Update... Aug 10th...

Well I haev had the XR4x4 for nearly 3 months... and done something like 1700 miles to date.. 700 was done on a trip to Fort William and SKy.

It's driving OK, the THROB at 60MPH is getting annoying...

I had to replace the front outer CV boot last week, and ended up having to drill out the bottom hub pinch bolt.. Only to find I did nto need to undoo it!!!

I also replaced the lock set so 1 key now does everything appart form the boot ( I can't be botherd with that at the moment!! )

It's doing well in the Miles/£ stakes..

Still looks like crap though...

Almost all of the 2.0i Ghia has now gone. Something in the region of £400 was recouped from the sale of parts.. which means that it cost me something like £20 to do 3700 miles!!! BARGIN!

I am always on the lookout for another bargin though....

The volvo is needed back on the road, but trying to get her started the other day was fruitless... The fule rail is now in bits and the battery is on charge!

Rob

The Blue Ghia.... It's Fate...

Well today we began our trip back from holiday in Devon. so far we had covered about 700 miles during the holiday, mixed driving.....

Then 30 miles into the return leg, the propshaft rubber coupling started to break up....

At 7:40am we pulled into cullompton services and called the AA...

At 9:15 the AA arived. After about half an hour trying to obtain the part ( yeah some chance!! ) they called for recovery and said it would be about an hour.

At 11:40 the recovery truck arrived, had to unload, have a break and then load us up..

Approximatly 12:30 we were on our way. we were told that they would ring ahead to arange an onward transfer....

Appx 13:30 call comes in to collect another vehicle at the next services says it will only take five mins to hook up.. Screen shows Dewoo Musso... ( I query that it's a 4x4 and will need to go on the flat bed. ) Driver struggles to find car until I pint it out.

13:40 Unload Sierra, query the fact that
1) It shoud not be spec lifted by the front wheels as it's an RWD auto.
2) It should not be running on the rear whels as the prop may fail...

AA Mull this over, check the details and we decide to do a rear wheel suspended tow.

14:15... Finaly on our way again.

15:40.. Arive at Birmingham services expecting transfer. Told it should be there soon. Told again at 4pm within the hour.

4:30pm.. AA rig to say recovery will be with us by 5:20pm

5:07pm Recovery rig arrives.

5:18pm on our way again..

8:30pm Arive home at Carlisle... and Unload....


BLOOMIN NACKERED!


So she was up for sale, now not the case. I think it's going to be broken for spares.

Watch this space...

K202 FJN was another EBAY find....

I was not in any particular need for another car at the time, but this was on ebay and only 100 miles away. Couple of months tax and MOT to december.

I was not that attatched to the 2.0i Ghia Sierra, so this looked like a good alternative.

£126.02 won the auction.
£40 got me and Richard ( again ) over to York for the collection.

I was a bit dissapointed by the condition of the bodywork, it had been described as GOOD, yet the drivers door had been damaged by a break in, the boned had more ripples than the Atlantic and the car was devoide of ~40% of the laquer!!!

It drove nicely though, and is the best Twincam I have owned ( yes I know I have said twice before that I would never have another twincam!!! )

She's clocked up about 500 Miles so far.

2.0 Ghia Auto...

Well. Times were hard, the Volvo's MOT was just about up and there was not much chance of getting her fixed in the near future.

The capri was put up for sale to raise some funds. I was offered this in exchange for the capri.

1992 2.0 Auto Ghia, short MOT but a few month tax..

First impressions on arival were a bit so so... But after a week of driving I was fairly happy with the deal. It needed an exhaust and the brakes were supposedly in need of attention.

That was sorted for the MOT and it passed with no problems.. The car seems to be going quite well.

The bodywork has a number of large panel defects which is a shame, I unfortunatly added to them when I caught the drivers door on the gate post and bent the hinges..

Overall it's not bad.. It's solid underneath and the engine is smoke free and pulls ok. Autobox is a bit vauge sometimes though.

