01x12 - Ford Capri Laser 1.6 Part 2

[bunniefuu]

Welcome to Wheelie Dealers, the show
that's mad about modern classics.

Our challenge is to find a car and to do
it up for no more than £1,000.

And then we've got to sell it on for a
profit.

This is the Capri 1.6 Laser.

Now I bought for a measly £400.

Since then, my mechanic Ed China has been
hard at work.

So far, we're winning.

Ed has sorted out the dodgy handling by
replacing the control arm bushes.

And he's made the
engine run smoother and

safer by fitting a new
exhaust manifold gasket.

We're well within budget and our tasty
two-door coupé is on the road to recovery.

So, now it's about giving
the old girl a body makeover

because I'm hoping to sell
her on at the end of the show.

But before that, Ed's
still got to change

the wings, the bumpers
and do them fog lamps.

Now, while he's busy doing
that, I'm going to meet a guy

who's got a super clean
Capri for a bit of inspiration.

Now Graham, full Capri 1.6 Laser is in an
endearing car.

But when it first came out, what made it
so special?

It was the fact that everybody
had three box saloons,

dull, boring and then
Ford produced this coupé.

It was great, you just had to have one.

If I remember rightly,
first got the full Capri,

they started to stick
big fat alloys on them.

Yeah, that's right, you could get a £1300
from the showroom for £2.50 and you could

stick some alloy wheels
on it and some stripes and

all of a sudden you got
the top of the range RS 3.1.

When they come out, it was the car that we
seen in, the coupé.

Get your keys, turn up at the pub,
put them on the table, you could be proud.

I got a Capri, it was a great car.

Now Graham, if I was to buy a Capri,
what are the problem areas to look out for?

You need to look for rust.

They rust just about everywhere you care
to look.

Underneath, all the hidden parts,
the wings, everywhere.

But your car hasn't suffered any of that,
has it?

I mean, it's in exceptional condition.

It is in exceptional condition,
it must have been Gary's all its life.

I was lucky enough to pick this up for
30,000 miles on the clock, no rust,

you just have to buy it, you can't say no.

Right, now say you have got rust and you
need to replace the body panels,

can you go into Ford and just buy some new
ones?

No, is the answer to that.

You can only get aftermarket ones.

They generally don't fit, so you need a good
body shop guy that could fit in for you.

Right.

Now, Graham, your car is in exceptional
condition and the last thing I want to do

is put these scratches or
marks on it, but if I promise to

drive it carefully and not like
a boy racer, can I have a go?

Yes, you can.

Thank you very much.

You want to move, fellas, I'm going to hit
you.

In terms of performance, it was never
going to pull the skin off a price put in

this car, but that didn't really matter
because this was all about looks,

it was all about style and about how you
were perceived to look in your car.

People drove along deliberately with the
window down and their arm on this

perfectly placed window sill and
deliberately went round looking for shop

windows so they could just stare at
themselves to see how cool they looked.

And even today, you look kind of cool
driving these classic old capris around.

It really is a beautiful car.

It's got a huge, great big throw on the
gearbox, which now makes you laugh.

You know, it's like, hey, here we go.

It's like a big, that truck.

Whoa, there we go.

And you're sort of slunk, blowing your
chair.

But going back then, it's still quite a
comfortable driving position.

The gearbox doesn't feel like a place.

It actually feels right.

Now, our car and this car are two
different animals.

It's fair to say this one has only done
40,000 miles and it's been beautifully kept.

Our one, unfortunately, has
suffered wind, rain, howl, and it

looks like somebody's taken a
shotgun to the two front wings.

However, with Ed's expertise and the
honesty of our car, I don't reckon we got

that far to go to get our body work
looking half as good as this one.

And then at the end of it, we're going to
have a very nice 80s Capri.

You never know, I might dig out an old
level 42 CD, plop it into the stereo,

get me wedge haircut.

Kind of cool, don't you think?

On the Capri, the wings are
welded into position and this

is done by loads of spot
welds all the way along here.

You can probably just about see some dents
all the way along.

There's loads and loads and loads and
probably one every inch and a half or so.

Normally, you'd use a spot weld drill.

Now basically, that's like a normal drill
but with a flat tip on the end of the bit

and there's a little tiny spike coming out
of that.

And what happens is it helps you get the
centre of the hole but it means you can

drill through the top surface but not the
bottom.

