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hi all
I joined today and am very impressed by the amount of information here.
I have owned montegos for 20 years now. Mr first was a 1984 1.3L model which I brought in 1986 for £3800 with 2000 miles on the clock. I kept it on the road until 2001, when the milometer got stuck on 99,999. I never serviced it once, except to change the oil every now and then. The worst thing was the rust of course, and the front wheel bearings which kept on going every 15,000 miles, and a rod which connected the gearstick to the gearbox which kept on dislocating itself in awkward places. The small 13 inch wheels made the ride very unstable over 60mph so I replaced them with much better metric alloy wheels, getting them and the tyres from a local scrap yard. And then the headlining, went, and the front fascia started splitting and breaking up. It was decommissioned in 2001 and disposed of in 2004, regretfully, as I did not have the space to keep it, but not before I had purchased my second montego, a low mileage 2.0gsi automatic saloon, which was everything the 1.3L was not in terms of speed and features, though I found it necessary to add chrome door handles and an electric ariel for completeness, which stuff I also obtained from a scrap yard.
However, ithe gsi suffered from one draw back: it seemed to drink petrol. I reckon I was lucky to get 30 mpg, but 25 mpg was more common. So I converted it to LPG in 2001 for £950, after spending quite a lot of time rust proofing its vital under parts with litres of hammerite, and welding some heavy right angled metal plates to the rear end of the sills. I have now easily recouped my outlay on the LPG conversion in lower fuel bills, 30,000 miles later.
So far it too has proved a great buy: just the rear wheel arches have needed re-welding in 2006, when I put replacement arches in. Since I learnt very basic welding skills, I don't worry about that anymore. The worst thing that has happened was when one of the rear shock absorber bolts decided that it would shear off as I was trying to get the shock absorber out. That took me ages to drill out. Another headache was the distributor arm shorting (its a known problem so I was told) on the motorway, which was quite a good place for it to do it, I suppose as it could have happened in a much worse place. That cost me £95 for an impromtu join of the RAC, but luckily I was able to get a new arm the same day. I'm just praying the gearbox holds for some time to come, as it will be a big expense when it goes, I think.
Anyway, I am hoping to learn some technical details about how the engine bits work, and that sort of stuff. My contributions to this forum will be limited to preventative rust maintenance, I think, which is about my only area of knowledge.
I joined today and am very impressed by the amount of information here.
I have owned montegos for 20 years now. Mr first was a 1984 1.3L model which I brought in 1986 for £3800 with 2000 miles on the clock. I kept it on the road until 2001, when the milometer got stuck on 99,999. I never serviced it once, except to change the oil every now and then. The worst thing was the rust of course, and the front wheel bearings which kept on going every 15,000 miles, and a rod which connected the gearstick to the gearbox which kept on dislocating itself in awkward places. The small 13 inch wheels made the ride very unstable over 60mph so I replaced them with much better metric alloy wheels, getting them and the tyres from a local scrap yard. And then the headlining, went, and the front fascia started splitting and breaking up. It was decommissioned in 2001 and disposed of in 2004, regretfully, as I did not have the space to keep it, but not before I had purchased my second montego, a low mileage 2.0gsi automatic saloon, which was everything the 1.3L was not in terms of speed and features, though I found it necessary to add chrome door handles and an electric ariel for completeness, which stuff I also obtained from a scrap yard.
However, ithe gsi suffered from one draw back: it seemed to drink petrol. I reckon I was lucky to get 30 mpg, but 25 mpg was more common. So I converted it to LPG in 2001 for £950, after spending quite a lot of time rust proofing its vital under parts with litres of hammerite, and welding some heavy right angled metal plates to the rear end of the sills. I have now easily recouped my outlay on the LPG conversion in lower fuel bills, 30,000 miles later.
So far it too has proved a great buy: just the rear wheel arches have needed re-welding in 2006, when I put replacement arches in. Since I learnt very basic welding skills, I don't worry about that anymore. The worst thing that has happened was when one of the rear shock absorber bolts decided that it would shear off as I was trying to get the shock absorber out. That took me ages to drill out. Another headache was the distributor arm shorting (its a known problem so I was told) on the motorway, which was quite a good place for it to do it, I suppose as it could have happened in a much worse place. That cost me £95 for an impromtu join of the RAC, but luckily I was able to get a new arm the same day. I'm just praying the gearbox holds for some time to come, as it will be a big expense when it goes, I think.
Anyway, I am hoping to learn some technical details about how the engine bits work, and that sort of stuff. My contributions to this forum will be limited to preventative rust maintenance, I think, which is about my only area of knowledge.
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