I am a twat.

[Alexg]

Shame about the kick to the snozz, apart from that it looks a honey! Great stuff

[drum]

Noice. More interior pics please.

[hairnet]

I know what you've bought, you legend!

 

lmfao daves gonna kill ya

[ShiteRider]

* interesting fact, when the twin towers got hit i was changing the starter motor on a maroon B-reg stanza at college.

[Squire_Dawson]

Tinwork looks mint, good stuff.

[wuvvum]

I'm 90% sure I've got a headlight somewhere.

 

That would be excellent.  Let me know if you can dig it out and I will send money in your direction.

[HMC]

Autoshite royalty! I last saw one in about 1998 bring used as a minicab, top bombing wuv!

[wuvvum]

If it stops raining for more than ten consecutive minutes tomorrow, I'll get some more photos.  Apart from a bit of bubbling on the offside front wing in front of the arch, and a couple of places on the roof where the paintwork has been polished through, the rest looks to be in pretty good nick. 

 

I might even try and find a deserted car park and see if I can experience the OMGDRIFTYO lift-off oversteer that these were infamous for - although I suspect wider wheels and tyres may have tamed it somewhat.  It did feel a little on tippy-toes on occasion on a soaking wet motorway though - that, together with the wind, rain, heavy traffic, missfire, wiper blades heading west and the daft woman in a PT Cruiser who drove into the back of me at Bishops Stortford services (no damage done) meant it wasn't the most relaxing drive home I've ever had.

 

Still a comfortable old car though, and I suspect that once it's been fettled it'll make a very competent motorway cruiser.  Not that I'm lacking those at the moment...

[purplebargeken]

 

 

 wind, rain, heavy traffic, missfire, wiper blades heading west and the daft woman in a PT Cruiser who drove into the back of me at Bishops Stortford services (no damage done) meant it wasn't the most relaxing drive home I've ever had. 

Sounds almost uneventful*

 

I hope she apologised!

[RoadworkUK]

Very impressive, but some points deducted through it not being a three-door.

 

A friend had a B-reg four-door once. Squishiest rear bench of all time.

[wackywacerwill]

Majestic. I can well see why you got that when in reality it was an unjustifiable purchase given your situation with the parking.

 

I think a biffed snout makes a car look mean in a good way though it being clean elsewhere would warrant the repairs I guess.

[wuvvum]

Brilliant, Stanza wiv stance on those wheels. What number is this Dave, 412th or something?

 

Spreadsheet says 429.

[wuvvum]

I might not get chance to look until Sunday as i'm going to view some top class automotive chod tomorrow and I'm not venturing out there now as it's pitch dark and pissing it down! 

 

Also, I have a factory service manual for a T11 if you want it.

 

Thanks - no great rush.  I'll let you know about the manual - at the moment I'm hopeful that she won't need any fettling beyond what the HBOL can cope with, but that may change once I've had a chance to go over her properly.  How big / heavy is the factory manual for these?

[Ratdat]

It's not quite phone book sized. 25-30mm thick I guess. I probably have a parts catalogue on fiche but I have a feeling it's listed on the Nissan FAST parts system. I can do you a copy if you don't have it.

[Ratdat]

I figured it would be. It's bizarre that my C220 Vanette isn't though. Maybe it's because it's Spanish built. 

[Angrydicky]

Top work! Should clean up alright I reckon, and the front should look better with a few new bits. Not sure about the alloys though, personally I'd put it back on steels, and get some nice period plates and beaded seat covers. These are super rare now, there used to be a very tired C reg silver hatch down the road from here but sadly it was scrapped a few years ago and replaced by a much tidier H reg Corolla. Can't recall seeing any others!

[skattrd]

Looking at those alloys they look a bit like Azev's to me, and if they are they're worth a few bob.

[wuvvum]

The wheels are Azevs, and tyres are Pirellis all round - somebody obviously loved it at some point...

 

Been having a bit more of a poke around the thing this morning - didn't want to do too much as I'm not sure I trust the bonnet prop in this wind, but was able to take a better look than I could be bothered to do in the pissing rain yesterday.

 

The grille is in perfect condition - the only reason it's on the piss is that it bolts onto the headlight bowls at each end, and the offside headlight bowl has obviously been pushed back.

 

I reckon the bumper is beyond repair, but I'm going to try straightening it as much as possible as a temporary measure, if only to improve the looks.

 

The bonnet slam panel is in fact slightly bent towards the offside end, and this has pulled the front edge of the wing in by a couple of mm.  Looks like it should straighten out though (although I might have to get a professional to do that bit).  The bonnet still opens and latches fine.

