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Cascade
Autosport offers its customers world class auto restoration
service of both vintage road cars and vintage race
cars. Our talented staff have years of experience
restoring vintage competition vehicles to factory caliber
presentation.
Cascade Autosport is a
specialist in preparing vintage race cars for historic racing
competition, with experience in Alfa Romeo, Porsche, BMW,
Lotus, and early English Ford among others. We can perform for
our clients everything from basic to extensive motorsport
preparation, in addition to safety and performance updates to
existing race cars, and even race damage repair.
Cascade Autosport prepares modern race and rally cars to
world-class competition standards utilizing cutting edge
technology, and the finest craftsmanship. We draw from this
extensive experience to prepare classic vintage racecars
faithfully to their period correct competition specification,
while offering the most current technology in safety. This and
our commitment to integrity in business, has made us a
favorite among the Pacific Northwest historic racing
community.
Armed with photos and drawings of factory rally cars, the team
at Cascade Autosport moved forward to build this vehicle to be
an exacting replication of how the factory built these rally
cars back in the 1960's with the addition of modern safety
equipment.
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1968 Ford
Cortina GT owned by Glenn Wallace
Step
1: The Before |
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The car was
purchased for $500 in 1996 as part of collection of
6 Cortinas. As well as the car, Glenn also got 2
standard shells to strip for parts.
Some of the panels used in the rebuild came from
these cars. The GT was in rough but solid shape,
coming equipped with all the good GT equipment
(larger brakes, semi-close ratio gearbox, radius
arms).
There was some pre existing impact damage to the
front fender, the trunk area and the floor. |
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Step
2: Post Metal Striping |
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Media blasting is a
good way to remove layers of paint and rust without
damaging the metal itself.
Unfortunately the media blasting revealed the front
floor was a lot thinner than originally thought.
However it did also reveal that the rust damage in
the usual areas (sills, front strut tops) was quite
minimal. |
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Step
3: Rust Repair and Shell Straightening |
Remanufactured front
floor panels and trunk repair sections were
sourced from Ex-Pressed
Steel Panels Ltd in the UK. Some pieces (main
lateral crossmember which had been impact damaged)
were knitted in from the cars Glenn had stripped.
The floor was quite a jigsaw puzzle at one point but
it all came together! The Ford factory chassis diagram
served as a reference point not only to check the
shell turned out true and straight, but to also check
aperture dimensions for trunk and hood openings to
make sure the repairs were to specification.
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Step
4: Shell Reinforcement |
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The shell was seam
welded and gusseted in accordance with the period
Ford diagrams, and other period reference books.
We also obtained copies of the original Ford
"export bracing" kit from Ex-Pressed
Panels. These are pieces which reinforce the front
strut turrets to prevent strut "punch
through" and form a much stronger engine bay.
Brackets for the modern OMP seats were also fitted,
as well as tubular cross braces to support the rear
of the seats, as well as serving as crotch strap
anchor points.
Glenn decided to
purchase an FIA cretified 6 point roll cage with
removable rear diagonal and door bars, but it was
built to order using 1.5" diameter 0.120"
wall thickness tubing. FIA and SCCA historic
regulations limit roll cages to 6 attachment points.
The test fitting was important to check the fit of
the cage. Unfortunately while the bends were
perfect, the jigging of a couple of the brackets was
less than perfect, so we were able to obtain new
brackets, weld them in the correct position, and
test fit the cage. It was then powder coated.
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Step 5: Paint |
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After careful
priming and sanding, we painted the car in Ermine
White, Ford's color of choice for rally cars in the
late 60's.
The interior was painted satin black, which was also
common on works cars to avoid unwanted reflection. |
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Step 6: Reassembly |
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Some of the components being fitted:
- New headlining and carpet(!)
- New windshield and rubbers
- AH Fabrications Group 4 foam filled alloy
fuel tank (designed for Mk 1 Lotus
Cortina) with custom support bracket
built by Cascade Autosport
- Twin Facet fuel pumps
- Filter King fuel pressure regulator
- Leda 24 way front struts with 170lb and
200lb coil-over front spring selections
Leda 24 way rear shocks, up rated 116lb
rear leaf springs
- Mintex 1155/1166 front brake pads
- Hydraulic handbrake
- AP rear brake bias adjustment
- Spherical bearing alloy top strut mounts
- 1" front sway bar with adjustable castor
"anti-dive" front sway bar mount box
- Safety Devices SAC-Tech fire system
- Terraphone Plus intercom
- Motolita steering wheel (period correct)
- Halda Twinmaster (period correct)
- Butler map light (period correct)
- OMP Waldegard (driver) and OMP WRC
Fibra (navigator) seats
- Willans 5pt harnesses
- 138BHP 1760cc engine, machining and
dyno tuning by Ivey Engines, Portland
- AP heavy duty clutch
- Salisbury LSD
- Minilite 13 x 6 heat treated aluminum
wheels (period correct)
- Silverstone gravel tires
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Step 7: The Finalé |
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Visit
the MagnetoSport
team site for more details.
TOP |
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