Biggest leap of faith?

[hairnet]

Bought unseen a 94 Aprila pegaso off eBay . I was the only bidder at 700 quid . I did ask the buyer before a got a train ticket if he thought it would make it . He said yes and he wasn't a liar .

My ass hurt from the seat for days afterwards . I got about 30 miles into my 300 mile ride back before numb bum set in !

that happened to me

 

bmw f650 from weymouth

 

very cheap - 'throttle sticks open' full mot

 

around the world for the train then ride it down his driveway out of his road to a set of lights - where - the throttle sticks open as i get 20 feet from the red

 

quick look underneath and the cable was oddly stuck between carbs stopping it moving back

 

quick poke and 300 miles back through west country and wales

 

pxed it for a versys when for a 12 year old they gave me twice what it was worth even tho it wasnt hanging

[twosmoke300]

Same engine !

[Angrydicky]

Agreed to buy my A40 Somerset unseen on the strength of a few photos and a list of the work done recently. A mate had it and I fell in love and asked for first refusal on it. When he informed me he was thinking of selling it, I jumped at the chance. I got my dad to give me a lift down to Somerset in the NorfolknWeigh Rover 600, where after a brief test drive I drove it 180 miles back to Essex, with only one stop to refuel and check the levels. To its credit, it made it with only a bit of misfiring as I joined the M25. This turned out to be crap in the tank due to a lack of use.

 

Then the starter solenoid jammed, so I replaced it. Then the ignition switch started playing up, so I had to hotwire it when I needed to drive anywhere. I tolerated this for a while, before sourcing a NOS switch from Ebay. I had various problems with the engine randomly cutting out, which I struggled to get to the bottom of. Eventually, I found this was a bad connection inside the aftermarket distributor, due to cost-cutting. A proper Lucas item then went on, and I haven't had any more problems with it since. The charging system packed up, so I converted it to an alternator.

 

Recently, I treated it to new front shock absorbers, to replace the incorrect ones it had on there (the arms were 1" too short, resulting in negative camber), uprated commercial leaf springs, and new pins and bushes all round, at great expense. It's also had lots of smaller jobs done, such as welding and modifying the exhaust, fabricating and welding in an 18" section of the boot surround, and fitting flashing indicators. I've also got lovely period (well, early seventies) seatbelts to go in it. Apart from that it's just been all the usual maintenance, several oil changes, grease-ups, adjusting the brakes, tyre pressures, re-stuffing the drivers seat, and so on. But for a 62 year old car, which I've done 10,000 miles in the last year in, including trips to Yorkshire, the Lake District, and Wales (twice), it's not doing too badly. I love driving it, and find it more comfortable than anything else I own. It's no trailer queen, but it's a true practical classic, used for those jobs most people would use a eurobox for - and I love every minute of it. Now I've ironed out a load of problems with it, it's become genuinely reliable, with no breakdowns in the last six months (touch wood).

[UltraWomble]

Bought the Picasso in Portsmouth unseen, untested and from a bloke I didnt know relying on a lift from someone I only vaguely know to get there.

 

Did exactly the same with the Maverick, joined a forum to buy a Teranno, bought a Maverick instead unseen with an impossibly short MOT from a bloke in Doncaster who I didnt know.

 

Both got me home. I test drove neither before handing over the cash ( I needed to get home).

[strangeangel]

Saw a '08 plate 400cc Piaggio scooter advertised on a forum as a rough old dog but running and legal, with service history - £300. No pictures. So, of course, I bought it.

 

Got a one way train ticket to Londinium, lugging my bike gear. It had been kept outside all its life & he'd dropped it on the ice, nicely cheese-gratering one side of the bodywork, but it still wasn't quite the nail he'd described. I paid the seller (nice chap), took it to the petrol station and rode it 230 miles home in the dark. It ran like a champ. I took it on a two-week tour of Spain earlier this year & it performed heroically. Sometimes these things do work out

[Jim Bell]

No horror stories yet?

