HERITAGE:

Capri Laser

Francis Ellingworth has covered over 300,000 miles in his Capri 1.6 Laser and is determined to use it as his daily driver. We find out how he has kept it alive.

When Francis Ellingworth bought a 1987 Capri Laser back in 1990 for £4000 with a mere 31,000 miles on the clock, little did he realise its odometer would legally return to zero three times over the next 30 years. For the first eight years, he used it as his daily transport, and eventually sold it for £1250 with 106,000 miles on the clock, but when he saw it the following year looking tired and worn out, he offered to buy it back and agreed upon a price of £500.

With the plan that the Capri would be a running restoration, Francis got stuck into some major surgery in 2000 when he realised the front wings and bonnet were infested with tinworm.

“I bought pattern wings and landed a brand-new Capri bonnet by chance,” he says. “I went into the task and entered a rapid learning curve as I watched the wings come off with a saw and chisel and quickly learnt about fabricating defunct Ford panels. Over a space of three weeks the front end was repaired, as were the rear arches.”

Francis budgeted for a cheap respray, retaining the original Diamond White, added some decals and the Laser was returned to the road once again.

“Over the next six years I sourced spares and fitted them on an as needed case to replace or repair, each time fitting a better part and all the time chipping away at building the Capri up to something better or as good as when it drove out of the dealer’s in 1987.”

Such updates and modifications included changing the standard Ford VV carburettor for a Weber 34ICH with manual choke in a successful bid to improve fuel economy and performance.

The points and condenser were replaced with a Lumenition PMA50 and the HT leads uprated to 8 mm silicone ones. However, as Francis confesses, “The Lumenition system has since been swapped back after it started to go wrong with an intermittent fault! It was a valuable lesson in welding when repairing strut tops; ensure your electronic ignition module is nowhere near the area and disconnected completely, or you will damage the module.”

Francis managed to find some original old-stock Lucas points and condensers, which as he explains, “The all-important heel on the points is made from a much harder material and so the points gap lasts longer.”

Inside the Capri’s Type-9 five-speed gearbox, the layshaft bearings have been uprated to help reduce the wear on the layshaft by using longer needle bearings. “It’s a difficult upgrade, but well worth it in the long run,” comments Francis. “The earlier five-speed gearboxes used to suffer this, resulting in a lot more noise in top gear at motorway speeds. The five-speed ’box allows comfortable cruising at motorway speeds. Gearchanges have a longer throw and once you learn the gate you will soon be working the ’box naturally, although it’s quite normal for first and second to get a little notchy.”

Smashing

In 2006, disaster struck when a stolen car rammed into the side of Francis’s Capri. “The damage looked terminal, but hard work and tenacity saw the Laser rebuilt and back on the road with a new wing and door fitted and extra steel added underneath to ensure the panels would not lose their integrity and strength,” he recalls. “They say lightning never strikes twice. Oh yes it does and one evening in 2008 whilst my wife was using the car as the coolest mum’s taxi in town, some idiot changed lanes and sideswiped the Laser!”

This time the wing, door and rear quarter had taken the full force of the impact. Thankfully, the reinforcements Francis had incorporated in the previous repair had helped to ensure the Capri wasn’t a write-off.

Minor restoration work is always in the pipeline for this Capri, especially considering it’s a daily driver that needs to be regularly maintained. In the summer of 2011 for instance, it underwent another front-end renovation with a new bonnet, doors, repairs to the front strut tops and removal of

corrosion in the sills. Francis finished off with a partial respray and had all the work completed in a mere three weeks.

The Laser’s 1.6-litre Pinto engine has needed some attention. The first engine lasted until 2004, when there was a staggering 168,000 miles on the clock! At the time, Francis opted to fit a reconditioned engine from Neyta Motor Engineers in Leicester (0116 2519515). When the Capri had covered 290,000 miles (122,000 for the replacement engine), he returned to the machine shop and found his original engine was still in their stockroom, rebuilt and unsold, so it was swapped back.

Recently, more bodywork repairs have been completed, including the fitting of genuine front wings with yet another front-end rebuild due to corrosion (what can you expect from a car that’s used everyday) and a complete new roof skin! “The roof skin on Capris suffers from rot on the rear hinge area of the tailgate and the rear of the opening sunroof panel,” he says. “The only and safest way is to reskin the top skin; complex and skilled work but the results provide an opportunity to attack any areas of rot under the skin.”

Not for sale

Francis has perhaps come to realise his Capri is now part of the family and will never be sold. As he explains, “I took my daughter to her wedding in the same car I picked her up from hospital in when she arrived in the world. It really brings the fun back into motoring, or in my case, the fun never left!”