What would you buy & why?

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JPB
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Re: What would you buy & why?

#991 Post by JPB » Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:51 am

Hmm, another LHD R5 was on eBay recently,it was the one restored by Drew Pritchard's team for the coming second series of Salvage Hunters Classic Cars, which starts on the Quest Channel (Freeview ch 114 or ch 37 if your area doesn't yet do HD on quest, Chatton mast has just started HD outside of the BBC and it's marvellous, a bit like removing the wrong watching specs and putting on new, correctly prescribed ones) on the 16th, so next Wednesday at 9 (IIRC,but look it up for yourselves as I'm not currently near the telly paper for next week).
The one they did on the show is also white, also remarkably solid to start with and similarly manual. Yes, Rich, it's relatively easy to fit a R5-sourced automatic engine & 'box combination to the R4, I've done one, in 1985 for a customer at one of IM's older workshops who loved their car but could no longer manage the 4's horribly heavy clutch. The engine that was suitable for the task was the larger, 1289cc version of the old Sierra/Cleon motor as found everywhere from Volvos to Dacias, so not only did the car go better because it had grown a torque converter, it also gained several horsepower and a hell of a lot (relatively..) of extra torque.
It drove absolutely brilliantly and the 4's stock brakes were up to the job as that car was a late one that had come with big discs up front.
I wouldn't want to do it all over though, since the manual and automatic versions of the engine were different in so many subtle ways and so it wasn't just a "nuts & bolts" conversion job. Almost, but not enough to make it worth doing again, much as I love the R4's hefty chassis-based construction, its eccentric asymmetric suspension layout and its ride quality that matches a 2CV for softness and may even have been better.

Rich, in what way is the vendor of the Mazda "odd"? Avoiding direct accusations of bestial or otherwise unsuitable behaviour, what is it about the guy that gives you this idea? Aren't we all at least a little odd? No? OK, just us then.
:D

Oh, and DuckDuckGo - the secure search engine that doesn't try to sell you stuff - why would your inbuilt dick 'n harry have me replace the word "Horsepower" with the word "Powerhouse"? :? Much more of this and it's back to Google for me!
J
"Home is where you park it", so the saying goes. That may yet come true.. :oops:

rich.
Posts: 6804
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Re: What would you buy & why?

#992 Post by rich. » Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:07 pm

JPB wrote:
Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:51 am

Rich, in what way is the vendor of the Mazda "odd"? Avoiding direct accusations of bestial or otherwise unsuitable behaviour, what is it about the guy that gives you this idea? Aren't we all at least a little odd? No? OK, just us then.
:D
he advertised the car last year.. & got very stroppy whan i asked for pictures.. i did ask nicely honest!! :lol: :lol:
100 pages of this john :lol: :lol:

edit,
i was so keen on this until i found out its a jap import :(
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/283335411340

:drool: :drool: :drool:

rich.
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Re: What would you buy & why?

#993 Post by rich. » Sun Jan 13, 2019 8:08 am


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JPB
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Re: What would you buy & why?

#994 Post by JPB » Sun Jan 13, 2019 2:54 pm

I do have a fondness for Kei class commercials, as the better of my current pair of 4x4s suggests, but what a shame that someone ruined the clean lines of the Mazda truck by clagging a VW themed front panel and badges to the poor wee thing. :(
the vendor of the Mazda wrote:TO FIND A PICKUP WITH A VW GRAFTED FIBREGLASS FRONT IS EXTREMELY RARE - MOST ARE MINI MPV'S
I, in an attempt to guess at what he really meant when he said the above, wrote:TO FIND A PICKUP WITH A VW GRAFTED FIBREGLASS FRONT IS EXTREMELY ALARMING - MOST ARE LEFT ALONE AS THEY'RE NOT TOO BAD LOOKING IN THEIR OWN RIGHT. DAMN! WHO'S BEEN POURING SUPERGLUE INTO THE SHIFT KEY ON THIS LAPTOP?
Rich, may I suggest that you take your recently upgraded spectacles back to the optician and ask for a refund as they clearly don't work if you reckon that there's even the slightest similarity between the Kei truck and a Fridolin?
:lol:

That Robin certainly looks tidy, but I'd want the original front seats to go with it if I were about to spend that much on one of these. Tempting though, and technically, even someone whose licence is for auto only (cars) can drive a tricycle as they're not divided between auto and manual for licence category purposes. But in reality, only mermaids and people with super skinny legs can get their feet all the way to a Robin's Pedal box so even if I could manage the heavy (if it's an original coil spring type, later diaphragm clutches in these are both lighter and much more pleasant in their action) clutch in a Reliant Robin, there's not much space for my fat feet once I finish threading my legs all the way to the front. Kittens are far superior, because they have the engine at the front and so only the much thinner gearbox is between the footwells.

