The suspension was modifed by removing the lever arm suspension and replacing it with the upper A-arm type thing from a Mini, a separate adjustable Spax shock was fitted. The lower torsion bar is retained and great for adjustment.
At the rear the shock mounting plates were turned over and swapped from side to side so that the shocks acted inwards. Again Spax adjustables.
I did buy a set of anti-tramp bars and a Panhard rod specially made by the company to fit, but have yet to get around to fitting them. But once on apparently they make the back end incredibly good.
I don't understand how not having an MOT meant it couldn't be recovered. Surely if they put it on a low loader it could have been in any condition? Someone must have moved it from where it broke down?!
Always thought a Santana would have been nice, not surprised you regret getting rid.
The now sadly deceased
@Shippers had a nightmare trying to get his 101FC on the road, legally in Portugal.
Really sorry to hear about
@Shippers, at times I've not been keeping up to date with what's going on and I hadn't realised this.
Yes the Santana was very nice but really it was very much a LHD series 3 with slightly different badges and rear lights. Series parts fitted it and I bought some from Craddocks and bolted them straight on. The exhaust manifold and downpipe was still on the left and consequently I was sitting more or less behind it, it didn't half get hot at times!
My broken down car is a long story which could get boring but key points - I called the breakdown people and they must have done a DVLA check and said its got no MOT so we decline to recover you.
I explained that I was returning from MOT (Portuguese ITV pre-import) and driving it under the auspices of the red fail sticker you get, rather than the green pass one. They said its on UK plates with no UK MOT so no.
I called some local numbers and one company said they would recover us to where we were going for €850. So I said no.
The symptoms to me said ignition so I thought it shouldn't be too hard to fix it but I did contemplate dumping it on account of above. As I said earlier it was worth about £200, 25 years old.
I found a local dealer and another recovery company who would recover it there, left it there for them to deal with. Managed to get a hire car to continue journey.
Returned later in Mrs. 6pot's car with the plan to drive back in tandem.
Paid and left garage but of course mechanics are often just parts fitters these days, they had plugged in the diagnostics which said something wasn't working and replaced that. They didn't look any further and half a mile down the road the same problem manifested itself, in fact I ended up pulling off the same dual carriageway in the same place as the original breakdown!
Now a dilemma. Phoned them and ranted but they close in 10 minutes, it's Friday, we've driven 250km to collect it, the PT red ticket now runs out in three days and the UK tax runs out in 5 days so not much time to get it done properly. I didn't want to drive it with both those run out.
Decided fùck it, I'll drive while I can and hope for the best. It was surprisingly OK and normal speed when running but did keep cutting out, Mrs 'shielding' me from behind said there were explosions coming from the exhaust when this happened, at one point I heard a roaring noise which puzzled me until I realised unburnt fuel was igniting in the hot cat like a blowtorch... It was a bit of a nightmare at times.
Stopped once to add a bottle of cat cleaner I had bought previously, didn't dare stop the engine, and went up a long drag in 2nd or 3rd gear to clean it out, I was dreading that hill in advance but amazingly got up it no problem. Got worse again when back down at sea level. Eventually nursed back to a garage I trust who changed the coil and its fine, except the exhaust was shot to pieces and the rear box burst open, so that was replaced as well.
Ironically it would probably pass the MOT now if the exhaust had a small leak all along which can mess the CO readings. That's if the cat and O2 sensor haven't been burnt to a crisp. The starter motor's probably aged about 10 years with the number of times I had to restart it on that journey.
plain old me had old series that used to arrive about a week after that lot. They used to rip me to bits about its speed. I know Carterton well, went through Brize a fair few times. Good place.
. Solar battles have enough power for a trip to the moon and back 
