Anyway, the car is pretty standard, in Flash Silver. It's done lots of miles (180k) but seems to have been well looked after, overall, and garaged most of its life. The guy I bought it from had it from the original dealer as an ex demo car, although it was originally registered in his mother's name, as he was too young to insure it. 24 years later, he has a young child and needs a bigger car. Also, he was paying garages to maintain it, and it was starting to get expensive in terms of labour costs. He believed it needed a clutch due to gear selection problems, but I think this was more likely due to the engine moving around, and worn linkage.
Step1: Get it home.
No problems... did 40mpg on the drive home from Croydon, sitting at 70mph on the M25. It felt a bit vague and wandery, sluggish under acceleration, and I could feel the engine moving around. Work to do, but no major horrors so far.
Step 2: Get it MOT'd
There were a few issues with the car, but nothing I couldn't sort out. Two new top mounts, front and rear engine mounts, adjust the back brakes, and a couple of tiny bits of welding
- Weld the handbrake ratchet locating lug back onto the floor
- Weld up a tiny hole in the battery tray (probably an acid spill from years ago).
Also the driver's seat was flapping around. It had no rubber bush on the front, or plastic bushes in the runners. Now sorted.
In the midst of driving it for the 2 weeks it was still MOT'd, the gear lever fell through the floor. A jubilee clip now holds the gear lever circlip in place, and all's well. The linkage feels nice and tight now, actually.
The car failed the MOT the first time - CO emissions too high at idle, and a loose boot on the steering rack.
A quick adjust of the mixture, checked on the road with a wideband AFR meter to check it wasn't leaning out too much at the high end., and all's well, I also checked the timing, plugs, air filter, etc. Idle mixture went from 4.7% CO to about 2.2%. For anyone using an AFR meter, that seems to be around 15.5:1 AFR at idle.
I also cleaned up and re-greased the rack, before securing the steering boot with a new cable tie.
The car is now MOT'd and I'm using it as my daily driver. With the current price of petrol, 40mpg is very attractive. It seems to be happy on standard unleaded (my other 2 roccos are modded) and it handles the speed bumps a lot better on standard suspension. I guess I'm getting old, but I'm enjoying driving a car with standard suspension, stock exhaust, and carpet on the floor.
Most of the bits I needed, I already had 'in stock' from the car I broke last year, or from previous upgrades on the track car. All I've bought so far is:
- Rear engine/box mount
- Paint, lacquer and weld-thru primer
- Wipers, spark plugs, and an air filter (not fitted yet)