But as I haven't got one of those on me at
the moment, I'm going to use an angle

grinder with a cutting disc and actually
just grind through the top surface of the

metal, peel up the remains
and then that way I end up

with a nice flat surface that
I can weld the new wing to.

To make grinding back
the spot welds easier,

I'm going to cut the
wing off from this edge.

Well, I can't actually
get into the very last bit

with the angle grinder so
I'm going to use an air saw.

It's very simply a saw that's powered by
the air.

Now you could use a hacksaw, you could use
an air chisel, pretty much anything else

you like but I've got one of these so it's
quick, I'm going to use it.

I've now come out to the back of the wing
and I'm going to remove these bits of weld

here and here and then hopefully the wing
should pull off.

So a lot of grinding could be done.

I've done lots of cutting, lots
of grinding, lots of unscrewing

things and now I think the
wing is ready to come off.

There we go.

I now have this rather unpleasant rust
filled wing removed from the car.

The thing is my work is barely even
started.

I need to do the other side as well.

Once the wings are off it's a case of
grinding away all the rough stuff to

prepare the bodywork to receive the new
panels.

If Mike walked in here now and saw this he
would lay an egg.

I'm now at the turning point where stuff
starts to go back on the car.

I put the doors back on just so I can
start offering the wings up because I

actually ground off all the old bits of
wing and while I was doing that I cut off

the front valance and offered up a new
one.

So the next bit, once I shut the bonnet I
can see how well the new wings fit.

This doesn't fit first time and the
chances are that's because it's a pattern

part which means it doesn't come from the
original manufacturer of the car.

Now they're much cheaper
but it does mean you

need a bit more work
to get them to fit nicely.

So on this one, particularly down here,
where it joins the front panel,

it doesn't fit very well at all.

So I'm just going to have to do a bit of
work on the metal to get it to fit nicely

and then hopefully our cars will look
fantastic.

With wings like this it really is a bit of
a case of trial and error.

I have to try the wing on, find out where
it doesn't fit, modify that and then put

it back on again and see where the next
bit doesn't fit.

So it's a very methodical process and you
do have to be a little brutal sometimes

but there's no point in being scared of
it, you just got to get on with it.

Fitting these new panels is turning out to
be a right palava and the main problem

I've got at the moment
is this front piece here is

an original forward
part so it fits quite nicely.

But the wing is a pattern part so it
wasn't made by an original company and

therefore it doesn't really fit the car at
all.

So somehow I've got to get these two to
join together and blend beautifully.

This is a great little gizmo, all it is
cordless drill with a special right angle

attachment which
means I can drill into very

tight corners and I need
that for this next job.

Basically on this nice forward panel it
has some little cups on the back of the

panel like this and on the wing it has
some little fingers, some tangs and

they're supposed to join
together and there's holes that go

through and you bolt them
together and everything fits nicely.

Unfortunately because this is a pattern
part it actually misses totally and I've

now got basically a blank where I should
have a hole.

So I'm just going to fiddle it with this.

Now I've drilled the hole I'm able to get
the bolt all the way through.

It's not easy but it's possible.

And then I can tighten it up.

That's that bolted up.

Excellent.

I know this isn't perfect
but it's actually beginning

to fit in the right places
which is great news.

The front panel now touches the wing where
it's supposed to and it pretty much

touches all the way
down and even this really

difficult bottom corner
is also starting to fit.

I need to align this bonnet with the wing
to get the shut line right.

There's only so far that this can go so
what I'm going to do is drill it down into

position with a self-tapper and that way I
can remove this clamp which means I can

shut the door and I can move this around
and then get the shut line perfect.

OK, well, you can see here that there's a
big gap at the top at the end of the

bonnet up that end and this end is very,
very tight, almost touching.

So what I'm going to have to
do is open the clamp, tease open

the wing and then re-clamp
it again and there we have it.

So this gap now is about the same as at
the back and where it goes wide in the

middle is actually going to pull in when I
start welding.

So I'm pretty happy with that.

That is now looking rather good.

Look at that shut line.

This is really starting to come together.

Join us in part two when
the capri gets a coat of

paint and I try to find a
fire for our made over motor.

Welcome back to Wheeler Dealers.

This is the capri that I bought for £400.

It was sound enough
under the skin but the real

problems were with the
rust in the front panels.

It is now fitting new wings and then it's
time to get going with the paint.

This is where I make the car and the wing
become one, basically with a welding torch.

It's a MIG welder and all I have
to do is a couple of gaps here

which I'm going to have to
play around with a bit later on.