Regarding the Benz in your previous post, Rich, I fail to see why a car that was registered in another country - meaning that it's probably to EU spec and as such, stamped with an international VIN rather than the shorter, uniquely Japanese frame number - before it went to Japan should be difficult to get into that France. OK, if it were sold new in Japan and registered there, then I understand the potential for loads of hassle that this would cause, but as it's LHD, it can't have been registered as new in Japan. ;)
Go for it, these are great estate cars that are almost as big inside as the Volvo of the same era.. You know you want it! :D
J
"Home is where you park it", so the saying goes. That may yet come true.. :oops:

GHT
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Re: What would you buy & why?

#995 Post by GHT » Sun Jan 13, 2019 3:25 pm

For no other reason than to show off because I live on the boundary of The New Forest, here is what will await you when the weather is more clement. You can't drive a hundred yards into the forest without encountering some old jalopy or other:
new forest classic cars.jpg
new forest classic cars.jpg (217.34 KiB) Viewed 6196 times

rich.
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Re: What would you buy & why?

#996 Post by rich. » Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:47 pm

JPB wrote:
Sun Jan 13, 2019 2:54 pm


Rich, may I suggest that you take your recently upgraded spectacles back to the optician and ask for a refund as they clearly don't work if you reckon that there's even the slightest similarity between the Kei truck and a Fridolin?
:lol:



:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
regarding my spectacles, while they are ok for the moment they are permanently grubby no matter how often i try & clean them..so i tend to wear them on the top of my head or they spend the rest of the time in the truck... :oops: as for the truck it has a vw badge so its near enough :lol: :lol: :scared:


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JPB
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Re: What would you buy & why?

#998 Post by JPB » Tue Jan 15, 2019 10:48 am

I'm liking the camouflage on the VW van. It was difficult to see that there was a vehicle in the picture at first because the effect is so convincing. :mrgreen:
You're never getting the hots for a broken Escort van are you? Stick to MX5-related ideas mate, they don't have much of a tendency to go wrong and if you buy one that hasn't already rusted away to half of its original weight, and that isn't being sold by a prize plum, then it's pretty hard to go badly wrong.

As for that Mustang; erm, ok, if that's what floats your boat. But it's a bit too bright for my taste, unless that exclusive design is in fact a further example of camouflage. Camouflage for hiding the car in your local branch of the Taste Free Zone. I'd crush it and use the steel to build something far nicer to look at, but then I would..
:sick:
J
"Home is where you park it", so the saying goes. That may yet come true.. :oops:

rich.
Posts: 6804
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:18 pm

Re: What would you buy & why?

#999 Post by rich. » Wed Jan 16, 2019 6:48 am

i thought about buying the mustang & parking it outside ght's house ;) & escort vans.. ive always had a soft spot for commercials :oops: but on my endless quest i spotted this
https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/1535907395.htm/
how difficult is it to source & fit a new engine??

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JPB
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Re: What would you buy & why?

#1000 Post by JPB » Wed Jan 16, 2019 7:12 pm

rich. wrote:
Wed Jan 16, 2019 6:48 am
how difficult is it to source & fit a new engine??
Sourcing one is easy enough and they don't usually break so find yourself a dead Avensis with the same unit and buy that to use as a donor. I've never done an engine out job on one of these, but it's pretty much a conventional, front wheel drive shopping trolley and most Toyotas are easy enough to fettle at home.
One of my neighbours owns a 2004 example, same colour as that one on the link. It's covered about 300,000 miles and continues to run as well as ever, but then his does get serviced every few weeks as a result of his high mileage driving habits, so any signs of impending engine failure would be picked up early enough.

I like the shape of this generation of Celica, I also like that they go like the proverbial off a shiny shovel. :mrgreen:
J
"Home is where you park it", so the saying goes. That may yet come true.. :oops:

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