project Maestro, please. - MoT Fail

[2flags]

Great cars. My son's first car. Paid £100 for it, cost £80 to put it on the road and it ran for 3/12 years. Just refused to die. His friends had much more 'popular' cars. Guess who's car just kept going. 

[Joey spud]

I stopped off at the Little Chef/Mickey's Dinner on Detling hill last week and it wasn't looking good.

They were still trading but from a snack wagon in the car park.

[bogeyhead]

I had a MG Maestro 2.0 EFI about 23 years ago and I remember that it went really well. It had loads of torque, so it would pull away smartly in top gear from 30mph and it's in gear acceleration was pretty impressive. I reckon it would hold its own pretty well nowadays. Unfortunately, it had the ability to rust like no other car I have owned, so I moved it on after luckily managing to pass its MOT.

Shame, because I used to love driving it.

[vulgalour]

On 11/28/2020 at 2:17 PM, vulgalour said:

Whether I really can just use it as An Car or will end up getting all finicky about making it nice remains to be seen.

So... you know that thing where you're just going on eBay to "have a look" and "get a feel for prices and spares availability" and you accidentally "buy it now"?

The car isn't even due to arrive until the 8th but that coachbolt through the front bumper end cap was REALLY bugging me and there was one on eBay REALLY cheap.

[sloth]

transplant a series into princess - pass off as rare export spec model for tax reasons in deepest chad. - profit?

[vulgalour]

1.3 a series powered Princess would give a Standard Atlas a run for its money in the Might As Well Walk Instead performance stakes.

[morrisoxide]

I remember your old Ledbury at the oil can cafe meet. The parcel shelf was sacrificed to get the Lolvo unstuck from the snow.  I still chuckle at that bloke helping us out got a leg full of parcel shelf, after warning us about a dangerous flying parcel shelf. Then limping off like it didn't hurt. 😊

[vulgalour]

I hope this Maestro is a bit faster than that Maestro.

[stuboy]

On 11/29/2020 at 3:12 AM, Joey spud said:

I stopped off at the Little Chef/Mickey's Dinner on Detling hill last week and it wasn't looking good.

They were still trading but from a snack wagon in the car park.

some yobs smashed the windows

[vulgalour]

More purchasing nonsense because there was a NOS fuel and temp gauge for a tenner.  The problem with them is more likely to be a duff fuse, duff earth, duff resistor, burned out PCB track, or a combination of all of the above.  Still, at a tenner it seemed rude not to get the new gauges just in case because you can guarantee if I don't that's what the problem will be and when I go to buy it then it'll be gone.

Next issue I'm hoping isn't an issue is the new Covid restrictions might prevent delivery since we're now in Tier 3 and I'm not sure exactly how that affects us.  Delivery can, theoretically, be done contact-free so we might be okay.

[DoctorRetro]

That's what I get for being off AS for a while. I really wanted this... 😢

[vulgalour]

You can't have ALL the red British cars, Doctor, you have to let some of the rest of us have a crack at them   If it makes you feel better, my other cars are all broken.

[Six-cylinder]

8.30 am this morning.

You need an advent calendar with only 3 days to go, that is not much chocolate though.

Not heard from Ceri yet with a pick up time.

 

[vulgalour]

There's 24 hours in a day, 24 days on an advent calendar.  What I need is THREE advent calendars, one for each day, and I open a door an hour.  Very looking forward to Tuesday, I've *just* finished work for today, it's been a long one!

[Skut]

On 11/30/2020 at 3:58 AM, vulgalour said:

1.3 a series powered Princess would give a Standard Atlas a run for its money in the Might As Well Walk Instead performance stakes.

Is a Princess heavier than a Montego?

[vulgalour]

 Montego is 940kg (according to the internet), the Princess is 1145kg (according to the manual), so there's a fair difference there.

[Tamworthbay]

7 hours ago, vulgalour said:

 Montego is 940kg (according to the internet), the Princess is 1145kg (according to the manual), so there's a fair difference there.

That’s really light for the size of them. If I had to guess I would have said 2-300kg more than that. Certainly makes my 1500kg Volvo look like a lard arse.

[Six-cylinder]

8 hours ago, vulgalour said:

There's 24 hours in a day, 24 days on an advent calendar.  What I need is THREE advent calendars, one for each day, and I open a door an hour.  Very looking forward to Tuesday, I've *just* finished work for today, it's been a long one!

I am happy to give you a freshly taken photo for every day, but not every hour!

9:26 am 2° C and misty.

[ETCHY]

I do think they look better with the steel bumpers that the lower specs had.

They last better too, the plastic bumpers I recall had zero impact resistance & were usually knackered. Makes you wonder why Leyland bothered with them.

[DoctorRetro]

9 hours ago, vulgalour said:

 Montego is 940kg (according to the internet), the Princess is 1145kg (according to the manual), so there's a fair difference there.

Princess is same weight as the R8. An XUD in a Princess / Ambassador seems like a match made in heaven to me... 

[Noel Tidybeard]

On 05/12/2020 at 00:48, TheDoctor said:

That's what I get for being off AS for a while. I really wanted this... 😢

NO YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED NEAR THIS FOR FEAR OF DOCTORISATION

 

STEP AWAY NOW!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

😁

[Noel Tidybeard]

its not overly hard to fit an rev-o-meter to these

or variable intermittent wipers

or constant sweep on rear wiper when selecting reverse

or making needles light up red while dial faces are green

[vulgalour]

Pretty sure all Maestros have variable speed intermittent wipers, happy to be corrected, it is one of the few modern items I miss having with the Princess.  If you don't have a constant sweep rear wiper when reversing, the thinking man's solution is to just open the tailgate.  Rev gauge unnecessary, I never use one even when I'm driving a car with one fitted.

 

No more diesels!  The Princess is enough of a troublemaker as it is without sticking a diesel in it.

[Noel Tidybeard]

fraid not old fruity!

[Six-cylinder]

4 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

fraid not old fruity!

Thing is the wiper stalk give no clue to intermittent function. I pulled the wiper stalk by accident and it single wiped, great I though I did not know it did that. Then it carried on single wiping, its got intermittent wipers , I did it a few times to prove it was not a fluke.

[Noel Tidybeard]

not variable tho- change stalk and relay

[wuvvum]

Yep, the variable intermittent stalks have a flick switch sticking out of the stalk, similar to the headlight switch on the other side.

[Austin-Rover]

Oh! The joys of Maestro wiper stalks! The later type was great; press the button on the end to wash, and if at any point you just wanted a single wipe (not wet enough for any intermittent setting, or to collect a stray drip) you could give the stalk a quick flick toward you. If you wanted a single wipe on the early cars with the original stalks... well! What fun that was; Press the stalk down once to activate the intermittent function (it returned to the 'off' position) Press it down a second time to turn off the intermittent function. If you wanted a single wipe to 'clear up' then you pressed it down twice in quick succession! 😄

[Six-cylinder]

Sorry I have had a busy morning so a bit late with todays advent window, yes out of a real window from upstairs for a change.

Photo timed 10:52 am.

[N19]

Excellent! I had a thing for these as a child... growing up I wanted to own a Capri and a Maestro. I've got one of them, and totally can't justify adding a fourth car to the fleet, so I'm very glad I didn't see the for sale thread...