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1985 Talbot Alpine Minx (Annie Alpine)


Grey the Floydian Sergal

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Welcome, and great purchase. There are a couple of Alpines on here already, so you’re amongst some fans. As for popularity, they sold well early on, and were decent cars; my father was impressed with his when it was a couple of years old and a new design. I just don’t think they moved with the times enough, and by the time the basic design was almost ten years old, and still in production, Peugeot were offering more modern design alternatives.

One thing re the coolant - get some in with the water PDQ and let it run for a bit to mix it around. The waterways are going to corrode if left with no protection.

Looking forward to updates.

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Welcome to the fold. Nice to see another unloved car saved from the bridge. Wish you best of luck with your new toy. Owned a Horizon 20 years ago, which wasn't a bad old beast, a bit heavy - in essence it was a shortened Alpine. 

 

Few things I recall from working on the Simca engine.

 

Being a late model it should already have hardened valve seats for unleaded and should run fine on regular 95 octane but you may need to retard by a degree or 2 at idle if it pinks. Can't remember the timing info for the 1.6 (the 1.3 is 2o @ 650rpm)

 

IIRC the valves should be set to 0.25mm both in and ex - to stop the rattle I used to set them to 9 thou which is ~0.23mm. It's not too tight that it gives running problems and makes the engine pretty quiet for a Poissy lump. They're pretty long lived but do like a regular service. Massive Allen key required for the sump plug.

 

If you get emulsion in the oil, before you diagnose OMGHGF check the core plugs in the cylinder head. There are 3 of them under the rocker shaft. Had one that had the most minute of pinholes in it. 

 

I really recommend pulling the rotor arm off the dizzy and adding a couple drops of oil down the centre of the shaft. From what I understand these were supposed to be "no service required" units but remembering when I looked for a replacement dizzy for my car the amount I found had deaded in breakers with a jammed distributor shaft proved they will seize and wreck the drive gear on the camshaft if they get dry - I think they have felt washers and bushes in them. Worth doing every month for a while.

 

The electronic ignition module mounted on or near the bulkhead is normally bulletproof and very powerful but can give grief if the potted resin starts to break down and damp gets in. Big cast aluminium thing with a 5-pin plug on it. Make sure the case is well earthed. Peugeot 309 ignition modules are totally different so not sure if the wiring can be modified to suit.

 

The baggy gearshift is often caused by a nylon ball and cup in the one of the rods that runs from the base of the gear lever to the engine bay. The nylon ball can disintegrate leaving a very loose feeling lever. If you need to change anything in the gear linkage, you may need to adjust the reverse gate cam at the bottom of the gearstick under the rubber/leatherette trim/centre console from inside the car. The BE-1 box was always a bit sloppy so don't expect perfection!

 

There are a couple of other Alpine owners on here that I'm sure will answer questions. Best of luck!

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wow, so many posts. Thank you all for the kind comments, it's amazing to have both a previous owner & a Youtuber I greatly respect reply to my little thread. I think i'll celebrate by purchasing a Hubnut sticker.

 

 

Excellent!!  Great to see this back in the AS fold and being got back up together - it's not had an easy time of it since I sold it, poor old thing.

Glad it's got your seal of approval. I hope you'd be willing to give me more of your history with the car, give her a little story so to speak.

 

 

Is that a Peugeot steering wheel on it?

 

Yes that is a Peugeot steering wheel. Given that the Talbot items are ultra rare, i think I may have to track down a decent, affordable aftermarket item.

 

Nice project!

Hopefully it is a touch less rusty than the Fiesta transpired to be...

I hope so too. wouldn't it be totally ironic if this car didn't rot?

 

 

Welcome to the fold. Nice to see another unloved car saved from the bridge. Wish you best of luck with your new toy. Owned a Horizon 20 years ago, which wasn't a bad old beast, a bit heavy - in essence it was a shortened Alpine. 

 

Few things I recall from working on the Simca engine.

 

Being a late model it should already have hardened valve seats for unleaded and should run fine on regular 95 octane but you may need to retard by a degree or 2 at idle if it pinks. Can't remember the timing info for the 1.6 (the 1.3 is 2o @ 650rpm)

 

IIRC the valves should be set to 0.25mm both in and ex - to stop the rattle I used to set them to 9 thou which is ~0.23mm. It's not too tight that it gives running problems and makes the engine pretty quiet for a Poissy lump. They're pretty long lived but do like a regular service. Massive Allen key required for the sump plug.

