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[EpicRestoration]Ford RS500
e knew from the start that this car
had issues,’ says Jonathan Rose of the
black Ford Sierra RS500 Collins 400
whose restoration he project-managed,
‘but we didn’t know quite how many
until we got it into the workshop.
What looked like a straightforward
renovation became a total restoration –
the only parts that didn’t need repairing
in some way or other were the bumpers
and the tailgate.’
The car was restored by Jonathan’s
specialist workshop team at JAR Car
Storage near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, for fast-Ford collector Ian
Schofield, who divides his time between the UK and South Africa,
and bought it from an online small-ad in January 2017. ‘I’m a huge
Ford fan, and wanted a complete collection of RS Cosworths,’ he
explains. ‘I’ve already got all the Sapphire variations – including
the South African ‘IRS’ model with a fuel-injected Essex V6 – and
wanted an RS500 to complete the set. I also love its rarity, and the
way it dominated touring-car racing.
‘But I also wanted an RS500 to drive, not a museum piece,
so the restoration would have to leave it well-protected – it will
rain after all – while appearing as original as possible. The fact it
was a Collins 400 also appealed. I have a Focus RS, and Eighties
Cosworths feel slow by comparison. Collins conversions were
always well-orchestrated, and this 400bhp version means it can
be as exciting to drive as that Focus while also maintaining a sense
of originality. I wanted to be able to take it to the RS Owners’ Club
show at Donington Park. Although at that point I didn’t know
quite how much work that would entail...’
Explains Jonathan, ‘When we got the RS500 into the workshop,
although it was running and driving, the suspension was knocking
and banging and the car drove horribly – made worse by its
lowered suspension. There were also
some suspect areas on the body laden
with underseal, and we weren’t sure
what it was covering – corrosion or crash
damage. Corrosion was our biggest worry
- on the surface the car didn’t looktoo
bad, with a glassy, overly smooth paint
finish, but we knew once we took the
wheelarch liners out we’d find rot. And
sure enough, it was going all around
every edge of the bodyshell, with rust
perforating the paint.
‘I gave Ian the warts-and-all lowdown,
and we decided that the only way to solve
the car’s problems was with a complete
stripdown, restoration and rebuild,
replacing bits only if necessary because Ian’s a real purist.’
Bodywork
Barry Burgess was tasked with stripping the car to a bare bodyshell
and assessing the damage – removing the thick layer of underseal
sure enough revealed horrors. ‘It had taken a knock on a rear
corner at some point, which had received a typical insurance-
company repair, good for its day but not restoration-quality,’ says
Barry. ‘The tail panel, offside rear wing and the floor had all been
affected – the floor was going to be particularly tricky.
‘We took the bodyshell to Nigel Baker at Kingswell Coachworks
in Battle. He sandblasted the rusty parts of the bodywork,
targeting only the parts needed using small-area spot-blasting.
This included the jacking points – the car had been incorrectly
jacked by various tyre-fitters over the years, so like the crash-
damaged floor, Nigel cut them off, straightened them out, and
welded them back into position.
‘But corrosion had set in in the body seams. It wasn’t as bad as
some Sierras can be – it turned out the first owner of this car was
the managing director of Perry’s Ford, and he’d had it rustproofed.
We could save the metal, but we still needed to arrest the
corrosion’s spread.’ And it was at this point that owner Ian, driven
by a desire for originality, put in an unusual request.
‘He wanted the car to have an original factory appearance with
slight orange-peel finish on the sills, and also to find bare grey
e-coat-type primer on the panels away from the boot, doors,
underneath the carpets and so on, just as you would when the car
was new, but with better-than-new corrosion protection, saying
he “wanted the car to last forever!”’
Jonathan raises the car on the workshop’s lift to demonstrate
the unusual finish. ‘Underneath, you can see that the old-style
rustproofing coating stops just past the sills – these Fords were
only designed to last five years! We coated the parts in between
with an opaque hard wax to offer protection while visually
mimicking the lack of it from the factory.
‘To combat the rust in the body seams, we explored every
body cavity with a borescope to check the extent of the
corrosion. All the Sierra’s flat panels are spot-welded together,
and rust breaks out between them – floor panels, door skins etc.
Corrosion stabiliser and inhibitor was injected first, then followed
application of appropriate protective waxes.
‘The advantage of applying corrosion protection at the
bare bodyshell stage is that every part of the structure can be
treated and protected without access issues or fear of damaging
irreplaceable trim parts. During the process, we added additional
protection to the areas considered common Sierra corrosion risks,
and wax protected the suspension components and fuel tank.
‘After a tactical repainting, only respraying where necessary,
the finishing touch was applying the tape stripes and badges. The
only thing it’s missing are plastic rubbing-strips on the side. These
were just stick-on items, and we think they were taken off during
the period crash-repair and not put back
on, but you cannot find replacements
anywhere nowadays.’
Suspension and brakes
‘You can’t get decent original mounting
bushes for Sierras these days,’ says
Jonathan. ‘And the car had been lowered
by a previous owner so all the suspension
needed refreshing.
‘In order to replicate the original factory
setup, we put a combination of medium
and soft Polyurethane bushes on the
front, and added adjustable track-control
arms as well as standard springs on new
Bilstein dampers. The lowered originals
were seized solid, so we sourced new dampers and original-
specificationsprings through Burton Power.
‘We managed to save the original front brake pipes. Everything
was stripped from the system, cleaned, then media-blasted with
a combination of glass beads and aluminium oxide particles to
remove any surface corrosion, before being coated in corrosion
stabiliser, refinished in green as per factory specification, and
protected with wax. We had to replace the rear brake lines though
- they were too far gone and had to be remade from patterns.’
There is one aspect of the car JAR is still hoping to improve
upon though, as Jonathan explains, ‘the backplates of the brakes
are still corroded, too much so to be repaired – the metal is so thin
that repairing them would just cause them to disintegrate, and
welding in new metal would destroy their originality. But you
cannot buy new replacements, so we’re on the lookout for some
new-old-stock items. As for the rest of the brakes, we stripped and
rebuilt them with all-new seals.’
Low point
‘The tailgate struts fitted
weren’t the right spec
for the additional weight
of the RS500 spoiler and
they failed while I was
rewiring the lights. The
tailgate fell on my head
and nearly cut me in half !’
Ben Nankivell
