The Ford Capri Laser Page

Hi all,

This is my Capri. a 1979 2.0 Ghia in White. I bought the Car in February and truth be told thought what was going to be a quick rolling project (and probably still is ) has still yet to really see the road. Its my first project but definitely not my first classic. (daily car is a mk3 Escort) . The main reason for it being a slow project are due to the electrics. A lot of things didn't seem to work and one day when switching the interior light on, dash dimmer switch and maybe pressed something else ended up with smoke coming out of the dash. Since then i havent really trusted it and with worth left it a lone and did some other little bits to keep interest.
Right now i've gone full tilt and removed the lower half of the Dash board and pulled out the heater blower as i thought this could have been the cause (the heater switch was in the down position at the time of the smoke) .

I'm a little confused as It seems to be missing the heater resistor and i'm unsure what wires would be going to it and in what order if it was there. Any info on this or pictures of your would be appreciated. I think the resistor being missing must have been by past using just the bullet connector and the two blue connectors together, leaving the remaining connector redundant.


Today i cracked open the heater box to look at the motor and matrix.
To me the motor does not look too bad but i'm wondering if it would be worth replacing anyway? I've also heard that Bosch 0130007027 Motors will fit and cost a lot less? can anyone confirm this?
I'm not sure if i should put that matrix back in though? i've seen them for £28 but also wondered if they fit another car for a fraction of the price?

I've also replaced the Starmag (will be selling soon) for more modest set of Ford Sport wheels although i think it need the deep dish one. I've cleaned up that rear bumper and attempted to free off the rear brake as its sticking on. I need to work on the brake a bit more and check if the hub as gone slightly oval. i dismantled the whole mechanism and got the handbrake lever free etc but its was still tight getting the hub back on. I think i'd like to get the car looking more original and put a vinyl roof back on it but its probably going to take longer than i thought with lack of funds. Excited to it on the road as it has an MOT... i just want to get the electrics right as i dont have a temp or fuel gauge either which i'm sure i'll heavily rely on in this car haha

Hi,
Welcome to the forum and thanks for uploading some photos of your lovely 2.0 Ghia.
I take it the red Mk3 in the background is your daily driver?
The heater motor was mentioned on here a while back, apparently the Bosch motor 0130007027 for a Mercedes is a straight swap and costs significantly less than the Capri item. It's worth mentioning that Martin at Capri Gear sells a complete heater unit rebuild kit with the resistor and matrix - that might be worth considering. The matrix definitely looks past it's best to me, and it would be wise to replace that too.
The non-working temperature and fuel gauge may be caused by a faulty voltage regulator behind the dials.
I look forward to seeing how you get on with the various fixes.


Andrew.

Cheers Andrew! I just noticed the Mercedes motor comment after a quick search. Martins kit looks great! I'll definitely be buying a resistor off him just trying to save a few pennies although if i buy the Capri motor it would be worth going for the kit.
I'll be keeping my post updated, i definitely have enough problems to keep me going haha!

Another issue maybe forum uses could advise me with is:

When i bought the car it wandered all over the road and made a loud clicking/clunk when going round corners. The MOT said inner tie rod so i found a reconditions rack and "popped" that in. Didnt fix a thing and ended up going to a local classic car garage and getting the strut tops, struts and springs sorted which totally fixed it and the horrible pointing towards the sky look the car had (one strut leaking,one seized).
It sat for a couple of weeks as i was working away. Came back and used it to go to the shops, as i was reversing heard it faintly again. I went away again, came back, and jacked the car up to do the rear brakes and when reversing off the drive it was back to how it was originally! I only drove around the block and pulled back on the drive (it does the noise turning forward to). any ideas? Trying not to do jobs i dont need to as i spent a fortune on all that suspension.
I'd go back to the garage i went too originally but i moved last month about 40 mins away from them and started taking the dash/electrics apart as above.
I can only imagine control arm bushes or anti roll bar bushes would be left up the front? Sorry for the long story.. bit annoyed with this one

For the time they would take to dismantle and check I would suggest you check the TCA (Traction control arms) and bushes and also the ARB (anti roll bar bushes). I once bought a car that was making a horrendous knocking noise when cornering that turned out just to be a saggy anti roll bar bush.

If there is play in the bushes replace them with Superflex ones which are not terribly costly but will be firmer and last far longer than the rubber originals.

