I remember these being the ‘in car’ to have, very of the time. I think Phony Tony had one? I remember my dad borrowed a 2.3 automatic for the weekend from this firm he was working for and it being phenomenally thirsty. Not many 2.8 left either as the chain used to shit itself in true fashion at 80-90k.
Great save though as I cannot remember seeing even the shape after that for a long while!
Base my friend. As basic as you could get, like having a hot Steak meal placed in front of you then it being whipped away and an out of date motorway service station sandwich moving into its place.
Often wonder how much of a bastard it would be to transplant an original base onto one of those CMC copies, weather a repro box and stick it in to Vectis… 🤣
From looking through this thread I think you could do it no problem. Time it up with the locking pins, belt off, exhaust manifold off the front, lift the inlet manifold out the way, from memory release the camshaft top shells in a fashion that releases them gradually, lift the cams out then undo the cylinder head bolts. As engines go these are very basic.
They are incredibly straightforward engines, time wise sticking another engine in but have you got the set up to do that and also chances are stuck another clutch in? Personally I’d have the head off and see the damage, if it’s serviceable skim it and belt it back up.
What’s the top end like? Sometimes they rattle like fuck as they get old. If it’s not using oil etc it’s probably good to go again.
A neighbour of mine at my mums had a 3 door 1.6 diesel Astra estate, it was proper grim. It’s ticket to China came when prior to MOTing it he wanted it looking over and it had a 5 inch hole appear on the chassis leg. The rest wasn’t too clever either. Some berk had done the bumpers in that ‘colourcote’ shit to make the textured grey bumpers the same as the body but it was all just peeling off.
Cars are still quite expensive in the canaries, even something 20 odd years old could be a couple of grand. Tenerife has a big scrapyard on the TF-1 on the way to the Airport, I’d love to look round it.
I’d really like it if they did the later stuff. I’d take that as a positive as it avoids a lot of potential messy licensing issues meaning later 70’s 80’s issues can be released.