Hello all.
I learnt to drive in my Dad's R4 in 1982. I bought myself one in 1988. At the time I was skint and scrapped it two years later because I was told the car needed about £150 welding done on it. The mechanic told me it wasn't worth bothering with and I took his word for it - shame on me! However, I did remove the engine which had only done 70k before scrapping it. A couple of years later I bought a B reg GTL. The body was perfect and it had a FSH but it had done 113k. I wasn't too worried about the mileage because I knew I had a spare engine. The car did me proud over the next few years - you all know the score - travels at 60 to 70 mph all day, happy with mountainous roads, only car at one Glastonbury festival which didn't need towing out of a sodden field by a tractor, fantastic fuel economy, always started, never went wrong, etc, etc. Anyway, by 1995 I had clocked up 192k, the MOT was due and so was our first child. The mechanic said the engine was still 'sweet as a nut' but there was bad rust somewhere around the rear suspension mounts I think. Once again I was persuaded that it wasn't worth doing - especially as we thought it might not be appropriate as a 'family' car. The car sat in a very sheltered spot in my mother in law's garden. I started it up about every 6 months (having first charged the batter) and it always started! Now my motherinlaw is having an extension built and she has demanded that the car is removed. I still couldn't bare to see it scrapped so paid for a trailer and towed it back to Somerset. Now I'm in a dilemma. It is taking up valuable space in our drive - infact - the only space! I am torn between advertising as 'spares or repair' on ebay. or investing more money in it and getting it back on the road. Having discovered this site and read some of the posts I would love to do the latter - However, I couldn't do the work myself and don't want to spend too much on getting someone else to do it. Well there we go. Enough rambling! Any advice/suggestions welcomed.
Cheers
Jon
I learnt to drive in my Dad's R4 in 1982. I bought myself one in 1988. At the time I was skint and scrapped it two years later because I was told the car needed about £150 welding done on it. The mechanic told me it wasn't worth bothering with and I took his word for it - shame on me! However, I did remove the engine which had only done 70k before scrapping it. A couple of years later I bought a B reg GTL. The body was perfect and it had a FSH but it had done 113k. I wasn't too worried about the mileage because I knew I had a spare engine. The car did me proud over the next few years - you all know the score - travels at 60 to 70 mph all day, happy with mountainous roads, only car at one Glastonbury festival which didn't need towing out of a sodden field by a tractor, fantastic fuel economy, always started, never went wrong, etc, etc. Anyway, by 1995 I had clocked up 192k, the MOT was due and so was our first child. The mechanic said the engine was still 'sweet as a nut' but there was bad rust somewhere around the rear suspension mounts I think. Once again I was persuaded that it wasn't worth doing - especially as we thought it might not be appropriate as a 'family' car. The car sat in a very sheltered spot in my mother in law's garden. I started it up about every 6 months (having first charged the batter) and it always started! Now my motherinlaw is having an extension built and she has demanded that the car is removed. I still couldn't bare to see it scrapped so paid for a trailer and towed it back to Somerset. Now I'm in a dilemma. It is taking up valuable space in our drive - infact - the only space! I am torn between advertising as 'spares or repair' on ebay. or investing more money in it and getting it back on the road. Having discovered this site and read some of the posts I would love to do the latter - However, I couldn't do the work myself and don't want to spend too much on getting someone else to do it. Well there we go. Enough rambling! Any advice/suggestions welcomed.
Cheers
Jon