Who The Fuck Is Harry Potter?

[nellydragracer]

Hello and welcome. First of all I'd like to begin with an idea I stole from Hayden (Anonymoose), I'm a huge fan of music and will always have something playing whilst I'm browsing the interwebs. Below are a selection of albums, for you to (or not to, if you so wish) choose from, that I absolutely adore.


First up we have Biffy Clyro, a Scottish trio who love to bash out guitar based madness. This being the third album, and in my opinion their best, sees them push their sound to the limit.


Second on the list we have Thom Yorke (off of Radiohead) with his solo album, The Eraser. Quite possibly the most important electronic based album ever made, multi layered original beats pierced by haunting, yet meaningful lyrics.


And last, by no means least, Elbow and Seldom Seen Kid. Stunningly beautiful from start to finish saw Elbow rewarded for their endeavours by receiving the 2008 Mercury Music Prize. This video is of a concert they did where they played the full album. Headphones required for this beauty.



And now for our feature presentation...

Seven years ago as a 21 year old with a love for classic Fords wanted for nothing more than a Mk2 escort, but with prices of decent two door examples rising rapidly, I had no hope of being able to afford one. So that's when I started to look at Anglia 105Es, again, ever so slightly out of reach for a humble mechanics meagre wage.

Until one day, this showed up at work. A 1961 Ford Anglia 105e Deluxe, with a 997cc engine. Fun fact, on it's release in 1959 the Anglia outsold British Leylands Mini 2/1.


One of my boss' friends had this baby sat in his garage since 1991 and wanted to transfer the registration number onto another car, now, in the UK a car has to have a valid MOT for that to happen. We gave it a look over to see what kind of condition it was in, to see if it would pass an MOT, but as you can probably guess, she had quite a bit of the old tin worm, and the owner wasn't willing to spend any money on repairing the car. I said to my boss that I liked the car, so he spoke to the owner, and a deal was made. I do the repair work to get it through it's MOT and he keeps the plate, which he had had valued at £1,500. Sweet.

She was rusty, very rusty. But after just over a year, she was back on the road.
Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on FlickrAnglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Don't know what the fuck happened there, and I'm too lazy to fix it.

Anyways here's how she ended up looking, sat on Blackpool Promenade, during the North West Stages.
Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr
Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

But then winter hit, and hit hard (the worst winter in The UK for decades) so you can imagine that these old cars a bit of a twat to start in cold weather, and getting increasingly annoyed with the fuel line getting clogged with rust on almost every journey, I bought a 325tds as a daily and laid up the old anglebox...
Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

More soon.

[rice4life]

Woah, I've never seen one of these before. This could be awesome!

Have you considered swapping in a new engine, or going fuel injected instead of carbed?

[P78]

this will be worth following

[conor1992]

Looking awesome mate! Love Anglias! Going to Classic Ford or Ford Fair this year?

As for engine...Cossie power?

Looks good on the Compomotives too.

[nellydragracer]

Woah, I've never seen one of these before. This could be awesome!

Have you considered swapping in a new engine, or going fuel injected instead of carbed?

Thanks, it should be pretty awesome, when it's done. That's not surprising, haha. I don't think many of these made it across the pond.

I never considered efi, it was way out of budget, no doubt it would helped with the cold start but the main problem was the fuel tank. It was very rusty on the inside and with the fuel pick-up only being 1/4 inch, it kept blocking up.

this will be worth following

Thanks, I'm glad you think so.

Looking awesome mate! Love Anglias! Going to Classic Ford or Ford Fair this year?

As for engine...Cossie power?

Looks good on the Compomotives too.

It probably won't be done until next year, then I'll be whoring it out at every possible opportunity, lol. I'll be dropping in a 2.1 pinto, which is making 185hp... Should make it lively. Got those bad boy compos for £40!

[conor1992]

Ah fair enough haha. Well that's good to hear! ohhh very nice! Always good to keep it period corect I suppose. Will deifnitely fly. Whats?! No way! Where did you find them? THere without a doubt my favourite wheel and seem to suit every ford!

[nellydragracer]

Ah fair enough haha. Well that's good to hear! ohhh very nice! Always good to keep it period corect I suppose. Will deifnitely fly. Whats?! No way! Where did you find them? THere without a doubt my favourite wheel and seem to suit every ford!

A friend of mine worked with a couple of rally boys who used to run a Peugeot 205, years ago, and he had the compos sat in his shed for years. He said he wanted rid of 'em, he said I could take them away for a tenner a wheel. I bit his tucking arm off!

[nellydragracer]

The Anglia was in storage from the winter of 2009 and having a nice modern car that started first time, every time, and could travel at 70 without revving the dick out of the engine. I regrettably neglected the poor car, so in the summer of 2012 a plan was hatched to put the Anglia back on road.