I recently had a similar issue of a horrible clunking noise going round corners - one of the bushes on the ARB into the TCA was out of place as the old bush had worn

One new superflex kit from Martin (Caprigear) later and was sorted

Cheers guys! will check that out when i get back, still away for another week. Whats the best way to check the bushes without dismantling things?
Will speak to Martin when he opens shop again. I ended up buying the heater box kit from him the other day and spoke on the phone. He gave some great advice.

The escort in the background is my daily yeah. its in pretty good condition and only done 52000 miles. I've had a lot of work done to it in the past though.

to the forum and great to see another Mk2. All the best with sorting the jobs. Nice daily driver too; 1.1/1.3L? I always preferred the Mk3 to the later facelift/Mk4 of circa 1986.

Have a look at this link from the main page - might be of help

http://www.fordcaprilaser.co.uk/page144.html

Also, the Anti roll bar should go through the track control arm with a bush around it and should be straight when looking at it. If it is tilted to one side or not close enough to the middle that would suggest that the bushes need changing and could be what is causing your issue

Cheers
Danny

Today a box from Capri Gear turned up with all the stuff to recondition my heater blower. New Motor, Matrix , Resistor and foam.

My only concern is will these blue connectors handle the power for the Resistor? Also i'm looking to use one on the cig lighter.

Martin from Capri Gear labeled up the resistor for me as i had nothing to work from. Heres what he wrote down for me if this of use to anyone? Also weirdly both motors seem to have a blob of blue tack on the coil... whats that for? Heres where im up to.

Sorry to go off track, but is that a vintage Tilley lamp I can see in one of the pics?

It is yeah. I bought it for £6 with an old inspection light at a car boot sale. added some oil/new wick and its working great.

Fingers crossed if the weather holds out i'll have the heater back in the car (or at least to test). Just need to find a bullet connector for the Cig lighter

ok so it all works!!!! i started off with the Cigar lighter which works and chargers my phone ( did have a video of this all but just photos for now) 

Any advice for refitting the heater controls? The top one went in a worked perfect but the bottom one is bringing me to tears. I keep setting it to its most extreme setting on the box and control, connect it up... it moves but wont return the flap. the cable works well on its own and i'm getting the feeling i've got it out of sync when the box was apart. The last thing i want to do is pull this back out.

Can you move the bottom flap by operating the lever without the cable connected? if so then you should be able to set up the movement by the cable. If you give me a bell at the workshop I'll try to talk you through it. I never disconnect the cables when I'm building the heaters, I set them up while the unit is out on the bench then any adjustment needed is easy.

Caprigear wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2019 9:46 pm Can you move the bottom flap by operating the lever without the cable connected? if so then you should be able to set up the movement by the cable. If you give me a bell at the workshop I'll try to talk you through it. I never disconnect the cables when I'm building the heaters, I set them up while the unit is out on the bench then any adjustment needed is easy.

Hey Martin! managed to fix this in the end. I think it was slightly out of sync but also i didnt realise how important the gold clamps are. With this screwed down it behaved its self.

After a week of being busy/Glastonbury festival etc i thought i should try get this thing started!

The experiment didnt last long as the battery is turning the car over slow now so need to recharge it but, the last couple of times i've attempted to start it all it will do is crank over and over but no signs of jumping into life. Also the battery leads are getting pretty hot after a few attempts, is this normal?? i've never noticed this on a car before. when i say hot i mean it would burn you if you didnt let it cool down.


My first idea is to put an inline fuel filter in just before the carb but I thought id double check i'm putting it on the right one? I'm guessing it is one with the brass type pipe coming out the side of the Carb? (this goes down to the bottom of the car) The other pipe coming off (just below the silver weber tag) heading down toward the bottom right of the photo also seems to be a fuel line but goes into something else below the distributor before heading off to the bottom of the wing panel with the previous pipe. Cant find any info in the Haynes on these pipes just the carb its self. Any help appreciated. Also thinking of buying an inline tester to test spark. anyone used these?

Fuel inlet is the one on the right just below the carb ID tag in your photo.

As said the inlet is below the tag and this is the pipe that should have the filter in. The thing that it connects to below the distributor will be the fuel pump.

The pipe you mention is probably a return to the fuel tank.

Cheers guys! Is there anyway to test the fuel pump? i'm wondering if this is going bad and not feeding petrol up to the carb? i guess adding this will test that but it does like to cut out randomly at times.

Easiest way to check of its getting fuel there properly is to take the air filter off and press the throttle basically, should squirt some fuel through then