New Year

 I woke up late on my 60th birthday, that could be considered a good thing, normally I would've been woken by the thumping & gurgling of the central heating, but not today. Then I found out why - the central heating was dead.

I tested a few things & established it was the heating servo-valve, I replaced the hot water one a couple of months ago. So I ordered a replacement & set about fixing it. My brother arrived 1/2 way through, so he had to sit & watch while I faffed about.

With that mended (& working better than it has since I moved in) I cooked us some lunch & we headed out to the garage to review progress. The fuel system is now complete & could be run if there was any electricity in the car. The radiator is mounted - a little further forward than previously because I don't need to use the standard hoses, so I can have a little more space.

So it was time to look at the exhaust. 

I'd been putting it off because I didn't have much of an idea, I did have three exhaust manifolds though. One was a big old cast job for the Zetec, easy to fit & route, but not to connect to as the outlet is about 3 inches across. The second one was described as an "ST170" manifold, it's very wriggly, but doesn't look like a Ford part & it won't fit because one of the wriggles hits the front transverse member in a big way. The third is the CVH manifold that came with the car - obviously it won't fit on the engine.

 

 

 My brother & I looked at fitting the first two, then it occured to me that the pitch of the exhausts was the same between the  Zetec & the CVH, so in theory I could cut the mounting flange off the ST170 & weld it to the CVH.

This developed into cutting the pipes a couple of inches from the mounting flange & inserting the CVH pipes. As you can see this worked just fine, but will it fit on the car?

 

I'd left the straight sections as long as I could, so I started shortening them little by little until......

Yes, yes that's going to be too loud, the joy of the CVH manifold is that it comes to bits, so I can fit it together in stages.

Looking good so far.