*MAXXD* Clare's Rieger F40 Escort Cabriolet "BigCab"

[Dubmodder]

I know what you mean about the wheel bearings. Mine gave up twice on the old Cossie blue Escort. - think that was probably down to the extreme slammage I gave it but I was kind of expecting the rears to go first as they were going through new Avons in a fortnight.

Must be an underspecced part IMO as its the same on Fiestas and they don't die like Escorts. Either that or the actual hub casing doesn't dissipate heat like the Fiesta.

Hard to give you an opinion on what to do under the bonnet Al.

Engines aren't designed too look attractive and very few do naturally (V8's, flatheads and vintage straight 12s excepted). The RST as you know isn't the smoothest looking engine and part of the 'cleaned' look is removing ugly boltheads, pipework etc as well as the wiring. Unless you can make covers or smooth out stuff like the plenum, rocker cover and more I would forget it as it will look half a job.

If you can then I would be tempted by some chrome covers for say the battery, brake reservoir. I'd remove all badging/stickerdom, create a blanking cover (2 piece?) to hide the wiper motor, ecu and other rammel near the bulkhead. Then I would paint/polish whatever else I could.. Ditch any hex bolts for smooth allen heads and simplify the iginition leads with a plate hanging off the rocker cover bolts.

Easy for us to say, there is a lot of work involved but I think a combination of the cleaned and chrome look would really work on BigCab. Ditch all know detail, smooth everything you can that bolts on and cover anything that looks fugly.

Its a bit like putting a shiny sunglasses on a mingers face. Underneath she is still ugly but the shiny reflections make you believe its OK to look at her tits (metaphorically the cool underbonnet bits like dump valves, turbo etc) and not feel guilty/weird.