15 405 STDT

Why?

Why?

Well it was local, looked good, was cheep, and suposedly nneded very little for the MOT.

I had always liked the 405, ever since a motor show at the GMEX in manchester. Along with the new Vitara, Mini ERA turbo and other stuff there was a Peugot Mi16 4x4.. It looked fantastic..

So a smart looking 405 tempted me.

£94 bought this 1993 STDT in black, it's actualy quite a nice car overall. But the MOT was worse than I had been told. I have spent the time and money sorting most of the problems. It was intended that the car would fill the gap whislt the Volvo 850 was off the road, but then ( car 16 ) came up.. And that's that.. I jsut have to get rid of the car now!!

UPDATE!!!!
------------

YAY! the 405 is gone, I got £75 in the end which was a loss of £119 OUCH! but I still have the stereo and a wheel trim to flog from it.

Just glad it's gone.

The Mk3 Capri

The MK3 Crapi.

Bought in May 2005 for £50, it had no front wings, rot in the strut top mounts, no bumpers and would rather stall than rev.
Sourcing wings was more trouble than I had imagined. But they turned up in the end and after a few short weekends worth of work the car was looking solid. Then interest and bad wether got the better of us..

I gave it a new set of ignition componenets and set the timing up and it ran a lot better, the car was bolted back together... And then my mate decided he needed his garage back to put a MK1 golf in..

A few weeks later the car went to a new owner in exchange for another Sierra ( Car 15 ). And so my brief foray into Capri ownership was over, I had only driven it about 50 yards!

13 The 850 T5

At 3 months old Our baby boy was taking up a lot of space, cramped trips got me thinking about a large family estate. It had to be big enugh to swallow the load, powerfull enugh to be fun, and rearwheel drive.

Option 1) Ford Scorpio 24V Cosworth. Looks odd on the outside but was a great all round car.

Option 2) Vauxhall Omega 24V, Great cars but pricy and tales of cambelt issues..

Option 3) Audi A6 (100) Avant V6. Great cars but costly..


So we went away on holiday for a week crammed into the sierra, I looked at every passing garage trying to spot a Scorpio but to no avail...

We got back from holiday and I was imediatly on the NET ready to commit a couple of grand to a late Scorpio...

Then it happend.. I spotted a Volvo 850 T5 on ebay that was cheap...

Ok, it's front wheel drive, but it's a volvo so should fulfill the other catagories...

It was soon sitting on my drive...

12 The Black 2.0 4x4

The problems with the XR4i meant that I was on the lookout quickly for another family car. Ebay once again came to the rescue....

A 1993 Black XR4x4 2.0 ( Yes I had vowed never to own another 2.0 ) was on in the next town. I got outbid, but an email to the vendor resulted in the car being dropped off the next day ( baby toby was only 2 days old! )

It looked clean apart from the rear arches, had all the toys late cars had, drove nicely, etc... £190 well spent... I put my cosworth wheels on, and my nice cosworth leather steerng wheel to tart it up a little...

Well I spent £190........

Alarm bells started ringing when the water level kept dropping, my heart sank. This time i decided that a convertion was too much work, the car was needed. I bought the necessary parts from Fraud, and asked a freind if he colud help ( he likes his twinks ) , I set to work without him as he was commig down from glasgow ( 100m ) ... And was just about to start puttig it back together when Neil turned up, good job too! he took a look at the Cylinder head and spotted the tiny crack that was the cause of the problems.. We had a spare head, but still struggled to get it back together, tensioner was loose, thermo housing snapped, rocker cover leaked, PCV was lose... But in the end it all went back together...

The car ran better, used virtualy no water but smoked on startup still ( worn rings I guess ) but overall was useable.

Then I decided it was too small for the family and it had to go, fortunatly it had reached my theoretical Value For Money which is 10 Miles for every £1 spent... I had Spen ~£300 and covered 3000 miles..