 

Good.

 

Let's keep doing it.

[brownnova]

Whilst I was at Uni I bought a Triumph Dolomite unseen from eBay for £300ish - The owner had just done a round trip of Scotland, so I was concerned by the tone of his voice when he said "You plan to drive it home...?"

 

I arrived in Redditch to the Dolly looking good, but being a young'un had never driven a manual choke before, so put it in waaaaay to early and nearly killed myself on a roundabout!  Got to the pez station and a bloke said.... erm I think your car's leaking fuel!  A quick smell test revealed it was water that had gathered in the boot. Going well so far.  Remarkably made the journey back from Redditch to Bangor relatively trouble free after that.

 

On closer inspection however... It was a state.  Noisy gearbox, front and rear halves in different shades of green, and Frankinstein-esqe cooling midifications.  Oh and rusty, very rusty.  I sold it 2 months later to an Indian chap from Birmingham. 

 

You may know the car, the numberplate read JLO 939V and it turned up in Practical Classics a few months later, and then again recently! Happy to see JLO's still a shonky piece of shite! 

[Largactil]

No horror stories yet?

 

Good.

 

Let's keep doing it.

 

Now that you come to mention it...

 

It's 1996, and I'm a 19 year old university student up in Aberdeen. I've just been awarded my student grant (this was pre-student loan days), and being richer than I had ever been in life up to that point, decide I'd like to buy myself a car. (Even though I have absolutely no need for one, and can't afford to run it).

 

Having boy racer tendencies, I also decide I'd like something sporty - After being quoted £1200 TPF&T on a Metro Turbo by Endsleigh, I elect for something a little less sporty.

 

It just so happens that a friend is flogging a Fiat 127 1300GT - It's suffering from OMGHGF, but for the bargain price of £450 he'll have it repaired and ready to go. Best of all, it's only £650 (£1100 in today's money) to insure it TPF&T - Bargain!

 

I catch the train down from Aberdoom, and pop over to fetch it - The cylinder head isn't attached to the engine, and the world's most slovenly mechanic is scraping old gasket sealant off, in between whingeing and smoking 40 fags an hour. Turns out (surprise surprise) we actually need a new head gasket in order to put it back together.

 

We pop over to the house of a bloke who's had a couple 1300GT's to see if he has one lying around. He's not in, but his garage is handily open, so we start raking around and eventually find a head gasket, out of its packaging, hanging on a nail.

 

IOU left, we head back, and slovenly mechanic puts it all back together while continuing to smoke and whinge. Quick test drive around the block, and I finally get the keys around 22:00.

 

I pop around the corner to my folks, who have just returned from a relaxing fortnight in Florida with my sister - They aren't expecting me, and knew nothing of my car buying plans. They seem strangely upset and concerned that their 19 year old son has invested his entire student grant in buying & insuring a rusty 14 year old Fiat which he now proposes to drive 120 miles to Aberdoom, despite the fact that the furthest he's driven previously has been 15-20 miles away, and he's never driven on the motorway before. 

 

Amazingly the 127 makes it up the road 4 hours later (after getting lost twice), and is parked up in the halls of residence carpark.

 

A week later, I decide to take full advantage of having the car, by popping back down to visit my folks on the Friday. Things go reasonably well until Dundee, where the car seems to be losing power rapidly, and stalling at every roundabout (of which there are many).

 

In 1996, there was a very busy roundabout on the Kingsway, where the A90 joined the coastal road - It really was a case of 'foot down / go for it' to get out onto it. As I approached this in the middle of the Friday rush hour, I finally noted the red temperature light glaring away at me, as the car conked out for the 20th time. By this point I was so rattled / frustrated / stressed, I banzai'd the roundabout and got around on the starter motor. By some miracle it spluttered back into life, and I drove the next 50 miles in 3rd gear with my foot on the boards, at 30-40mph.

