I'm sure some of you will have seen this on eBay recently. Please accept my apologies for my outbidding you. And if you did bid, please keep it to yourself as I ended up paying more than I thought I would(but a little less than I was prepared to pay)!
So, what have I acquired sight unseen (in my defence it was a 500 mile round trip from Formby to Norwich!).
Well, it's a May 1981 2000 Coupe that the registration docs say is white but has a rattle can finish in satin black. It's MOT history on DVLA says it hasn't had it's first MOT yet and the registration document (an old style one) lists a former keeper acquiring the car in December 1992 and the next change in August 2008. So, some long term owners who did nothing with the car than store it. It has some plusses and some minuses.
The minuses:
It's incomplete - I'll come to those bits later.
It has a slight compression issue. It has none. The cylinder head is in the boot. The block is in the engine bay. I have no idea how long they've been apart but the cause of separation is a bent valve. I haven't tried turning the engine yet, the bores look okay, well, at least not rusted up so maybe there is hope for the original drivetrain.
Brakes look beyond saving. Minimum is new discs, overhaul of callipers and blasting/plating/painting of carriers before new pads go anywhere near it.
Power steering. Absent. Actually it has the earlier rack so that's great! I'll get a workout.
Tyres. Well, it has four. And they're a mixture of Continentals and Acceleras. Other than that they're all perished and none will hold air. The rims are 16 inch something or others and look awful (to my eyes) so I'll be going 14inch standard FPS or 15 inch Delta eventually.
It has a sunroof which appears to be flush but I'm not opening until the car is under cover.
Electric windows. Bet they won't work. Ever.
There are puddles in the boot. Sorry - that should have been in the plusses list!
There's filler in the windscreen scuttle panel corners, how much I don't know yet.
It's had the bonnet release cables/mechanisms removed. And bonnet pins fitted so there are now holes in the bonnet that need plating. The pins were in the glovebox.
No fuel filler flap.
Two keys but I can't get the door locks to play nicely...
Speakers cut into the door cards. Hate hate hate.
No history at all. We start from scratch now.
The passenger quarter light is hole free so no mirror on that side. I can't recall seeing one like that before but it's S1 glass so maybe it came like that or earlier glass was fitted after a break in?
There's a Panasonic radio cassette in it. I'll probably find something more suitable looking with a DAB upgrade because:
There a hole in the rear wing for the aerial. Something else to get plated.
Well it has a fuel tank but I have no idea what state it's in. Probably full of rust knowing my luck
Plusses
There are puddles in the boot. Because there are not gaping holes to let it out. There was a couple of bedsheets that were soaking some of it up whist supporting the various dismantled bits stored in there. All removed now to reveal a solid floor and the rear suspension turrets look rock solid. I probably should not have said that just yet.
Front turrets also look solid although there is some evidence of light corrosion and some primer on the nearside inner chassis rail, hopefully that's just preventative!
The underside looks solid too - but I haven't had it up on ramps so that's probably tempted fate once too often.
The interior looks pretty good, the dash has a little delaminatation by the vents and a bubble or two by the binnacle, probably repairable. It smells a little damp but there's no mould. I'll put that down to it being outside for a few weeks and being brought back in torrential rain. The interior will be removed quickly to clean/store/dry so I can assess the state of the floor.
That's about it for now after a quick assessment. Next - the missing bits and a plea?