Even more fortunatly, someone in the North East wanted it's diff for his Locost Kit car. And agreed to buy the whole car for £250.. I wanted some of the trim off the car so agreed on a price of £225 delivered.

I had no time to remove what I needed before setting off, It's amazing how much of a sierra interior can be removed whilst driving............

And it was gone!

11 The XR4i

Initialy I was going to purchase just the engine from this car.

But then, I said to the wife...

"I have bought another engine, it's comming with a few other spare parts too!" AHHEMMMM

This 1983 XR4i had been converted to 2.9 TwinTurbo ( I wanted just the engine realy ). Unfortunatly the standard XR4i Type 9 gearbox was not up to the task and had blown up.

The car looked great, the interior was super and the body looked fairly good and it sounded AWESOM... However Shortly before delivery, I had made up my mind to forget teh TwinTurbo route for my project and instead had a 24V engine winging it's way to me..

I found a buyer for the Turbo engine, hauled it out and sent it on it's merry way to Luke..

The 24V engine came with a cheap 12V too... That found it's way into the 4i and I had a running Driveable 4i :) cool...

The Blue twincam was sold, and the 4i was pressed into service, just a week or so before my Son was born.

One thing I forgot was the gearbox top cover, I had been told it would be an idea to inspect the box before fitting, but I forgot to do up the top cover bolts...... Fortunatly no damage was done.


Then on the way to visit the newborne the oil light started to flicker..... OH F....

The car was taken off the road, the new Black 4x4 bought....

I finaly sold the car to a M8 ( TAPS ) for £40 excluding the wheels... he's converting it to 24V THUNDER SALOON replica.

Unfortunatly the car appears to have hidden it's rot well, and Tpas is finding more than either of us envisaged! Still it's got a great interior, and is relativly solid.

So my 4i foray was over.

Blue TC2

Read Part 1


So.

It was all physicaly togehter.

Electricly I had to splcie together the 2.0 loom plugs and the 2.9 engine loom. This was made more difficult due to my official diagrams not covering the 1990 spec cars. A day sitting on the kitchen floor had it all done and bound with medical tape.

With that fitted up it was time to start it.... Nothing not a squeek. even directly trying the starter did not seem to work. My m8 from Glasgow turned up and after a few bluffs we had the starter turning with a jumper wire and the engine fired and ran great. But we still could not get it to start on the key. Then neil checked one of the loom plugs I had disgarded and it had an extra pin that I had not used. This turned out to be the starter inhibitor not present on the older cars.

So it now fired and ran, but only once per ECU power up?????? That was finaly traced to a power feed that need not have been there, no idea why but once gone it started evey time.

Then there was the road test, initialy it seemed good. The revcounter was still the 2.0 4pot one so was overreading. But otherwise the car flew! it was using the shorter ratio 2.0 diffs so was much quicker off the mark than the standard 2.9.

There was a noise from the front drive, I was going to have to fix the front cross shaft mentioned earlier.... That required the sump comming off and replaced. That was duley done ( a bit of a pig of a job ) but by now I was starting to loose interest in the old girl.

With the next car on the driveway an a question "Do you wana sell one m8" saw the days of the TerribleTwincam numbered. Within a week it was gone to a fellow round the corner, and he sold it on a couple of months later... Where is she now? Probably a baked been tin.

And that was that one. I lost ~£100ish on it.... I vowed never to have another twincam.

The Blue Twincam....

CAR 10

I won this one on ebay, after getting rid of my Black 2.9 4x4 (CAR 7) I had a couple of months off car ownership.. Then this cuaght my eye in Lancashire. 1990 2.0DOHC Xr4x4, Spax Suspension, rear RS valance etc... Looked nice.

£400 and a trip with my M8 ( listening to hitchhikers guide to the galaxy on tape... ) to Lancashire saw it purchased.. It looked good, it seemed to drive ok. It had a years MOT! So things looked promising. 180K+ on the clock did not overley worry me.

Troubles were on the horizon though...