But where the wing actually touches the
bodywork I'll be doing a couple of spots

because this car is actually normally spot
welded on so it doesn't need a whole scene

all the way down just in some various
places.

Look, no clamps.

All the new panels are actually being held
on by welding and it's looking pretty good.

Both wings and front valance are now
firmly attached to the front of the car

and I can finally get on with the
preparation for the paint work.

But first of all I have to get rid of
these nasty scratches and horrible dents

which seem to come
free with pattern parts

these days but it won't
take me too long to do.

I'm going at these little scratches,
even quite big scratches to be fair,

with some 800 grit wet and
dry paper just so I can feather

in the paintwork around it
and make it nice and smooth.

Knowing when the scratches have gone
really isn't a dark art.

It's all down to touch.

So by running my fingers
over the surface I can feel that

there aren't any scratches
there which means they've gone.

Simple as that.

With the scratches out I'm now going over
the entire panel with a Scotch pad and

this roughs up the surface so that the
paint sticks much better.

Another useful thing
about scotching a car is you

actually see some of
the scratches you missed.

Gives you a chance just to go over them
again and remove them.

Ok well the good news is that all the
scratches are now sorted out and prepared

on the wing but there are a few dents like
this one just here and that really will

ruin the paint job when it's finished so I
need to sort that out right now.

If you put too much of this
hardener on it will go off so

quickly that you won't
have time to get it in position.

So you've got to be very careful.

Of course if you put too little in it
won't go hard at all.

Pretty happy that's mixed.

So now a little smidgen of that and smear
it into our dent.

I've got my filler in so now I'm going to
let that dry.

It takes about 15 minutes or so.

And then once that's done I
can sand it down to the contour

of the wing and then it's
pretty much ready for paint.

That is beautifully smooth.

I'm really looking forward to getting some
nice new paint on our lovely new wings.

The only thing is I
don't want to paint the

rest of the car so this
is a very simple job.

I'm just masking up all the bits I want to
keep in the original paint.

I'm wiping down the panel with pre-paint
which just gets rid of any grease and grit

that's still left on this panel and then
I'm going to start doing a bit of priming.

Look at the state of that.

Now that is why you always have to wipe
down before you start painting.

Because if this dirt got under the paint,
the paint wouldn't stick.

This is acid etched primer.

What I'm doing is painting
over the bare metal areas to

make sure that the rest of
the primer sticks properly.

This is grey primer.

It's in an aerosol can
as you can see and

it's cellulose based
so it's quite poisonous.

And although my workshop
is very well ventilated

I'm going to be
wearing a safety mask.

These are now seriously smooth wings and
there are no blemishes in sight and if you

think this looks good now just wait till
they've got some colored paint on them.

This capri has got a two-tone paint job.

The bottom half is silver.

Like that.

And the top half is blue.

So what I'm going to do is paint the
bottom half first.

Once that's dry mask it up and then paint
everything else in blue.

Now although the
silver already looks really

good this is where the
transformation happens.

When I start painting this car in blue it
is going to look beautiful.

Would you look at that?

That is only the first coat and it's
already looking really rather special.

So I'm looking forward to seeing what it
looks like when it's completely finished.

Excellent.

That looks great.

The two-tone effect is working
fantastically and once all the trim is

back on you won't even see the join
between the two lines of paint.

The only thing it's lacking right now is a
little bit of shine.

So a couple of coats of lacquer are going
to sort that out and make it look perfect.

This is like a clear
varnish which makes this

lot look really, really
shiny and lovely.

Just gives it a depth of shine that you
can't get just from the metal flake alone.

The lacquer is dried now so I've started
putting things back onto the wing but I'm

really not very happy with the finish that
I've been left with.

It was very, very hot when I
was spraying the lacquer and

what's happened is it's
dried almost as it hit the wing.

So I'm left with loads of dry patches.

Normally it would sort of sink in and
settle out and look quite shiny.

So what I want to have to try and do is
give it a bit of a tea-cut, in fact quite

a substantial amount of tea-cut,
to try and bring back some kind of shine.

I'm hoping that will work the treat.

As you can see I've been rubbing this
frantically.

It feels a little smoother
underneath but it's really

difficult to tell obviously
with all this stuff on.

So I'm keen on this off and see the end
result.

Well, I've done what I can within the
money and within the time I had allowed.

So let's see what Mike has to say about
it.

After all that hard work I'm disappointed
by this flat paint but that's life and

it's a big improvement on what was there
before.

