Laird_Scooby

The 820 base model with the 8v "O" series carb lump was indeed aimed at company car drivers who were given a budget and told to choose their car and it also broke some company car tax barrier as well. It was thought to be the "economy" model because it was an 8v carb engine but in reality was probably the thirstiest 800 of all time because it was so underpowered! Matt (midnite) - behave yourself! Unless you're thinking of transplanting the engine, box, loom and everything else from the dead Sterling.....................

Buy it then Mo!

Hopefully this will be a little bit of help, did a search for "Eloys fluid" : http://www.howtomendit.com/answers.php?id=324574 http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Motoring ... 04643.html http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/v ... ight=eloys Also searched for AdBlue and it is in fact goats piss dyed blue!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdBlue http://wikicars.org/es/AdBlue Well, ok, maybe not actual goats - but somethings or someones!! In one or other of the links i found, it transpires the Eloys stuff is highly carcinogenic so makes you wonder how long it will be in use for!

This is weird : http://www.motester.co.uk/CarOwnersGuid ... rrors.aspx Suggests you only need one mirror on certain vehicles, most of which have at least the 3 already mentioned!

But it had the internal mirror as well, right? That adds up to 2 mirrors. What i'm trying to say is there was some law passed in 1982 about having at least 2 mirrors and it seems it's open to interpretation. Most manufacturers simply fitted 2 door mirrors to cover their backsides. Without access to the original paperwork on the law i can't be more specific.

In some ways i agree with what you're saying. However, at the same time as passing the law on seat belt wearing (1st Dec 1982 was the day you had to belt up) they passed a law saying that each new car had to have 2 external mirrors, as well as the internal mirror. I suspect this was later relaxed to just 2 mirrors or it could simply be down to interpretation. When the law about dim-dip lighting came in 1986, every new car had to have dim-dip lighting. This seems to have also been relaxed as most new cars from about 1997 on that i know of don't have it. I do however know that the Chevette in question should have had twin door mirrors so it's definitely missing one!

What's wrong with your XR4i then? MY old Mk2 Granada 2.8 (on a carb!) would quite happily pull up to about 5,800rpm when it started to get a bit "no more" but would whizz past 4.5K very easily. Suggest you check the valve clearances, assuming yours hasn't got hydraulic lifters, if it has get some HLA treatment in it! For the record, i have seen a Marina coupe with a Starsky and Hutch stripe on . . . . . . . . .

Your comment came about the same time i added that on earlier SD1s, i think the pipework came out on the same side as the one pictured. Typical BL/ARG penny pinching meant it was slightly cheaper to have a slightly different master cylinder and re-route the brake pipes!

I seem to recall the Series 1 SD1 had the brake lines coming out on the same side as you have pictured in yours. If it's just the reservoir broken on yours, you may be able to "mix n match". Glad i seem to have pointed you in the right direction!

Another overpriced example has just reappeared on the bay : http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1983-VAUXHALL-CHE ... 0278883966 This was up for sale a few weeks ago but had no bids, the pics are different this time too. But look closely at the pics (use the enlarge thing on fleabay) and you'll see some stuff that shouldn't be there if it was only restored 18 months ago!! The most obvious is beige carpet which should be green! It's also missing the passenger door mirror (from 1982 on they were a legal requirement though i think you can scrape an MoT as long as it has 2 rear view mirrors of some description) and the seats look very tired for only having been sat in for 29027 miles!!!

Haven't a clue what a FAP is but my experience of Peugeot/Citroen vehicles, both as a Pug technician (auto electrics) and a driver of these heaps and the victim of their poor quality whilst driving an Iveco Turbo Daily now mean i wouldn't give anything from the PSA group driveway space! I still suffer badly with my neck thanks to a 6 month old Berlingo pirouetting in the outside lane of the M3 due to the driver touching the brakes! I'd had at least 2 Berlingo company vans back to the dealers in their first 6 months for the same fault - one wheel locks up due to a problem with the auto-adjuster on the rear brakes. Anyway, the Astra behind the Berlingo stopped, behind the Astra i stopped my long-wheelbase twin-wheel Iveco Turbo Daily - the Citroen Relay/Peugeot Boxer behind just kept coming at 70mph despite the driver literally standing on the brakes - dodgy master cylinder apparently! This was December 2000. Some time after that, i had another Berlingo as a company van which had a dodgy master cylinder - the brake pedal would feel hard but no braking effort was transmitted to the wheels! Not good when the traffic lights turn red and you're doing 60mph! This was at 30,000 miles but my boss (the previous driver) had reported the problem before 9,000 miles when i took the van on and he got a new turbo diesel Dispatch which also had dodgy brakes! The dealers that originally misdiagnosed the master cylinder on the Berlingo before i told them it was the master cylinder refused to treat it as a warranty claim even though it had been reported in the first year and they couldn't find the problem! Oh yeah, there were many other problems with the Berlingos, the list is too long to go into! Suffice to say i won't travel in a PSA group car now unless i'm not given a choice. They should all carry a government health warning!! Back to the original topic, when the dealers update their computerised diagnostic kit and the Apollo 2000 gets binned, how are the FAP things going to be reset?

Looks very similar to what i remember the SD1 Rover items looking like. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ROVER-SD1-SER-2-G ... 255bbcd22e http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-ROVER-SD1-CLU ... 5d29a97599 Hope that helps!!!

While we all find excuses not to like it cos we can't afford it, wouldn't we all secretly like one? Although maybe not on a Sierra chassis though . . . . . . . . . A terminally rusty Opel Monza would have a better chassis and much better engine or even a Mk3 Granada which are still cheap, plentiful and not as worthy of being saved as the Mk1/2 models. Either of these options would give more Mustang like performance too!

That's the current plan as there seems to be more Chevettes available than Dolomites. I've had 3 Chevettes in the past, 2 saloons and one estate. I'm looking for a 2 door saloon as they handle better than the hatches IMHO and i don't really like hatchbacks of any description. Got a few plans for mods/upgrades including possible tuning or engine swap ideas. Also plans for a half-digital dash but they need more work at the moment. Really want to find one in need of restoration so i can do it to my spec as it were.

Thanks again! Rovers method of achieving red lights was to use "gnome condoms" over wire ended bulbs (aka "grain of wheat" bulbs) and as a couple of mine had blown and i wanted something different, i found hi-brightness, 12V LEDs on maplin.co.uk. The blue ones weren't available in 12V so had to use a series resistor but managed to do it very neatly so it didn't take any extra space. Slight trimming with a file was needed to get the 5mm LEDs through the mounting holes on the shift quadrant but they are now fit and forget!