First thing I noticed was a bit of smoke on start up, and then the water was dropping in the headder tank. Things were looking bleak for the head/head gasket. Then I noticed a large hole in the drivers side sill, and one behind the front wheel on the inner wing. How did it pass an MOT? A question I asked the vendor, and one that he was a little off hand about! And he denied knowing any problems with water loss and the acution not mentioning it.

I got nowhere trying to chase the vendor, so welded up the holes and started to draw up plans. New head gasket? or new engine?

Meanwhile, there was a chirping tapping comming from the front end.. Similar to on (Car 7)

The chirping was from the front propshaft, confirmed when the engine was pulled out. After many conversations and the mention of cracked heads, timing chains, ya ya ya ya ya... I decided the best course of action was to put in the 2.9V6 from ( CAR 6 )

After a bit of fetteling and a clean up the lump was ready.


As you can see there is a fair amount of space without a twincam engine in there. Plenty for the V6!

Physicaly the engine went in without a major hitch, I did shatter the transmission cross-shaft retaining ring, which would later come back to haunt me.

But everything else went to plan, the Ashley exhaust was crap fitting, and the prop was a nightmare but otherwise! :)

Next installment!

The Grey bitsa 2.9

F384 FRH

Noisy?

I should says so!

Originaly offered on Interford by one of the users for £200 with a nice stainless exhaust, I was tempted but had not realy got the space.

However, when he then said £0 but without the exhaust... I was on it like a dog on heat.

I had a spare exhaust so off Me and M8 Richard went to find the place in South Shiled.

We turned up and imediatly set about fixing up the exhaust, unfortunatly the downpipe studs on the passenger manifold had sheared... So that made it impossible to get that pipe to bolt up properly and eventualy was held in place by stainless steel ties.

We then put the dash back together as that had been partialy taken appart, refitted the wiper stalk but had not indicator stalk.

Then we tried to start it, which did not happen at first, actualy took about 30 minutes to get it going.. As i said LOUD! the leaxing exhuast was very loud.

I then had to drive it the 60 miles home without trying to draw too much attention ( the car was safe, just not quite how a Police man would want it to be though).

The noise was not to bad on the flat open roads, but going up hill was deffaning....

Made it home safe and sound though.

I put a replacement manifold on, sorted the exhaust reasonably and fitted the rest of the car back together.

It was free due to extensive rot in all the doors, but the shell was very good.

I was then in a selling mood and got £185 for it!

4 weeks of ownership payed off!!

The white twin turbo

My great aunt had died recently and I was left a sum of money, most of which we spent wiselyish. I did treat my slef though. A fellow forum member on the old XROC site was selling the car that he and some friends built for track days.

£600 bought this 2.9 XR4x4 with TurboTechnics 225BHP conversion. It had Cossy recaros ( + striped out rear ) Spax shox on puma racing springs. Mitsubishi Rally ( Enki ) Alloys and the RS kit. and Ashley exhaust.

I had it transported from Berkshire back to Carlisle. The intention was always to strip it for the engine to use in the Project Sapphire. During the stripdown extensive rust was found in the sills and rear hatch apature so good job realy!!

Eventually plans changed and the engine and virtualy everything else was sold on bar the steering wheel, oil gauge and power cut off.

The black 2.9 Car 7

CRL was an ebay special. I won it for about £250 from memory and it was located in Sterling. We decided to take the train up there and then drive up to Dundee to visit my brother in law.

I don't do public transport and felt ill for most of the journey.. When we got there the vendor met us at the station, a few details changed hands and we were off..

First impressions were not bad, it looked solid enugh, ran very well and drove ok. There was a throb from the transmission at speed though.
I took stock when I got to dundee and found that the front and rear tyres were different sizes. So next day a new pair were on and I was £50 lighter!!!

I also discoverd no Air filter!

We did a few shows over the summer, and did some mileage! She was a good comftble car. She did steam up lots but the 4x4 was fantastic.

