1986 Austin Montego 1.6HL (C418 YRW)

[Guest]

Shouldn't have been. Will take a look. Welcome back John!

Edit: I've had a look at the settings and it's just this forum due to only Members being able to start threads. All users can now edit their own posts, though

[G51 NAV]

Ah mystery solved :-)

[Austin-Rover]

On Sunday the replacement engine was lifted in and bolted into position. We didn't manage to do much more than that due to the oppressive heat and we moved on to less demanding jobs elsewhere!

Today I spent an hour or so routing cables and connecting things up before the sun and heat made things hard-going. Maybe a couple more weekends and it should be running!

[normanmg2000]

sun

Richard ,youre surely not advocating rain? [car progressing well].

[Simon]

Looks like a gold seal engine there, with its black cam covers.

[Austin-Rover]

Today was a very productive one! In fact, it's almost ready to run!

We started by fixing the new exhaust to the car. Well, this job was actually started two days ago and involved a lot of choice words! Due to the far-sighted vision of the designers, to put a new down pipe on an S Series engined car you first need to remove the front anti roll bar. I bet that went down really well at Quik-Fit back in the day! We finally managed to get the down pipe in by removing the two U shaped clamps towards the centre of the ARB and left the end bushes in situ. This allowed one person to pull the ARM down whilst squeezing the down pipe over the top of the ARB...after feeding the down pipe through from above! What a farce!

After getting the down pipe in place the rest of the exhaust went on with no fuss at all.

The car was then put back down on to all four wheels and the steady job of connecting pipework and ancillaries could begin proper. This job much aided by the presence of another Montego 1.6. It's great to have a reference point to see how things should be routed or attached!

Everything is now in place apart from fuel pipe on the tank side of the fuel pump (I forgot it is a larger diameter than the carburettor side!). I also forgot the essential fuel filter, too.

When refilling the coolant, everything was going well until the previously fine steel coolant pipe below the radiator holed spontaneously and deposited four litres of fresh coolant on the driveway. I am hopeful there's some suitable copper pipe amongst the spares stash that can be used to replace this section.

Other than that, some fresh petrol and a charged battery should see it run. Fingers crossed!

[Simon]

Excellent work! If it has trouble firing when all is connected up, test the fuel pump to see if it is working properly. Yours looks like an aftermarket one, and in any case they don't like being left to dry out - it shrinks the diaphragm!

[Austin-Rover]

In the days leading up to BL Day, I got the new engine up and running which threw up a couple of teething troubles. The radiator had a huge leak which sort of limited the amount of time I could run the car for. I picked up a new one for £35 at BL Day. The ECU for the auto choke was kaput. The temperature gauge rose very quickly into the red, and the car wouldn't come off choke. I've borrowed the one from my other Montego for now, and the choke seems to be behaving so far.

Remaining niggles are the hazard lights which will only work if the indicator stalk is indicating either left or right. If the stalk is in the 'off' position, the hazard switch will only glow a constant red. Also, there seems to be a problem with the self adjust mechanism on the clutch cable. I can adjust it by pushing down on the gear box arm to compress the spring, but when I depress the pedal, there's lots of clicking from the adjuster where I assume its not keeping a grip of the cable. This results in a very low 'bite' and three quarters of dead travel on the pedal. The car can be driven smoothly but there's not much to play with when releasing the clutch.

Apart from that, it would appear to be ready for tomorrow morning's MoT!

[Austin-Rover]

I'm pleased to report that this morning that the car passed the MoT test with flying colours. It's only the fourth MoT Test it's ever been to in its twenty seven years!

The fuel mixture and headlamp aim were adjusted during the test and I received an advisory for the o/s/f shock absorber. The trip there and back was also a good shake-down run as its an eighty mile round trip. The car performed faultlessly. There's just a tax disc left to buy, and the clutch cable to replace and it will be ready for its first show at Tatton Park this weekend!

[Andy]

Nice one, another one saved.Worth all the effort now Eighty mile round trip to the Mot? Though you had to use the closest centre?

[Jeff Turbo]

I'm pleased to report that this morning that the car passed the MoT test with flying colours. It's only the fourth MoT Test it's ever been to in its twenty seven years!

The fuel mixture and headlamp aim were adjusted during the test and I received an advisory for the o/s/f shock absorber. The trip there and back was also a good shake-down run as its an eighty mile round trip. The car performed faultlessly. There's just a tax disc left to buy, and the clutch cable to replace and it will be ready for its first show at Tatton Park this weekend!

Well done Rich

[Austin-Rover]

Nice one, another one saved.Worth all the effort now Eighty mile round trip to the Mot? Though you had to use the closest centre?

Use the closest one? I don't see how you can be forced to do that. It would be unworkable and uninforcable. There might be some ruling that your untaxed and un MoT'd car can be legally driven to a test centre within a 'resonable distance' and I think if there was I would have been struggling to justify such a long trip! However, I complied with the law and went straight there and back.

My MoT tester is a BL enthusiast and friend who offers fair and unbiased tests and appreciates working on older cars.

[Andy]

Well I suppose if you don't mind risking it. Garage I used when MOT'ing the turbo for the first time in 7 years was 20 miles from my house but I got it trailered there just in case I or my friend who had done the work on it was stopped. We never really looked at the law in depth just presumed anything more than a couple of miles from the registered address was taking the **** and and any copper would be in his right to seize the car from you, breach of insurance I would have though.

[seacow]

Well I suppose if you don't mind risking it. Garage I used when MOT'ing the turbo for the first time in 7 years was 20 miles from my house but I got it trailered there just in case I or my friend who had done the work on it was stopped. We never really looked at the law in depth just presumed anything more than a couple of miles from the registered address was taking the **** and and any copper would be in his right to seize the car from you, breach of insurance I would have though.

The law only says it has to be a pre arranged test and that you need to be insured. My BMW MOT is always done my wifes uncle but I took it down early to avoid a 180 mile trip without MOT as I thought it would be stretching it but there is no law on it so would be difficult for plod to do anything. Always the subject of hot debate of course!!

[Simon]

I always thought that provided the test was booked in advance then it could be tested anywhere you choose. I just use the one down the road for convenience. The only thing that I have heard was an insurance clause which mentions that the car is only covered if in roadworthy condition. If a car has no MOT then they could perhaps argue that it isn't roadworthy hence not covered in case of a prang etc.

Anyway it passed...full marks Rich!