 

Amazingly the engine didn't seize, and I made it to my folks place, steam billowing from the front grill - As I got out to go Basil Fawlty on the thing, a car pulled up behind. It was the bloke from whom we'd robbed the head gasket from the week previous, and (understandably) he wasn't very happy with me. A mouthful of abuse, and me handing him my last twenty quid later, he buggered off, leaving me to survey my folly. Car FUBAR'd. No money to fix it.

 

I stuck it in the local paper, and a week later a bloke gave me £200 for it - He planned to transplant an Uno Turbo engine into it, but it languished on his drive for 6 months before he eventually scrapped it. RIP BLK879Y.

 

To top it off, I'd got some spares with the car - A spare block, x2 cylinder heads and a gearbox, as well as a load of ancillaries. While back at uni, my old man took it all down the local scrappies and got a tenner for the lot, which he felt was a good deal. 

 

Could be worse - Lost £250 on the car, but got most of my insurance premium back, as I'd only owned the car for a fortnight...

[Richard]

That roundabout is still there and it's still a bastard.

[Largactil]

 

That roundabout is still there and it's still a bastard.

 

 

Ah - It's the one next to the Shell garage at the top of the hill where the Forfar road joins the Kingsway. There's traffic lights there now, but it used to be a three lane roundabout...(!)

[cros]

None of this is a leap at all compared to my mate who got married without even sticking it in first.

[Frogchod]

Apart from buying the Rialto blind and then driving it straight back to France the only other epic leap of faith was with my Meharii.

Anyway, I agreed to swop my CX25 Pallas for two Citroen Mehari. One was supposed to be good and the other a spares car. A date was set and I set off with a mate on his GSXR1100, so no chance of taking any tools, to the Isle of Man. (Said mate was shagging someone during TT week every year so he jumped at the chance to escape his wife) For reasons that escape me now my Cx was collected and taken back to the IOM weeks before. I turned up in Douglas and was picked up in  the chaps modified CX turbo which was ace and in dire need of traction control.

Got back to his unit and the "good" car is still in bits, so cracked on together and and got it all in one piece, Hitched up an A frame ( to be collected from mainland later) and set off to the docks towing the second Mehari. Filled up with pez parked up athe docks and went for many beers. Overnight boat trip, landed at Heysham and promptly ran out of pez. Thought it may have all leaked out but after being dragged to petrol station to refill no leaks, pez must've been stolen.

Back on the road, all that was required was the drive back to Reading. Of course it was raining and there was only half the weather gear on the lead Mehari so the bike gear came in handy. Windscreen wipers were working ok but the fuggin rain was coming in landing on the inside of the screen. This and towing another Mehari with 602cc of raw power made for an interesting trip home..

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

One evening in 2002 I won on Ebay a Y reg (1982) 732i. In Essex.

 

At the time I lived in Mansfield.

 

So 5.00 pm (ish ) I win. I ring the vendor, some pimply yoof doin' a bit a buying' an' sellin' innit.

 

"I'm coming now".

 

So by 5.45pm a train is pulling out of Mansfield Woodhouse station. By around 10.30pm it's pulling into a train station somewhere near Saaarfend.

 

By 11.00 I'm at his parents house, counting out 130 quid in tens and twenties.

 

By 10.15 the shed has been booster started as the battery is bollocksed. Hope the alt puts some life into it. 

 

I go to a filling station, bang 30 quid's worth in (engine running), run to the cashier and chuck the money at him - can't leave my prize unattended.

 

And I set off. A14 (?), M25, M11, A1 as far as Newark and then across to Notts etc. It bowled along at anywhere between 70 - 90 and made it home fine. I had forgotten, in my excitement, to check the oil, coolant, tyres etc.

 

It was an odd one because it was a RHD car but basic spec - steels, wind ups etc and a look in the owners handbook revealed it had been ordered in Germany and collected from the dealer in Nuremberg. It was such a straight tidy car and I ran it for 4 months. But it was started to show signs of HGF and the end came when it shat it's torque converter seal out.

