However I don't think the Mk2 Escort shell is made in the UK with our higher wage rates and overheads?R&R wrote:You can buy a complete mk2 escort shell for 7k, and they made all new tooling for it.
Complete new Mk1 shell
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mab01uk
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Re: Complete new Mk1 shell
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R&R
Re: Complete new Mk1 shell
No it isn't, and perhaps with the cheaper pound the home market is not the target for heritage at the moment.
We rebuild shells on a daily basis, and I am regularly expected to, and can achieve substantially higher quality, at considerably less cost. We have a purpose built jig, with a myriad of bolt on fixtures, shrinkers, stretchers, jenny's, and a good selection of home-made hammer forming tools to make repair bits that we can't buy. You may argue that to build a shell from panels is more labour intensive than to repair an old one, and while it may be true for a small amount of good original shells, we are now repairing more heavily corroded bodies using heritage and m-machine panels which take considerably more work than putting one together from panels.
The heritage Mk1 shell clearly shows the issues with slapping one together with as manufactured panels, and if we were to do that it would look much the same but we couldn't get away with it, but I think we could buy the panels, make them fit and build a shell for the same or less that looks pretty much perfect. To rebuild a shell using Heritage panels I can list off the top of my head the following failings with the latest panels we have received:
"Mk1" back panel - swage line at the waist different height at each end, and badly formed. The gutter edge is not deep enough to allow the roof and back panel to fit close enough
Rear quarter panels (Mk3) - the edge under the rear quarter window is not straight on either side, falling away by about 3mm over the rearmost 75mm, needing to be levelled and filled prior to paint.
Mk1 doors - hinge holes punched badly, top frame not square, and need considerable and lengthy dose of gentle persuasion to fit correctly. Would be better supplied as frame and skin.
Mk1 L/H inner wing - pressings for hinge stiffeners approximately 15mm too low, needed to be re-formed higher up.
Windscreen aperture - cant rail fitted as standard but about 5mm closer to one side than the other, impossible to fit, drill off and fit old cant rail.
Bonnet - gull-winged across the centre, needed shrinking back up. Front curve does not match front panel, alter front panel to suit.
wings- hours of work to get to fit.
There is more, but hopefully you understand the frustration of dealing with this on one side and the customer that sometimes thinks it goes together like lego!
We rebuild shells on a daily basis, and I am regularly expected to, and can achieve substantially higher quality, at considerably less cost. We have a purpose built jig, with a myriad of bolt on fixtures, shrinkers, stretchers, jenny's, and a good selection of home-made hammer forming tools to make repair bits that we can't buy. You may argue that to build a shell from panels is more labour intensive than to repair an old one, and while it may be true for a small amount of good original shells, we are now repairing more heavily corroded bodies using heritage and m-machine panels which take considerably more work than putting one together from panels.
The heritage Mk1 shell clearly shows the issues with slapping one together with as manufactured panels, and if we were to do that it would look much the same but we couldn't get away with it, but I think we could buy the panels, make them fit and build a shell for the same or less that looks pretty much perfect. To rebuild a shell using Heritage panels I can list off the top of my head the following failings with the latest panels we have received:
"Mk1" back panel - swage line at the waist different height at each end, and badly formed. The gutter edge is not deep enough to allow the roof and back panel to fit close enough
Rear quarter panels (Mk3) - the edge under the rear quarter window is not straight on either side, falling away by about 3mm over the rearmost 75mm, needing to be levelled and filled prior to paint.
Mk1 doors - hinge holes punched badly, top frame not square, and need considerable and lengthy dose of gentle persuasion to fit correctly. Would be better supplied as frame and skin.
Mk1 L/H inner wing - pressings for hinge stiffeners approximately 15mm too low, needed to be re-formed higher up.
Windscreen aperture - cant rail fitted as standard but about 5mm closer to one side than the other, impossible to fit, drill off and fit old cant rail.
Bonnet - gull-winged across the centre, needed shrinking back up. Front curve does not match front panel, alter front panel to suit.
wings- hours of work to get to fit.
There is more, but hopefully you understand the frustration of dealing with this on one side and the customer that sometimes thinks it goes together like lego!