, and could only get reverse gear no matter how many times we tried to select a forward gear. You can imagine the chaos that caused, had the misfortune to travel many miles in them at the time as I was working on a mobile maintenance unit in the Air Force, in later years the Air Force used a lot of Bedford CF’s, a definite improvement but at speeds around 60 mph the vibration could become unbearable. Those were the days, thankfully long gone.

On my own vehicles, I owned a Triumph Herald Estate in the late 60’s which I fitted out with the latest radial tyres, Michelin ZX radials, I am not sure that it was an improvement road holding wise as I remember one day negotiating a fairly slow corner and all grip on the front end disappeared and I went straight on over the curb and through a fence. Fortunately there was more damage to my pride than to the car.

Dave W

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Was that the one where gears 1 & 3 and 2 & 4 were reversed? Or was it the J4? Whichever it was , one of my colleagues was sat in the middle of a minivan (you can tell how long ago that was – no seatbelts & no one batted an eye at three people in the front) and he was operating the gear lever on command from the driver. Unfortunately he had been driving one of the J2's or J4's all day and when asked to move into 3rd, somehow managed to get it into 1st! And no, he didn't strip the gearbox.

Which reminds me of another tale. Another of my colleagues rebuilt a 2 stroke scooter engine and got the timing slightly out – at least, I think that's what it was. Anyway, stopped at traffic lights, the engine coughed, and carried on running. My colleague let the clutch out, and promptly went backwards into the vehicle behind!

Peter G. Shaw

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

The Messerschmitt KR 200 three wheeler had to have the engine stopped before reversing as you used a control to slightly alter the ignition timing which when the engine was restarted meant the engine was rotating in reverse. This meant that you had the same number of gears in reverse as you had forwards, I think if I remember correctly it was a three speed gearbox. A simple solution for a two stroke engine. I would very much like to acquire an Old KR 200 but alas I fear its cost would far exceed what I would be able to justify to my financial controller.

Dave W

[JonParticipant @jon]

Tar Nick i used to buy and fit Escort stuff to my old Mark 3 Capri including double width anti roll bar bushes, Sachs strut inserts gas, track rods ends, track control arms etc. Rack was different and only trouble had was the spring rates and supposed free lengths to give ride height required.

From memory had to go 8" free length for RS Escort. should have given -1" ride height. It gained 2 1/4"

Gearbox, prop and axle was German coarse spline. English and the 5 sp were a lot finer.
Took it round the clock twice on two engines and just about everything else.

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