G'Day from Perth, Western Australia.
Hi my name is Tim, and this is my 1975 FORD Cortina TD XLE and it is very much a work in progress (just like this webpage)and I'm glad I now have somewhere to share the Joys and Dissappointments of giving the TD a new lease of life and for it to become a..... TD 2 NV
WATCH THIS SPACE UPDATE & PICS COMMING VERY SOON
Dateline: 2nd May 2002
The story begins....
Talk about being in the right place at the right time.
While out about one day I started chatting to an old couple who mentioned they were heading up to the northern part of Western Australia, I spied the Cortina in the garage and asked some questions about it and telling them that a mate had bright orange one when I was a teenager and we had some great times in it....
The old bloke looked thoughtful and said "You know, my son was going to do it up, but he's headed over to New Zealand and we can't take it up north with us....do you wanna buy it?"
After asking how much, his reply was well I reckon $1 for every one of it's horses and it's yours... at this stage it had a 6 cylnder 4.1 250 pre-crossflow motor in it so the price was set at AUD$250...
The Corty needed a bit of TLC to get it going, for example cause it had been in the shed for so long the mouse crap had to be cleaned out, the battery was gone and the starter motor was on it's way out. The pressure plate needed some attention as did the vehicle rego
How the Corty used to look back in 1975
Dateline: June 2002
Let's get her running....
Pretty much all I could say to the mechanic who fortunately had his workshop just down the road, when the car stalled and wouldn't start again. At this stage the battery was replaced, clutch assembly and tune up was performed along with a oil change.
When I went to check how the car was going and thank the mechanic for his hard labour, he said that the car had got some interest from passers by and one bloke even left his name and number...just in case I wanted to sell it. I asked the mechanic to put a sign on the dash stating "NOT FOR SALE"
(There have been times looking back that maybe I should have taken that bloke up on his offer lol)
Dateline: August 2003
If you think you're getting a good deal, think again.....
The car I bought for $250AUD minus the windscreen due to having the rust cut out.
As you can see from the pic above, the girl needed a complete makeover... nearly 30 years is a long time to be going without a mjor facelift.
Sometimes things happen for a reason,after getting a few quotes and knowing what I had in my wallet, I got put onto a bloke who would do a complete strip and respray for AUD$2,500.
I know alarm bells should have been ringing...(as I had been quoted anywhere between $4,500 & $6,000AUD),but the guy was retired, had a pretty good set up and my instructions were straight forward...strip her back and paint her Midnight Blue.
Dissappointment No.1
Well what can I say...when someone gives you your car back and says it'll come up alright once it's been cut back and polished...sometimes actions speak louder than words and he can think himself lucky I didn't act on my thoughts to choke him...you guessed it the workmanship was absolute crap..we're talking orange peel finish, crows feet cracking 'cause it wasn't prepped properly, missed areas where it should have been painted, chips where the primer was too thick and overspray on windows/engine and the bloody refurbished rims/new tyres.
Here's a pic of when it rolled out....
Disappointment leads to asking the question what the heck do I do now?....
Continued Page 2
