I've owned my 1967 Ford Anglia 105E since August 2003! I purchased it as an MOT failure, requiring only a little work to get it back on the road. However, me being me, decided that wasn't going to be enough, and set about thinking what I could do to modify/improve on it, given that it only had the standard 997cc pre-crossflow engine!!
So, a few months later I found myself a Mk2 Escort with a 1600cc crossflow engine - perfect! Purchased the car, stripped it down, sold the bare shell for £5 more than I paid for the complete car, and started work on making the Escort running gear fit.
I stripped down the Anglia, removed the engine, gearbox, interior and the complete front suspension & steering! I modified the Escort front cross-member slightly in order to bolt it to the Anglia chassis, and added an extra leaf to each of the rear springs to stiffen it up a bit.
And that's pretty much where it sat while I did other things. Until early 2006 when I decided that, after having my Prelude for about a year, I wanted my "weekend, fun car" to be a little more powerful than the 1600cc crossflow.
So, after some thinking, I decided on the Nissan 200SX as the donor vehicle, with it's 1.8 litre turbo, giving 170bhp as standard, and more power very easily available! I purchased a 200SX, stripped it down, and put all the components away ready for starting, once I'd finished up a few more things with my Prelude (having only 1 day a week, if that, to do work to my cars!).
However, that plan was soon scuppered when in October 2006 I had an accident in my Prelude, and I decided to strip it down and rebuild it from the ground up. That took 10 months, and quite a lot of my money, so the work on the Anglia yet again took a back seat.
Until this week, that is, when I finally rolled the car into the garage, and have now started properly on the build!
The first things that need doing is sorting out the tinworm that's infested the body, and replace the door pillars and sills both sides, where they are almost non-existent, and try to put some strength and rigidity back into the car, so that it will take the hike in power from the standard 40bhp to 200+bhp!
So that's where I am currently - I need strip back to bare metal and remove as much rust/surface rust as possible, so we know what to cut out or repair, or what can be left as is. Going to do it right, first time, rather than having to come back to it in a few years! We'll support the car on axle stands, and remove the sills, and then re-attach the sills and door pillars, with lovely new panels from the spares section of the Ford Anglia 105E Owner's Club (who I purchased the panels from back in 2005, and have only just been unboxed this weekend!!)
Further updates won't be too regular - as it stands, the car is at my dad's, and I probably won't get there much more than once a month or so, so it'll be a long build/project, but it's started now, and I'll be determined to get as much done as possible when I am there, and it also gives me an opportunity to stagger the cost of any parts I'll be requiring!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll enjoy reading this project log as much as I'll enjoy doing the project!
