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A Very Brown (Broken) Senator


RobT

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It's dumped on my parent's driveway for the time being.  But hopefully we can get it up and running before the current MoT runs out on the 12th September.  Mind you, how it got one with an exhaust like this is beyond me.  It can't be a recent thing I'd have thought.  When it first started it was blowing badly, so it's not like me ragging it around the block has caused it to go.

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Fortunately I've got spare ones from when I previously had a Senator (cheers JohnK!).  Hope they'll fit as it'll save a few quid.

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Plenty of water ingress.  This is the driver's footwell which I bailed out best I could, although the carpets need to come out fully for a proper job.  The sound deadening foam stuff is highly absorbent.

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A spot of gardening in the scuttle has unblocked the drains, so maybe it's that rather than knackered door seals.

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Engine bay backs up the 70k miles, as it's pretty tidy under there.

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Lovely brown interior, and centre console simpleness.

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Trinket.

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Amongst other tat, there's also a ceramic car heater that plugs into the ciggie lighter.  That could indicate the heater doesn't work.  Matrices are a common fail on these, but the pond in the footwell doesn't feel coolant-y.

OS arch is crispy (best we don't touch that until an MoT is achieved), but for the most part it's not bad.  Sills are very good surprisingly, and that's the first thing I checked.  If they were shot the full length we wouldn't be here!  Although the bits by the jacking points are showing rust, but I dared to have a prod and it's just surface I think.  Didn't prod too hard mind.  Vactan over that and fingers crossed for the test.

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First joint tinkering session is tomorrow morning, where egg can shake his head and wonder why he got involved...

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I like this way of buying a car, Rob has done all the leg work so far, but at the very least I can add some encouraging noises to my financial contribution tomorrow.

In the late 80's a car like this would have seemed unobtainable to the teenage me, a Carlton, yeah maybe, but a Senator - no way...and here we are.

Project success for me would be wafting my daughter to school in it for a bit in the new term. Will have to dry it out first though!

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That should provide good enough impetus to get it going.  The school run beckons, I like that.

Also, I say I checked the sills.  It involved peering through the small gaps in the sill covers.  The bits I could see were still body coloured, although brown and rust look similar obv.

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28 minutes ago, Wingz123 said:

My art teacher at secondary school had a bronze senator he used to drive from Watford to Reading everyday - always remember it parked with silver gaffa tape hanging off the rear arches ?

Funnily enough so did my English teacher, a mark 1 though.

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Have to ask so this does clear it up for me after years of wondering.....but the wheels that this senator has on it....are they exactly the same as the ones you see on e34 BMW's and some of the saab 9000's? Albeit with different centre caps? A pain in the ass to clean in a hurry!

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Oh wow. Didn't think I'd be seeing one of those today!

Well bought, fellas... looks perfect*.

2 hours ago, RobT said:

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It does look more scab than actual rot, but what a picture... what a picture.

Perhaps you'll be thinking about a new set of Uniroyals at some point, I daresay?

I think this shade might be Hazel Brown - I seem to recall my uncle had a Nova saloon in Brazil Brown, which was quite a bit darker. More of an 85% cocoa artisan chocolate shade, whereas yours looks a bit creamier.

Following with interest though, this looks the absolute tits.

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4 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Perhaps you'll be thinking about a new set of Uniroyals at some point, I daresay?

I think this shade might be Hazel Brown - I seem to recall my uncle had a Nova saloon in Brazil Brown, which was quite a bit darker. More of an 85% cocoa artisan chocolate shade, whereas yours looks a bit creamier.

The Michelins on the front definitely need replacing, but looking at those Uniroyals again perhaps it does need four.  Running properly, free exhaust change and MoTd are the first objectives though.

Thanks for the paint info!

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Not sure that’s just a scab, to stop it getting worse I’d grind it back with the flap disc, very likely want a bit of metal letting into the lip then filling. Worth doing right though. The bit on the arch tub to rear wing seal I would chip the bubbles off and use Vactan or whatever on. Difficult without splitting the seam to make sure it’s rust free. 

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