danthecapriman

I decided to exhume the Mercury from the bottom of the driveway today. It’s been a bit neglected this year as I’ve been concentrating more on the Capri and the corona bollocks meant not really going out much for most of the summer, but I thought I’d better do something with it before winter sets in and ends up in a state. Got it running easy enough but the alternator belt was squealing it’s tits off so I had to tighten that up then took it out for a drive via the petrol station. A tankful of super unleaded should see it fine for winter lay up. It’s been out on a good 50 mile drive and did

Same as above. Give it a quick service, belts, water pump, coolant etc. Then check/clean out the brakes, change brake fluid. Then go round the car looking for obvious stuff. Then stick it in for a test. It might well still fail, but at least you’ll have it in some sort of decent state and be ready first, and eliminated any stupid fails like binding brakes or duff bulbs etc. If it fails at least then you’ll get a list to work through. Chances are it’s going to need a few hundred miles put on it yet anyway to iron out little issues and troubles from it being out of use so long.

I don’t think this cars got a drain plug either. Unless it’s hidden under all the muck! Pretty sure my old saloon did though, which was only 6 months or so older. I’ll probably do as you did tbh, and use a pump to suck it out. If I’ve got enough oil I might use a bit to flush it down then drain out again before refilling.

Another mornings spannering to finish the exhaust off today. Again, despite its shitty appearance it actually came apart really easily. There were no leaks on the tailpipe, but it was really really rusty, looked awful and had flakes of rust falling off it so since I was doing the exhaust anyway and the new part was cheap, why not. On these the rear silencer is just behind the rear bumper area and the tailpipe is a short ‘S’ bend bit of tube that fits on separate just to clear the bumper. A single exhaust U clamp holds it in place. The old rusty one undid without snapping off and simply

Nice job with the exhaust, talk about coincidence eh!! I wore some big fully enclosed goggles when changing mine, no rust in my eyes! It’s definitely not a nice job at home though. Good to see Sweden’s finest still getting some love too.

Did they even bother to come and look at it before buying!? It sounds as if they didn’t.

I say go for it. They’re excellent cars even in base form and will easily carry on indefinitely and you can do pretty much everything on them yourself at home to keep them going. The fuel economy isn’t great on them, but you’ve already said your not using as a daily so not really a problem. I wouldn’t worry about it being the 2.0 tbh, I’ve got a 2.3 and it’s not exactly fast! They’re more like a big hard simple car that just plods on and on and on and... they’re very comfortable cars too, mines one of the few cars I can drive for hours at a time and not get uncomfortable or ache, and my backs

That looks like it! I’m pretty sure I’ve still got the spanner in my toolbox.

I might just do the hose then since I’ve got some already. The one on the car is well over 30 years old now so probably past it’s sell by date. My manifold nuts are awfull! No idea how they’ve got like that tbh. They’re one of those jobs where I’m going to leave it alone until I have to do it I think!

I remember doing Metro’s from my time in a garage, didn’t the rear brakes require a little spanner with a square hole instead of a normal type?

Manifold to head gasket is fine, which is just as well because the manifold studs and nuts are in a right state! They’ve just rusted into blobs so will be a right faff to remove. That’s why I was really concerned about the front pipe - manifold studs snapping off! If they had of drilling them out would most likely have made me have to try undoing the rotten manifold studs to get it off and drill it. Yeah, access is pretty good because of the size of the car and ride height, the difficulty comes because of old age of all the bits. Servo hose seems ok, though I do have a length of new

Well this took a bloody age to actually get round to! Since the last update when the new bits arrived ive either been working or it’s been pissing with rain. Although the fixings on the exhaust have been receiving daily squirts of Plus Gas since then so it would be fair to assume if it was ever going to help, it will have by now! So today was both dry and I wasn’t working, good a time as any... Got the car jacked up high and decided to start at the front pipe. Get the biggest potential problem sorted first. I started on the 3 manifold - front pipe nuts after having pulled the warm a

I’ve not seen your thread for a while... Love the Metro! Looks a brilliant little thing, scrubbing up really nice. Rover is looking great too.

Fingers & toes crossed for you Eddy!

You’ve clearly got exquisite taste in cars!😀 Ill have to get my finger out and actually finish the Capri.