Now it's time to reconnect all the lights
and trim and put the final touches to the

car with new bumpers and details like the
fog lamps.

The Capri 1.6 Laser is finished.

Let's have a look at what we've achieved.

Capri's are getting thin on
the ground so I was happy

when I turned up this
original car for only 400 quid.

It did have a few problems.

The Capri wandered all
over the road so Ed replaced

the control arm bushes
and transformed the handling.

Next the exhaust manifold
gasket was replaced because

the dangerous gases were
escaping into the car's c*ck.

The bodywork was the hardest job though.

Two new wings and the new front valance
were fitted and painted.

Then there were the new bumpers and front
fog lights to finish off.

Important details which make the car look
as good as it goes.

So how much did we spend?

Well body panels were a whopping 315
pounds and the paint came in at 40 pounds.

Control arm bushes were 50 quid and new
exhaust gasket kept 20 pounds.

Bumpers and fog lights were 120 pounds.

So we're just a few pounds under our 1000
budget.

The result looks amazing and I reckon
we've done really well.

Ed, how are you?

Good to see you again.

I understand you've been working really
hard on the fog capri.

Don't look too bad, is it?

What a transformation.

You've done the bumpers, done the fog
lamps, done the wings.

What's happened to the wings though?

A little bit of a problem.

It took a while to get
the paint code right

but it is the right
colour paint apparently.

But I put it on and it was really,
really hot when I was doing the spraying

and I couldn't get the lacquer to sit on
there properly.

It was horrible to try to polish it up.

That's as good as it's
going to get but don't worry

about it because the
way it drives is cracking.

Have the keys.

He's done a fair job.

I tell you what, he's done a cracking job
on the steering.

He changes steering bushes
and that's made the steering

much more positive before
it handled like the QE2.

Now it handles more like it also he
changed the manifold gasket on the exhaust.

And it's got more horsepower to the
engine.

It just feels puncture and zappier in the
gears.

That's because the gasses are going out
through the exhaust where they should do

and not dangerously coming inside the
c*ck.

I suppose I'm a little bit disappointed
with the paint work.

I mean Ed's done the best
job he could by changing

those front wings and
trying to match the paint work.

But because it's an old car,
to try and match the paint

work to an already faded
car is nigh on impossible.

What this car really needs is a full metal
respray.

Now we just haven't got the time or the
money to do that.

So with what Ed's done with it,
with the limited funds that he had,

it's a fair job.

However, it has made the car worth only
about 700 quid.

Not as much as I was hoping it was going
to be worth.

But then in this game you do win some and
you lose some.

I suppose we've lost in terms of money,
but we've won in terms of the smile factor

because it's making me feel like I'm 18
again.

I found this car in the
weekly motor impress and

that's exactly where
I'm going to sell it again.

You know, papers like Exchange Mark,
Lute and AutoTrader.

I could pay for a one week standard
display at about 40 quid.

However, I don't think I could sell this
car in one week.

So I'm going to go for the better option
and pay 60 quid for two weeks.

The good news is I've
had an inquiry on the car

young lady called Beth
Ann has come down to see it.

The bad news is she's not really into full
capri.

She's not really a petrol head.

All she wants is a cheap car to run around
in over the next couple of years.

The other bad bit of news is she's only
got 700 quid to spend.

But hey, a sell's a sell, so wish me luck.

Beth Ann, you all right?

What do you think?

I quite like it.

It's very clean inside, apart from some of
the interiors a bit tatty.

As long as it stops and goes and you can
pay a couple of hundred quid for it,

drive it into the ground, chuck it away
and buy another one.

That's what it matters.

And get some nice fairy seat covers.

Well, yeah, you can always cover the
seats, can't you?

When last did it have a service?

Well, I checked it over and it doesn't
appear to need a service.

It's, you know, everything seems to be in
place.

So come on in.

What do you reckon?

Should we have a deal?

I do like the retro look.

I'll give you 500 quid for it.

500 quid you're over to Turkish.

I might as well stand here with 50 pound
notes tossing them into the wind because

it owes me a lot more than the 700 pound I
want for it.

So that's what I want.

700 quid.

Good girl.

Well done.

Okay.

So the Capri hasn't been the money spinner
we'd hoped.

But hey, we're just happy to keep another
classic on the road.

And the car will be giving plenty more
smiles per gallon for years to come.

That's it for Wheel of Diggler's.

Join us again when we give another
motoring classic a second lease of life.

Tala.