 

If you get emulsion in the oil, before you diagnose OMGHGF check the core plugs in the cylinder head. There are 3 of them under the rocker shaft. Had one that had the most minute of pinholes in it. 

 

I really recommend pulling the rotor arm off the dizzy and adding a couple drops of oil down the centre of the shaft. From what I understand these were supposed to be "no service required" units but remembering when I looked for a replacement dizzy for my car the amount I found had deaded in breakers with a jammed distributor shaft proved they will seize and wreck the drive gear on the camshaft if they get dry - I think they have felt washers and bushes in them. Worth doing every month for a while.

 

The electronic ignition module mounted on or near the bulkhead is normally bulletproof and very powerful but can give grief if the potted resin starts to break down and damp gets in. Big cast aluminium thing with a 5-pin plug on it. Make sure the case is well earthed. Peugeot 309 ignition modules are totally different so not sure if the wiring can be modified to suit.

 

The baggy gearshift is often caused by a nylon ball and cup in the one of the rods that runs from the base of the gear lever to the engine bay. The nylon ball can disintegrate leaving a very loose feeling lever. If you need to change anything in the gear linkage, you may need to adjust the reverse gate cam at the bottom of the gearstick under the rubber/leatherette trim/centre console from inside the car. The BE-1 box was always a bit sloppy so don't expect perfection!

 

There are a couple of other Alpine owners on here that I'm sure will answer questions. Best of luck!

Wow, a wealth of information, I'll be sure to come back to this when i need it. i adjusted the rockers to 0.30mm as per the Haynes manual, sounds a hell of a lot better.

 

What, more furries?

 

Looking forward to more updates on this one, particularly enjoyed the updates we've had on other Alpines on the board.  This one looks like a really good starting point.  There must be half a dozen Talbots this shape on the forum now.

yep, Furries & shite go hand in hand, at least in some of the chats I've been in lol

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Wait, it's possible to make one of these engines quiet*?

 

I thought they came with noisy valves from the factory. At least, that's my memory of them..

 

Keep going, should be fun to putz about in.

 

Phil

 

 

*not counting switching it off

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Love these, ‘Buy a set of Michelin CrossClimates because I’m on commission from them’ John has a point, these were completely unwanted when they were bangers. I think that’s what makes them so appealing now, quite a clean tidy design.

 

I think there was a load of sheds at what was RJ Grimes full to the rafters of Talbot bits, abandoned, I’m assuming it all got skipped as it was perceived as of no value.

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There’s another C plate bouncing around the Internet, which started life the same colour as yours. It was notorious on RR for a while. Yours is a new one to me - first time I’ve seen photos of it.

 

NJM (Before, during and after)

post-4721-0-54908400-1535018448_thumb.jpeg

 

post-4721-0-11141200-1535018477_thumb.jpeg

 

post-4721-0-40598300-1535018509_thumb.jpeg

 

 

WHP

post-4721-0-58331700-1535018601_thumb.jpeg

 

post-4721-0-78240500-1535018688_thumb.png

 

post-4721-0-83118300-1535018773_thumb.png

 

And to finish, I’m undecided on whether this one is NJM or WHP...

 

 

Edit: Grille looks different to yours, so I’m going to guess NJM. Looks as though both cars would have been pretty much identical when new, regardless.

post-4721-0-45406200-1535018561_thumb.jpeg

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There’s another C plate bouncing around the Internet, which started life the same colour as yours. It was notorious on RR for a while. Yours is a new one to me - first time I’ve seen photos of it.

 

NJM (Before, during and after)

attachicon.gifEF8F101D-0FA5-4373-8B95-A6C4E30A7039.jpeg

 

attachicon.gifF193DFB3-FE1F-45D2-AEB2-0303FCFDFDA9.jpeg

 

attachicon.gif20167E27-5BF6-4619-9309-C1982029F3B8.jpeg

 

 

WHP

attachicon.gifA2B0BCDF-9B55-402B-B737-0768A90981A2.jpeg

 

attachicon.gifBE7F2B7E-42FF-4BA2-B52E-37FAC53DB53A.png

 

attachicon.gif5AE12AD4-129E-4917-8CF8-203AD628BDAD.png

 

And to finish, I’m undecided on whether this one is NJM or WHP...