At MOT time she failed on corroded floorpans, that took a few days of welding to sort but eventualy she passed :)

But as winter drew in funny noises were comming from the front end on motorways and I eventualy sold it on. The new owner replaced the wheel bearings which fixed that!!!

I did get to see her again when another club member brought her back to collect a turbo kit.

She looks quite good in the photo above and I realy did quite like her.

Car 6 the Blue 2.9

I was looking for a powerplant and drivetrain for the project sapphire... Not hard but just keeping an eye out...

Then out of the blue I got a phonecall from my m8 Neil in Glasgow, there was a G Reg 2.9 4x4 with short tax and test up his way..

He gave me the number, I gave the guy a call and we aranged to go up and see it one evening..

The trip up was not uneventful, my m8 Mark was driving his MK2 16V golf and arround Beatock we hit something on the road, as did about 6 other cars. We were all pulled up on the hard shoulder, Hazzards on, inspecting for damage. All we could see on marks car was that the front splitter was more split than it had been.. We think it was a Tyre or something else relativly soft.

Anyway, we made our way up the rest of the way unhindered. We met up with Neil ( our guide and protector ) and went to find the car.

It was on a Dark foggy road near the Clyde, deserted and quite scary. The guy turned up through the gloom... If it was not for Neil ( BIG BLOKE ) we would have been a little worried by the situation.

A quick test drive up and down the road confirmed everythig worked ok, i handed over £120 and set off in tho the night. I had a coffe and a sandwich at Neils mums and then made the 100 mile Trip back home, parked up and had a nice bottle of wine.. My first trip in a 2.9 XR 4x4 COOOL!!!

That was the last time the car would ever see the road ( well as a complet car that is.. )

After a few weeks it was drivven into the garage, it was stripped out and then cut up.

The cutting up was a little difficult, I was using a cheap reciprocating saw from B&Q.. Which kept on breaking, so I kept on exchanging it.. Eventualy the mettal work was all in bite size chunks, loaded onto a trailer and taken to the scrap man.

The engine eventualy went in the Blue twincam car, the wheels were sold for £80 tax returned for £13, metal made £2 and other odds and sods totted up to well over the £120 spent.

The only bits still in my posetion is the drive train and brakeing system...

So that was that. It serverd it's purpose sort of.... And cost nothing.

Luxury is a Carlton CD

In 2000 I decided I fancied moving up from cheap motoring ( the last sapph having cost a couple of hundred..) I decided to go looking. So me and my brother in law scoured every second hand dealership for 50 miles.. I most liked a 2.0 20V Volvo 850 Saloon but it was a bit steep for my budget.

The only other thing that caught my eye was a 92 J plate Carlton CDi. It was in burgundy with velour grey upholstery and was in very straight condition.

To be honest, I felt gr8. It was an executive saloon and I was driving it at 26..

The 2.0 8v was a bit underpowered but I realy liked the car. then she started loosing water. I tried some stopleak but that did not help. A head gasketechange did not seem to work as the head did not torque down. I was dis hartend and ready for a change.

Sadly she went to auction and made pittance..

I did see her on the road again though which gave me a smile.

The seccond Sapphy

Erika the Blue Sapphire was comming of the road for a bit of work, I decided to find another sapphire to fill in the time she was off the road, and to eventualy provide useful spare pannels.

A trip to the car auctions was in order again!

Only a few sierras were there but on caught my eye, it looked solid, straight and genrealy clean. It had a Sapphire Cosworth rear spoiler. A 1989 1.8LX Sierra Sapphire.

It came into the ring and sounded sweet, it had MOT for quite a few months too!

Bidding was not firece, I ended up spending £200 which was not bad for the day.

As I drove out of the auction house I was quite chuffed, it was driving fine. Then I hit 2.5K RPM and a rattle was evident.. :( Bumma!

It was a 1.8CVH which we had cut our teeth on with my brother in law Ian's 1st car. It's not an engine I particularly like...