 

There are bits of grot here and there but overall it's survived pretty well for a Stanza.  Underside looks quite good from what I could see - apparently the previous owner squirted it with Waxoyl every year, which has probably helped.

 

The man on eBay with the headlights has got back to me - the offside headlight he has is a bit tatty but intact, and he wants £17.50 including delivery, which sounds fair enough to me.  Once it has a full complement of headlights it'll instantly become more useable - a smashed headlight screams "pull me".  That said, on the way home yesterday I drove right past a police car with a smashed headlight, non-functioning offside sidelight, and the bladeless offside wiper arm sticking straight out (the Stanza, not the police car), all the while leaning to the left to see out of the passenger side of the screen, and the copper didn't bat an eyelid.

[ProgRocker]

Holy Mother of Pearl wuvvum   that's an A++ purchase in my book. And beige too.

 

Living the dream.

 

My dad was interested in Stanzas when it came to buying a new family car in the late 1980s. I really wasn't keen on them back then and was glad that he bought an MG 1600 instead.

[Cavcraft]

Quite literally: Cripes! Top buying skills there, can't fault you for not wanting to turn it down!

[tooSavvy]

Proper 'realignment' of krooked IMP wishbones = chain & lamppost

 

Yurr not gunna wimpout, eh

 

TS

[skoda_fan]

Just read all of this. First class reasoning and purchasing. Done similar many times myself. Hats off to you, sir!

[RichL]

Well done sir. I spent most of my childhood around old Nissan's, family/friends/neighbours all had one at some point. The only Stanza I remember was a green one four doors up from my folks house. Got replaced in 1990 or thereabouts by a red Sunny 1.6 LX.

 

Good luck with it...be interested to see what parts availability is like.

[wuvvum]

 

Good luck with it...be interested to see what parts availability is like.

 

Well I think I'm probably in the best place right here for help with that kind of thing - Mr. Hirst has a Stanza (albeit the (even rarer) saloon version), and I think Ratdat knows pretty much all there is to know about old Nissans.  I might have to get in touch with Spottedlaurel and see if he has any useful bits lying around.  There's also a chap on eBay selling various parts.  Body panels could be interesting, but then none of the external panels has suffered any damage to speak of.  Mechanically I would imagine it's much the same as a mid-'80s Bluebird.

 

I've been running around in this this evening.  I drilled a hole in the offside bumper, which was hanging down somewhat, and put a bolt through that and one of the mounting holes in the bottom of the wing, so it looks a bit tidier now.  I also fitted a new sidelight bulb, so it has a full complement of working lights (ish - the offside headlight obviously doesn't have much in the way of beam pattern as most of the glass has gone, and the offside front indicator is also intermittent).

 

Handling is as rubbish as I'd been led to expect, and it also seems to suffer slightly from fuel starvation if a right-hand bend is taken with any degree of aplomb (although I suspect this might be alleviated if I put more than a tenner's worth of pez in at a time).  It actually goes bloody well in a straight line when given the beans, and I quite like the way it feels to drive - sort of heavy and solid, although part of that might be down to the lack of PAS.  Crosswind stability doesn't seem to be its strongest suit though.

 

Jobs for tomorrow (weather permitting) are to pull the driver's wiper arm off and position it lower down in an attempt to avoid the blade twatting the screen pillar on every sweep, fit a new interior light bulb, and pull the rest of the glass off the damaged headlight, as it's looking quite precarious now and could fall off at any time.  Oh, and see if I can find out why the driver's side front indicator sometimes stops working.

 

I'm actually warming to the old heap, despite a slightly fraught start to our relationship.

[trigger]

This seems a perfectly good time to share this photo again.

 

[wuvvum]

I might have to take the Stanza to Marham.  Could be amusing out-drifting the Autobahnstormers in a FWD Japanese hatchback.

[trigger]

^ That needs to be done!

[hairnet]

recreate that pic without the imminent crashu of the next frame of that series

[Ratdat]

No luck on a bumper I'm afraid. I only have Micra, N10 Cherry, B11 and B310 Sunny. 

[barmatt]

awesome tat collection Wuv.

 

I admit to a full on laugh out loud when I read the first paragraph of this thread and realised you'd bought another. It's an addiction we all share I'm afraid.

 

The Saab is lovely btw, cheers mate. I sorted the sticky roof catches with copious amounts of aerosol grease so It now locks down properly.