oman5

Bloody hell. I had one of these years ago, I reckon your Perkins engine was pretty tired if it could only muster 80mph. I put a turbo diesel out of a montego in mine and it went like stink (relatively), but I can see you have the power situation well in hand. Torque steer much?

Yeah, I think the same about old beemers.

For a long time values were in the doldrums...people STILL break them just for the engine and box, whereas in the u.S they are the hot ticket at the moment. Maybe that's encouraging people to sell?

This is my Volvo 940 td, caught on google earth. She's a lovely old bus with more miles than the starship enterprise. Smokey,rattly and with some epic lacquer peel. I've had it long enough that it owes me nothing.

My '87 foxbody mustang 5.0. It's an ongoing project...mechanically sound and solid but lots of little niggly things to fix, largely because it's lasted decades longer than Ford ever intended.

Berlingo 1.9d is the dw8 engine. Reliable enough but catastrophically sluggish. Daihatsu Hi-jet vans seem to crop up cheaply, almost all with overheating/ HGF. Fun to drive in town, not at all on a windy motorway.

Asda's Avonmouth depot runs a whole fleet of gas/diesel Volvo FMs. They run mainly on gas with a dribble of diesel to help things along, when you get to a hill they are supposed to swap over to diesel for more power. They are total shite. Down on power doesn't come close.

Yes. I totally agree, Houses, food and bills are a pain in the arse.

I don't skimp on maintenance on the Volvo 940, it's my work car. If it doesn't go I can't get to work, so no money! It only does about 6k miles a year, consisting of a 40 mile motorway journey 4 times a week, but the thing is, we KNOW that these old brick volvos respond well to TLC and just keep going. So it gets a full service with semi synth oil every January. It's still running on the mid range tyres I put on it 3.5 years ago, no cracks and the tread is around 5mm. It will need a set of pads as they're getting low but I'm putting that off until i can pull it off the road, it has a sticky calliper that I think is going to be non-cooperative. I put a full stainless exhaust on it so I wouldn't have to worry about it ever again. I forked out for a brand new milk crate battery when it started to get a bit slower when cranking from cold. The only thing I should have done but haven't yet is the timing belts..it's a godawful job on the d24 engine and I don't have the tools to do it, and neither does my regular mechanic. I love this car, it's the perfect car for me and I like everything about it. I want it to last, so I don't begrudge spending on it if it needs it. So far it's passed every MoT first time in my ownership. As for the mustang, it's a 140 mph machine, I think to skimp on rubber would be a bit stupid even if I never drive it that fast-it's still sending a fuck ton of torque through the back wheels, so it's got 4 brand new firestones on it.

Years ago a mate of mine used to do pretty well out of scouring the back lots. He had a well positioned pretty central sales pitch in Newport where he set up a proper Arthur Daley type used car sales place, definitely catering for the lower end of the market. He used to get his stock from one of those huge car supermarket places on the other side of town, the sort that chops out three year old Rep mobiles on finance to average folk. He'd just throw a bid in to take all of their part exes in one hit, it worked out at about £50-£100 per car, but the deal was he had to take the lot,warts and all. They were happy because they didn't have to mess about getting rid of em, and by the time he'd thrown some of his unemployed mates a tenner to drive them back to his premises, he'd still be into a winner, most of them were fine.

That'll be the 3.8 Buick engine. All of 105 bhp.

I'm wondering what I would replace my ovlov 940 with, the 95-2000 Mercedes c250 turbo diesel seems like a lot of car for the money, are they worth bothering with? I know they have rapid dissolving wings and tailgates...but of primary concern is that I can service it once a year and otherwise not have to piss about fixing stuff that's dropped off. It's either one of these or a D5 Volvo v70. All opinions welcome!

I had one, same colour too. They are ok, not the underpowered slug you'd expect. twin carbs take the O series to 101 bhp and they'll sit at motorway speeds nay bother. I suspect it will be a very limited market of people who actually want a 2000, now as in when it was current, its completely overshadowed by the V8 ones.

Yup, Drinkwater supplied the Dodge trucks for the film. I work with a guy who drove for Drinkwater sabey as they became, in the '60s.

They're actually pretty nippy. It's the same OHC engine they used in the fwd cavalier. WOULD.