 

I removed a few useful bits and weighed it - in 2015 of course it would be fixed but they weren't worth a cup of cold piss then.

 

I still have the handbook. HRV285Y iirc.

[mouseflakes]

Many years ago, driving a Mk 1 Hiace pop-top camper home from the corner of the scrapyard it'd been festering in.

[Station]

Where I worked in 2000, one of the IT lads was going to scrap his mk2 Escort. It was a two door and had been off the road for about four years. I was sick of borrowing my dads car after my mk3 Fiesta was stolen and burnt out in Bootle, so this was perfect. He said 250 quid - I had no idea of the worth of scrap or knackered cars so bit his hand off. It was green with algae, but I washed it with works Karcher and then took it home the next day. It had no tax, mot or insurance. It broke down several times on the way home, including in the middle of a junction.

I got it home and the diagnostic was it had blown it's head gasket and had a big hole in the boot floor and a massive hole on the backs of the floor where it meets the doors. My insurance pay out paid for repairs from the Fiesta, unfortunately, the garage didn't change the head gasket, and when it broke down in the Mersey tunnel, I had had enough. It later snapped a half shaft on clatterbridge roundabout and was scrapped that day. I had a lot of fun in that car, but it was always followed by a cloud of white smoke and was genuinely deadly; I span it so many times I now consider myself more experienced than some stunt drivers because of it. It was -completely shagged-.

I've only ever had two major mechanical breakdowns, the Escort and an Orion. I gave the Orion to my brother, and two weeks later nicked the tax disc and put it in the window of my newly purchased Astra. You could do things like that in those days.

[cros]

Did he at least inspect the undercarriage first?

 With a lengthy courtship due to saving for a house I'd guess his own undercarriage was well overloaded.

[phil_lihp]

Definitely my biggest leap of faith was in January when I got the train from North Devon to Portsmouth, stayed with a friend overnight and then continued another hour east to Lewes where I met our very own Gary Cox to pick up a 26 year old Escort which hadn't run in months, had a flat battery, a jammed bonnet, a broken indicator stalk, headlights jammed on, no working indicators or horn and no MOT. Obviously I was fully aware of these minor issues but hadn't really considered it being a problem.

 

I came armed with nothing more than a selection of rudimentary tools, a new battery a secondhand indicator stalk and an unremitting sense of optimism.  It did take an entire hour to persuade the bonnet to open (I now recall what must have been the odd sight of Gary humping the bonnet up and down while I was underneath the car and shouting "yes, Yes, YES!" in relief as I finally got a grip on the release catch) and with a fresh battery it started on the second attempt.  I switched over the broken indicator stalk and changed a fuse to get the indicators and horn back and swapped one rotten front tyre for the slightly less horrible spare, bid farewell to Gary at a local petrol station and then took it on a 5 hour drive home, probably further than it'd been in the last 15 years.

 

It didn't miss a beat and delivered me late in the evening to the MOT station where it went through with little more than some minor welding.  Looking back, it was perhaps a bit naive but it was fun and I'd do it again.  The key was having trust in the seller's honesty and good intent, something this forum is excellent at providing.

[phil_lihp]

Incidentally, when's Philibusmo going to jump in here with a heroic Princess rescue mission?

[forddeliveryboy]

Penzance, where the girls are really pretty.

 

Swapped an AX11 for a CX petrol turbo years ago, the AX had suffered cambelt failure and compression was about 20% down on 2 cylinders. CX was resprayed and chap said "not perfect - lots not right". He wouldn't say much more, other than the aircon alternately froze then didn't. "If you drive down here in less than 6 hours, I'll know it's ok", he said of the AX. It took five and a half.

 

The big thing was smart and ok, for a ten year old car. Repainted and solid where it mattered. It took four and a quarter coming back. Best not say where to. Thoroughly pissed off an M5, until he accepted reality. We saluted each other like old friends at Donny, when he sailed off on another motorway.