stressed out

[Anonymous]

I have just removed the rear seat from my TE corty and found a big crack in the floor just at the end of the drive line tunnel and. On further inspection I found that the spot welds that hold the top trailing armsto the body have started to pull away.
A similar problem happened to my turbo'ed TE where it pulled the trailing arm mount right of the body it also started to crack at the top of the quarter panels and around the transmision tunnel.
Is this a problem with all corty's that have some power thrown at them
and if so what are my options to stop it?
Oh and im also having prods with tearing the P/S engine mount in half.

 

[MRJLB84D]

sorry i cant offer any advice about yer corty but all i can say id they must twist like a pretzl when some power comes on!

try not to stress dude.... i know its hard...... but just goes to show how much heartache and suffering our passion for cars and our glutten for punishment and the thirst for more hehe.... cars will be cars, just like women, difficult!

 

[xctasy]

Less than 80% of all spot welds on Fords up to 1993 got a full hit of fussion. They all pull out under the stress of engines which have more than 1 hp per 15 pounds. At that level, the chassis, weather its a toughey like an XC or a gellopy like a TC, they all cope an absolute hammering.

The good think is there is real metal to tie into the existing welds. You need to talk to Rod Haddfield from CRS or Bob Pinnell from Cortin/Capri V8 parts. Both understand what uni-body cars do under load, and will have an action plan to fix it. Bob Pinnell is a Sydney sider, can be hard to track down, but he's had 12 second Cortinas and 10 second Capris, so if anyone has got the info, its him. Somewhere, I have his phone number.

In this case, prevention is better than cure, but I've cut through plenty of Cortinas with an axe before, so it's just metal which can be bolstered buck up by flitching up with thick steel pressings. Best you decide on a dollar value you can afford, and attack it before someone gives it a defect or canary.

The Cortina four link set-up is actually very good. It just needs good quality pick-up points and bushes to work well. Believe me, that's as bad as it gets!

Often, a good auto body place will be able to help if you take some photos.

 

[Anonymous]

Gassed,
The problem that you describe has been with six cylinder cortinas since the late sevneties.
First to pull out is the upper right floor mount, then the upper left side.
Usually accompanied with a horrible knocking noise from the rear.
The upper mounts were rivetted in but some could have been welded in.
In the old days, the fix was to grind off the rivet heads. Punch them through and make up a plate over the mounts. Both sides covering all the rivet mount points and some over lap.
This was secured to the floor and mig welded. Using the plug type of weld to fill in the hole.
This was time consuming, but generally fixed the problem.
This also was generally dealing with late model standard cars.
Hope this helps or brings up some ideas.
Noel.

 

[alloydave]

Bit of a problem in that area those cortinas . My mk 3 corty 2litre pulled the mount completly out of the floor ..... that might of been doin burnouts with 4 guys in the car. I had it welded twice and it busted twice ,i welded it the third time very dodgy and sold it. Hope all goes well with the repairs.

cheers Dave