 

attachicon.gif5CCC15B3-8A0A-4FA9-8A4D-A305EAF4CF7F.jpeg

Edit: Grille looks different to yours, so I’m going to guess NJM. Looks as though both cars would have been pretty much identical when new, regardless.

 I do have the original grille, don't know why someone took the time to buy an older grille, considering the older one is a much better fit. they have painted it with black louvres though which I'm keeping because it's a part of the car's history & I think it adds character. As for that last minx

i292876.jpg

I'm guessing it's this one which served as a background vehicle in a few Ashes to Ashes episodes

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And to finish, I’m undecided on whether this one is NJM or WHP...

 

attachicon.gif5CCC15B3-8A0A-4FA9-8A4D-A305EAF4CF7F.jpeg

Edit: Grille looks different to yours, so I’m going to guess NJM. Looks as though both cars would have been pretty much identical when new, regardless.

WHP had the same grille as that when I owned it though - although I'm not sure it's ever had alloys.

 

 

Glad it's got your seal of approval. I hope you'd be willing to give me more of your history with the car, give her a little story so to speak.

Not sure how much info I can give you to be honest - it was a while ago now and I didn't do a huge amount with the car other than drive it - and there have been a lot of cars since then, including a Solara. 

 

If memory serves, I bought it from an old chap in Nottinghamshire who was selling it on behalf of his son.  It was the first Alpine I'd driven and I remember being very impressed with the performance, although it did run slightly unevenly on a light throttle and also ran a little warm, with the needle consistently sitting about 2/3 of the way up the temp gauge - never overheated though, and I never had any major issues with it.

 

I sold it to a bin man from somewhere in Lincolnshire who was apparently a Talbot enthusiast and owned a Solara - although his enthusiasm doesn't seem to have stretched as far as actually doing anything useful with the car.

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WHP had the same grille as that when I owned it though - although I'm not sure it's ever had alloys.

 

 

Not sure how much info I can give you to be honest - it was a while ago now and I didn't do a huge amount with the car other than drive it - and there have been a lot of cars since then, including a Solara. 

 

If memory serves, I bought it from an old chap in Nottinghamshire who was selling it on behalf of his son.  It was the first Alpine I'd driven and I remember being very impressed with the performance, although it did run slightly unevenly on a light throttle and also ran a little warm, with the needle consistently sitting about 2/3 of the way up the temp gauge - never overheated though, and I never had any major issues with it.

 

I sold it to a bin man from somewhere in Lincolnshire who was apparently a Talbot enthusiast and owned a Solara - although his enthusiasm doesn't seem to have stretched as far as actually doing anything useful with the car.

 

The Temp gauge is still like that funnily enough. Not sure where it's getting the temperature from, the old sender is on the head (exhaust side) but the connector has been bent upwards. There's also a sender on the other Thermostat housing. For some reason, she has a housing from a car with autochoke takeoff which has been blanked off with a hose with a bolt running through it, very odd. I still don't get why he drained the cooling system & left it, probably to save the block cracking in winter.

 

I still have four of the original steels too which have been hammerited but I actually prefer the alloys. A set of centre caps with Talbot logos & it'll look mint

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Amongst my many Talbots, I had one of these. Same colour, with the 1442cc engine. I was never very keen on it, as it felt even more rolly-poly and unstable than the Horizon (which was bad enough)

 

The column UJ is in a terrible location, and I had similar issues. What I found most helpful was bending the clutch pedal about 20mm away from the column, giving you a smidgen more space.

 

It is possible to make these engines not sound like a skeleton wanking in a biscuit tin.. If you find the specification for the valve clearances from an old 1960's simca, they are a little different from the Talbot spec. I tried various different clearances and eventually found one that would shut it up.. I can't remember whether it was more in line with the Talbot specification or the Simca one. Probably the simca one, as I remember setting them to the Haynes manual and it making not a tiny bit of difference.

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The engine on this one wasn't particularly rattly when I had it - somebody once told me that they changed the design of the tappets for the last couple of years of production, which alleviated the problem somewhat.

 

They do feel a bit roly poly and unstable until you're used to them (high geared steering doesn't help), but they actually stick to the road very well, in usual '70s French style.  Unlike, say, the similarly roly poly Datsun Stanza, which doesn't.

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