So I had a top end rattle...

1st Port of call was a new set of cam followers £80. Still had a rattle.
2nd Port of call was a head gasket £30
3rd Port of call was a cracked exhaust manifold £10
4th Port of call was the valve springs £20 + head gasket £30
OOPS... Snapped a head bolt..
£30 for another head gasket.

Now I was just about to get married and the thought of taking the wifes MK1 golf on honeymoon was not enthralling me....

5th port of call was going to be a CAM Shaft £95 which sat on the shelf...

Whilst on honeymoon the brother in laws sierra drasticaly failed it's mot..

6th port of call was to swap Bro's engine into my car... YAHE!!! Rattle gone.


The car soliderd on, doing reasonable service until I got bored and decided it was time to move from povertyline motoring to something that cost a few quid more...

This car got PXed to get my brother in law his BMW E30 325i Sport, a real WEAPON!

Never ever seen this car again!

This was Erika back in 1995, wow Areal blast from the past image!

Erika the Sierra Sapphire

Driving a Nissan suny was not generaly what I had in mind, the plan was for a Sierra Sapphie. So I started hunting in November, waiting for the student loan to finance a new(er) car.

quite a lot of hunting was done, looking at cars that were either too expensive or heaps.

Me an Ian Till decided a trip into the big smoke ( London) was called for to look at a few cars.

First on the list was a Galaxy Blue 1.8GL ( 1987 ). The car looked ok, drove reasonably well, looked like it had done more miles than it said but overall it was not bad for the money... We took it for a test drive leaving Ian's car, keys and most importantly my money under the seat!!!!

After that we took a trip across town and looked at a 1.8LX in a light metalik blue. It was quit smart looking, but ahd had an accident repair. Unfortunatly it drove like crap and the vendor looked a bit shifty....

Then it was a trip further across town, we were going to see a Red 2.0LX. It looked reasonable although it had had a partial respray and the kids had scrawled on the door cards. But it was the one to have..... Untill we found that the V5 was in the post!!!

So it was back across town to haggle for Erika, the Galaxy Blue Sapphy.... £1400 later she was mine...

The car was in use from Nov 94 Till early 1999 when it was taken off the road and subjected to 7yrs restoration and modification.

Over the years on the road it got various upgrades ( 14" wheels then alloys ) Electric windows, better seats, colour bumpers with fogs, etc..

The Jap Shed Sunny

Ok, I had just sold the Lada Samara to my sister and my Student loan had not come through to buy my ideal car, a Ford Sierra Sapphire. I needed some wheels to fill the gap..

Me and My m8 Ian abz-zero Till went to the Maidstone car auctions to find a CHEAP set of wheels. Lot's of crud went past with no MOT. I bought a pice of Crud with a fairly long MOT (8 months)..

Somehow I decided to bid on a Nissan Sunny, A reg in RED. The bidding started at £50, and went up dramaticaly with me putting in the final bid at £50... Add sales charges and I was £62.50 lighter!! It ran prety well, and appart from the front and rear valances it was bodily not too bad.

The brakes felt a bit dodgy..

A week or so later the starter motor started to play up. but I had made a half decent job of sorting the valance.

The breaks were BAD! I ended up slewing sideways on the motorway under heavy breaking, and then later the friction surface departed from one of the front pads. new pads were fitted and I tried to repair the rear wheel cylinder that was leaking. That was a bad idea as I lost all pedal preasure during the test run, down a steep hill!! I managed to pump the pedal and make it back to base. A new wheel cylinder was purchased to fix the problem.

The car lasted about 2 months and 1200k.

It was then put in the garage and left ( I was to own 2 cars!! ) Ian put it in the garage for me, but managed to totaly miss seeing the HUGE capstan lathe into which he reversed, smashing the tail light.

The car languished in the garage for a few months before being towed away be and engine rebuilding company..

And she was gone.

I have one crappy picture somwhere which I will find at a later date.