1985 Austin Montego HLS (B372 EEG)

[Captain Slow]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcuJ5DonRMk

[Oli]

No wonder theres none left, look at the river they drove through!!

Great project Rich, look forward to seeing your progress!

[Austin-Rover]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcuJ5DonRMk

Well spotted, Sam.

Perhaps I should aim to re-stage the advert when the car is done?

[Oli]

I am happy to manage the auditions for the women

[Richard H]

Well done for saving that. It'll be nice to see such a rare model back on the road (I don't think I've ever, knowingly seen an HLS before).

[Guest]

hows the restoration coming along mate

[Austin-Rover]

It's been a couple of weeks since I last got to work on the HLS, but when I was last there I managed to strip out completely the rest of the interior, which allowed me to asses the condition of the car more closely.

One thing I forgot to mention last time is that this car came with its very own colony of ants! They'd made a home inside the inner arch on the driver's side (and are quite good at defending themselves as one poor sod who got his hands bitten found out!) Since their arch-nest was disturbed, the day I went to strip the interior out, I found them in the process of moving into rear foot well under the carpet - larvae and all! Marching orders were given and hopefully when I next go back they will have taken the hint and moved out completely.

Anyway...overall the news is positive. There's been some welding to the area at the bottom of the B pillar on the passenger side, and close by is a random hole that should be easy enough to sort. The rest of the floor pan is fine, and just needs a bit of a clean and tidy for when the interior goes back.

Once I'd sorted the interior, I thought I'd check under the wiper scuttle panel to check the metalwork underneath. It's not pretty to look at and the screen is going to have to come out to sort it. Ideally I could do with sourcing the lower part of the screen frame from another Montego to have welded in. I figure though, that it can't quite be as bad as it looks as even though the car has been uncovered and exposed to the elements, the carpets inside were dry.

[Miracle maestro]

Supplied new by Crown garage Soham Cambs.
Still in business, they guessed the future and moved to Honda in 2002, but remained an approved MGR service centre until 2005.

A technician who has worked there for 30 years, (lives in my village) he MOTs all our cars and probably worked on this car when new

I'm guessing this car hit the road in March '85???
Because we have a B***EEG on a tractor we bought new on the 24th March.

[Austin-Rover]

Yes, it's a March '85 car.

I've checked out the garage on Google Street View, and a trip there with the car is planned when it's done.

[Oli]

Nice work Rich, genuinely looking forward to how this turns out.

[Guest]

the car was bought 5 mins away from there im sure the chap would love to see it back up and on the road again

[Jeff Turbo]

How's this project coming on Rich?

[Austin-Rover]

It's on hold for the time being. It - and many other cars - are stored away from home whilst we have a garage built. Tools and parts are not easy to access and the HLS needs some quite involved work to see the road again. Until it can be moved to the new garage for surgery (and when there's some spare cash) there won't be much happening to it.

In the meantime, less involved projects (See the new Opaline Green HL) will jump the queue simply because they don't need welding and a respray!

[Jeff Turbo]

The opaline green monty looks much easier, bit like my blue digidash over the red one.

[Austin-Rover]

Quite unexpectedly, I've lost the storage for this car so tomorrow it should be coming home (for the first time). It last ran just over twelve months ago so hopefully a bit of fresh fuel and a charged battery should see it running without too much trouble.

It might turn out to be a good excuse to replace the rotten doors, front wings, bonnet and smashed headlamp...