Bits and Pieces

Neil Fletcher Racing

Bits and Pieces - Interior Equipment

Please note that the items shown on this page are from my personal collection and are not for sale. I am always on the lookout for any period race or rally items to add to my collection, if you have anything similar for sale or swap feel free to contact me at mailto:neil@neilfletcher.co.uk

However if you are in the market for these type of items then contact Retro-UK via the link below.

Lets start off with some bits for Navigators, well us drivers have steering wheels and switches to play with and Rev Counters etc to look at so we need to give the Navigator something to keep him happy.

Click on any of the images below for a larger photo.

	I'm sure every Rallyman will recognize the Halda Twinmaster, used for accurate measurement of distance. This version is the earlier metal cased variety. The top readout is used for "total" distance and the lower one for "interval", i.e. between junctions etc. The knobs to the right of each readout are used to zero each one separately.
	The left hand one of the two lower knobs is used to start/stop and select forward or reverse and the right hand knob is used to select either the lower readout, both readouts or top readout only.
	The side cover can be removed to get at the calibration gears, these can be changed to allow for different wheel sizes and different diff ratios etc.
	For those clubmen whose budget wouldn't stretch to the price of a Twinmaster, there was the Tripmaster which only had one readout. This is a later plastic cased version.
	The works navigator and those clubmen with large budgets would have also had a matched pair of Heuer clocks. The one on the left is a clock and called a "Mastertime", and the other is a stopwatch, called a "Montecarlo".
	Other guys with lesser budgets would have made do with something like a Smiths handheld stopwatch, notice the small clip beside it, this can be used to mount the stopwatch on the dash and yet leave it easily unclipped.

	Here's one I put in for the old timers, a Halda Speedpilot, used for measuring time, distance and most important average speed. You might see one of these in a very early Twin Cam Escort but they were more frequently seen in earlier cars like the Mk1 Cortina etc. These are really used in the early trials type motor rallies that depended a lot on average speed over a set distance.
	And another one of those really old items more often seen in a Cortina, or just maybe a very early Twin Cam Escort. Its a Helphos Lamp, still in its box, you stick it to the inside of the windscreen by the rubber suction pad and you could then swing the beam about as it shone out through the windscreen.
	Here is what the "Ford Rallye Sport Book of Performance Parts and Accessories" call the Auxiliary Instrument Panel. As well as being fitted to Works Escorts this was available through your local RS Dealer. Along the top would have been various switches and an ammeter, the slot in the middle was a map or document pocket and two small fuse boxes would have been fitted at the bottom.
	The side view shows up the map pocket much better. This particular one along with the panels below is a reproduced item.

	This plate was fitted along the top and details what each switch is for. The large hole contained an ammeter. Notice the third hole from the right, labeled Spotlights. This was fitted with a three way switch, the middle position was OFF. The up position was AUTODIP, the spotlights went out when you dipped your main beam. The down position was MANUAL O/R, here the spotlights were full on, no matter what, very useful if your headlights or even dipswitch had failed.
	Most of the switches fitted to the panel above were standard Lucas switches but there were a couple of interesting ones. Firstly this Trico illuminated switch was used for the reversing light.
	These two switches look quite different, the top one is a standard Ford Consul wipe/wash switch. The bottom one is the Works Escort type wiper switch and is made from parts of the top one. First they removed the manual water pump part, on the right of the picture. Then they removed the deep recessed bezel one the left of the picture and replaced it with a flat one from a Mk2 Cortina. The push type plunger which worked the water pump was locked in the "in" position.
	Finally the Consul knob with it's bright, shiney reflective centre was replaced with a much darker one from a Ford Anglia. So as you can see it took parts from three cars to make one switch.
	This little panel was fitted at the bottom and detailed what each of the four fuses in the two fuse boxes were for as well as showing the off position for the Battery Isolation Switch fitted on the transmission tunnel.
	Many people think that Ford made a special Twin Cowl dash top for the Works Escorts. They didn't, what they did was take a Righthand Drive Mexico type dash top and one from a Lefthand Drive car. They then cut them both in half and put the two halves in the car and quite often they only stuck a bit of tank tape over the join. Its almost a pity to cut these two up.
	Other firms however, like Mada and Autoplas made one piece cowls for the Escort. They were usually made in plastic and covered the whole dash from the bottom of the windscreen down to the bottom of the metal dash panel.

Now we can start and detail some of the Drivers play things.


	First a Driver needs to keep an eye on what his engine is doing, and one of the best things is the Smiths Chronometric Revcounter. With a fullhouse works BDA we need one that reads to at least 10,000 rpm and has a red telltale needle, there is a reset button on the back, this one came from my race car.
	Also fitted was a matching Smiths Chronometric Speedo, in this case reading kilometres. This one came out of a rally car and has the chrome bezel painted matt black to cut down on glare at night.
	How about something for the Driver to hang onto, and there's nothing better that a deep dished Springalex. This is a slightly worn original one.
	Someone has removed the original Springalex badge and replaced it with a nice little AVO Club badge.
	Here is one of the re-manufactured items. It has a thicker and softer rim as well as being a little bit smaller. It also has only three holes in each spoke.

	This particular one was supplied by Historic Motorsports Ltd.
	These are pea-lights and they were used originally in aircraft. A red glow shines out and downward from the little slit. Works cars had eight of these to light up various dials, clocks and other instruments.
	OK so this is not a "works" part but just something nice that i came across on Kevin Curtis' stall one AVO Day and just had to buy.
	It's a rev counter from a late "Sport", they just had a normal Escort two clock dash but had this small rev counter fitted to the right-hand side of the main clocks.
Now some other bits and pieces that were used on works rally Escorts.
	If you look closely at the front grille of any works Escort you'll notice that they all use the early style grille with this push button to open the bonnet. This allowed the mechanics etc to open it quickly without scrabbling about inside the car for the usual bonnet pull.

Look in again, there's more to come.

Go to Escort Stuff Index

Click on any of the links below to go to that section of the site.

[ Neil's Stuff ] [ My Escorts ] [ Rally Escorts ] [ Technical Stuff ] [ Escort Stuff ] [ AVO Day ] [ Havoc Articles ] [ Other Escorts ] [ Other Cars ]