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Buy an old discovery or not !
- Thread starter smallzoo2
- Start date
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Just chatting about them, so will be doing the expensive thing later this year
Jayridium
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- Pedronapper (Peterhead)
What is it you're getting the quote for?
Jayridium
Well-Known Member
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- Pedronapper (Peterhead)
Thanks for the feedback - however I have to confess that I had misspelt the word deities - meant to say deities as in plural of gods diety, ended up using a d before eighties, as in the decade, almost like I was giving my age away by dropping hints about being an eighties child. Coaxial, Coplanar - uhm, what can I say, I'm engineer, and a word geek. 
Chassis
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I always think of coaxial as referring to cable as in TV antenna.Thanks for the feedback - however I have to confess that I had misspelt the word deities - meant to say deities as in plural of gods diety, ended up using a d before eighties, as in the decade, almost like I was giving my age away by dropping hints about being an eighties child. Coaxial, Coplanar - uhm, what can I say, I'm engineer, and a word geek.
It must be nice being an engineer and thus able to know exactly what you are doing working on vehicles, unlike me a retired French teacher who only has the experience of maintaining and eventually building my own cars since the early 70s.
As an Eighties child, (I started teaching comparatively late in life, at 26, in 1981) you must hardly have known the pleasures of working on Ford Cortinas, Morris Marinas, Minis, Triumphs not to mention "foreigners" of the period, etc to say nothing of series LRs
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Sort of job that once you have done it once becomes a lot easier.
It isn't the changing that is the problem it is the adjusting which is fiddly, especially if you are trying to do it just with feeler gauges.
With a dwell meter it is a lot easier and I got one of those a long time ago. Far, far more accurate.
Just as adjusting the timing is easier with a strobe timing light. Although I always did that then adjusted it again under proper running conditions as where an old car's distributor sits at tickover is often way off where it needs to be when being driven. (Timing chain stretch etc.) I have changed them to points free dizzys, which is cheap and easy, but part of me still don't trust it so I carry the old points etc in a little kit in the car just in case! I did once have electronic ignition go fubar on me, fortunately a few 100 yds from home and as it was a Mini I could push it there, just. Needed a lie-down afterwwards mind!)
Some do it by ear and get it close, I've been known to do that too when nec.
Ditto carb adjustment.
Old skool skills that the new generation have no idea about. Like the AA bloke who tried to plug his tablet into an MGB!
Sort of job that once you have done it once becomes a lot easier.
It isn't the changing that is the problem it is the adjusting which is fiddly, especially if you are trying to do it just with feeler gauges.
With a dwell meter it is a lot easier and I got one of those a long time ago. Far, far more accurate.
Just as adjusting the timing is easier with a strobe timing light. Although I always did that then adjusted it again under proper running conditions as where an old car's distributor sits at tickover is often way off where it needs to be when being driven. (Timing chain stretch etc.) I have changed them to points free dizzys, which is cheap and easy, but part of me still don't trust it so I carry the old points etc in a little kit in the car just in case! I did once have electronic ignition go fubar on me, fortunately a few 100 yds from home and as it was a Mini I could push it there, just. Needed a lie-down afterwwards mind!)
Some do it by ear and get it close, I've been known to do that too when nec.
Ditto carb adjustment.
Old skool skills that the new generation have no idea about. Like the AA bloke who tried to plug his tablet into an MGB!
My car was timing only, so quite easy to check with strobe.
Checked the air gap once.
Little plastic box on wing with a heatsink on top.
VERY reliable
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No pics I notice of the underside of the rear chassis, and I'd have liked to see pics of the air supension both all the way up and all the way down.shiney on top.
Till you go and "tap to unwarp" you really wont know.
J
Looks fair but in a sh!thole of a setting!
A quick visit to vehicle check I.e. MoT? Seems OK, MoT passed with a couple of advisories, seems that the major works were done previously??
One thing I did notice!! Not much wear and 'tear' on the drivers seat!
Other than that! Looks sound!! But you will need to spend some time looking at it! And driving it?? (Try before you buy!!)
Kev
jamesDiscoTD5
Active Member
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Yeah but those advisories mean there's welding needed in 2 places sooner rather than later.
The rear arch is easy access for welding, around the brake servo probably less so.
It's not a £3500 car, especially with those advisories.
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another story on the reliability of electronic ignition.
A lady I knew asked me to do a whole load of paint work on an old Escort Mk 3 she was going to flog having just got her first firm's car. I did it, rattle cans in a damp garage but all the same OK. she paid me an embarassing amount of money!
Then she rang em up to tell me that she had "sold" the car, that the wimmins buying it had gone off to get the cash but it now wouldn't start!
So I drove over and started trying to get a spark, no luck, another friend of hers turned up and together we still had no luck at all.
I then said to her "Aren't you in the AA?" Forehead smack and she rang them. At which point I left.
She told me later that the AA mush turned up, confirmed it was an igintion problem, drove her into town to buy a new unit thingy that bolts onto the side of the dizzy, cost quite a bit, paid for it, he fitted it, it still didn't work!
At which point he said that it was the end of his shift so he was off!
She told me that she had to spend a lot more money on "she thought" a new dizzy, before she could kiss it goodbye.
You win some you lose some!!
- Posts
- 45,163
- Location
- East Dorset
- Posts
- 45,163
- Location
- East Dorset
I note that one piece of welding has been an advisory for two years running, presumably in a relatively inaccessible place (the seat belt mounting) as he seems to have done the rest of it, although he had to as it was a fail, well 3 fail items.A quick visit to vehicle check I.e. MoT? Seems OK, MoT passed with a couple of advisories, seems that the major works were done previously??
One thing I did notice!! Not much wear and 'tear' on the drivers seat!
Other than that! Looks sound!! But you will need to spend some time looking at it! And driving it?? (Try before you buy!!)
Kev
Ah Ford
with a POS engine.
Mine was Chrysler, with a well designed British pushrod lump of good reliabilty and well capable of revving.
