Lankytim

I’ve had one for a few years and it’s worked really well. I’ve found that after a few months it occasionally stops sucking as whatever valve inside must get stuck or something but blowing down the end and shaking it around a bit cured it. You’ll find you end up using it for all sorts of jobs.

Got to absolutely love a Mini that hasn’t been buggered about with and is still standard. They’re almost extinct nowadays!

Trust me, they were worse. Think of a Marina but much more top heavy.

I raced a few of these back in my banger days. Lots around at £40 a pop. They seemed to last a few years on the road and then fail an MOT on something that was unobtainium and end up scrapped. It was common to see ones that were 5-6 years old cubed, some were even scrapped at their first or second MOT! I found that hollow body sections like inside the ribs on the bonnet and sills etc hadn’t been painted in the factory and were full of rust, they were also miles behind western cars in terms of handling and refinement. I know some on here will have rose tinted specs but I think they were absolute crap, on course this makes them even more interesting today. I’ve Ive got a Parker’s used car value guide from 1998 and none of the FSO cars had any part exchange value at all unless they were less than 6 years old or so. I’ll try and dig it out as the summary of FSO cars was quite amusing, the only brand that came off worse was Yugo.

From what I’ve read it was absolutely knackered, he must me crazy to want to restore it!

There’s a video of it on the “Classic cars, bangers, rot boxes, anything old and interesting” facebook group.

Apparently the guy got a free pizza too!

I don’t mind Wetherspoons, always somewhere to sit and usually pretty quiet and a good place for a chat. A few years back there was some numpty blocking the bar I had to elbow out of the way so I could pay for my pint with shrapnel but apart from that it’s all been good. Moving on, I’ve been working on the 145, filling the repaired tank with 10 litres of fuel and trying to get it to the engine so it’ll run. Absolutely no luck, even when I used my drill operated power steering pump to suck it from the tank. Very annoying, is the fuel pick up not low enough in the tank? Jacking the rear up I undid a fuel pipe and inserted the drill pump to try and suck directly from the tank. Petrol sprayed everywhere! The metal fuel pipe under the car is corroded and holed so will need replacing. Much better to find it now rather than when it’s on the road!

The Rover isn’t the only thing that’s beading, WOOF WOOF!

I’ve added a nice silicone 45 degree elbow to the Laguna to replace the last section of factory pipe, looks pretty nice and I’m sure it’ll provide another 000.2BHP and torques.

Sly nocturnal Swansea spot. Looked tidy but had a missing passenger seat. 24 hrs doesn’t seem like much notice to get it shifted before it’s crushed.

Thanks for the offer, I could get it welded down here or do it myself but I don’t want to end up up to my neck in an extended project, I’ve already got a couple of those. The other issues the Rover has are manageable for me but this chassis corrosion has tipped it over the edge for me from running resto to body off rebuild.

I’m on the P4 group on Facebook and there’s lots of people saying I should replace the chassis and how easy it would be to do and how scrapping it can never be an option but when I ask anyone if they’d like to buy it and do the work themselves there’s just tumbleweed. Moving on, the fuel tank has been refitted in the 145! The corroded and seized tank sender was gently coaxed back into life too meaning the gauge actually works now.

I’ll get the builders foam and black paint out.

That foam stuff is added at the factory to aid sound deadening, I'm not even sure what it’s made from. Hopefully not asbestos or something!