A couple of years before hand, I had bought a sort of wheels from a guy who had a unit next door to our garage, here they being trial fitted.
Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

The goal now was to have the car sat on decent suspension, because up to this point the front springs had a couple of coils chopped off, and the rear had the standard leaf springs with some lowering blocks.
A few evenings trawling the internet lead me to Teamdeville.co.uk, this one man band races Anglias and through the development of his cars lead to him selling upgrades for these cars.

So in came some adjustable strut inserts
Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

And some de-cambered single leaf springs, for the rear.
Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

I set to work converting the front struts to accept 2.25" springs.

Removal of now redundant lower spring perch.
Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

All cleaned up and sprayed with weld through primer.

Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

All welded up.

Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Complete assembly awaiting springs. Somehow I forgot to get photos of them all done... D'oh!

Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Not long after I'd finished the front suspension, I lost my storage space, luckily my boss kind enough to let me use one of his empty lock-ups. When we got the car back he asked what my plans were for it, and ultimately where I wanted to end up. I just wanted to sort the wheels and suspension, sell the BM and just cruise the Anglia around for a while, and then eventually save up some money do an engine conversion and finally do something with bodywork. He said if you're going to do all that work just to put it back on the road, just to take it off again to do a ton more work, why not just do it now?

He had a point.

So after another six months in storage, she was pulled into the garage for work to start.

Anglia Project by nellydragracer, on Flickr


I started by removing the engine and gearbox, which was later sold.

Untitled by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Untitled by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Then the interior, again, later sold on to fund the build.

by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Where I found some rust... I know right? A fifty year old car with rust, go figure.

by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Since then work was really busy with other long term jobs, and the little Anglia was put on the back burner... AGAIN.

That was until a week ago when work resumed around a three day weekend, where I got a lot done.

This consisted of an (almost) complete strip down, I left the rear axle in to enable us to move it around.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Then it became time to remove the front wings and front panel.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Believe me when I say it was a lot harder than it looks.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Time to assess the true extent of rot contained within the small Fords chassis.

Drivers foot well.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Passenger A post.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Drivers A post.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Engine bay, Drivers side.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Drivers inner wing.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Passenger inner wing.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Drivers sill (Rocker?)

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

That's pretty much it, corrosion wise. It might look bad but it's no-where near as bad as they can get.

Overall plans for the car consist of;

2.1 pinto engine
BMW manual gearbox
Steering rack conversion
Front brake disc conversion.
Rear telescopic damper conversion
Fibreglass flip front
Golf wheel arch extensions
Full re-paint
A sporty, yet functional interior, no so stripped out/cage bull shit.

But first things first is to repair all the rust before I start chopping the bulkhead out

[forkintheforest]

Best of luck, sounds like a lot of work ahead.

[rice4life]

Holy rust, good luck

I just realized something.

This

Is the same car as yours.

The title went way over my head. I forgot about the flying car.

[nellydragracer]

Best of luck, sounds like a lot of work ahead.

Thanks, it may take a while.

Holy rust, good luck

I just realized something.

This

Is the same car as yours.

The title went way over my head. I forgot about the flying car.

She is quite rusty, but normally on these it can get a whole lot worse.

Yeah, it's same car. People's normal response when I tell them it's an Anglia, is "Ohh it's the harry Potter car!..."

[Greg|H]

Cool Anglia, it'll be awesome with the pinto in it! Good luck with getting the tin worm sorted first though.

[7075x4130]

Am i the only person thinking gasser??

[NeilP]

Thread title + Elbow. Win.

[nellydragracer]

Cool Anglia, it'll be awesome with the pinto in it! Good luck with getting the tin worm sorted first though.

Thanks.

Am i the only person thinking gasser??

Yes, yes you are.

Thread title + Elbow. Win.

Haha, I saw it as a sticker on the back of another Anglia, a while ago.

I fucking love that album, so good.


This post should see this right up to date.

Here I start by tackling the rust in the drivers inner wing area, it didn't look too bad, but then I tapped it with a hammer...

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Turret section cut out, this is basically one of three parts. The turret, inner wing/chassis box.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Inner wing cut out.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

The inside of the chassis was pretty good, just some surface rust, so I liberally spread some rust dissolver on there and then laid down some Por 15 chassis paint. Also sprayed some zinc primer on the edges to be welded.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Then moved onto the repair panels, overall I needed to make two plates but to simplify the job, I split the inner wing section into two parts, so three altogether.

First part of the inner wing.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Edges trimmed and refined, and holes drilled.

Anglia project progress by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Turret section.

Anglia project progress by nellydragracer, on Flickr

All three plates almost ready to be welded in, still have the holes to drill in the turret section, but other than that they're ready.

Anglia project progress by nellydragracer, on Flickr

And a parting black and white photo, for shits and giggles.

Anglia project progress. by nellydragracer, on Flickr

Should have some more progress on Friday.