Thunderbirds are go... sort of...

Well ladies and gents, it seems that we have ourselves a diamond in the rough.

The guys down at Mitsi Art gave our little beastie the once over on Wednesday, and their conclusion? There's nothing significant wrong with it (that we haven't already found).  Looks like we have a solid car.  And a bargain at that.

The only thing they found that we didn't already know about was a loose anti-roll bar bush so, while there are things that need doing to the car, they are all things that we know can be solved quite easily (albeit not cheap for things like the clutch).

We will be getting the car booked in shortly to get all the major bits sorted, and then we can start getting our paint on.   Ideas on a theme are still many and varied, but some thoughts are:

• Transformers (Possibly Bumble Bee or Barricade)
• Stealth Bomber (Matte black, with various air plane decals on it)
• WellChild Pink
• Glow in the dark
• Tron style

Decisions decisions...

If anyone has any other suggestions, post a comment below.

Pictures of my Valentine

As you can see, the interior is a little worn around the edges....

....and she is even going bald.

But she has a good heart.......

...and she is ours. :)

Onward and upward....

I took a wander down to see the guys at Mitsi Art today.  We had a brief discussion about the run and the car, and they now have one of our fliers.  Hi there if you are reading this :)

The good news is that there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of things that really go badly wrong with this particular model of GTO.  The later models have a lot of electronic gizmos, and technical wizzardry that can break at the drop of a hat, but our one is very much "back to basics" for the most part.

They agreed that the clutch is probably well on its way out, but fixing it wont cost as much as we expected which is nice to know.

They also offered to give the car a full inspection to make sure there are no more "gotcha's" hiding under the road grime so I will be taking them up on that offer as soon as I get a chance.

A challenger appears !

So we finally decided that the Saab was mortally wounded... and went off on the hunt for some new wheels... and what a hunt it was.

Possible options included:

• Mercedes C320 - A 3.2 Litre Automatic cruising beast
• Toyota Celica GT4 - Very nippy, but a little outside our budget
• Lexus LS400 - a 4 Litre barge, with ALL the gadgets and room to park the Titanic in the back seat
• Skoda Octavia VRS - Hey if its good enough for the police....  but unlikely to sell for our money
• Toyota Soarer - 2.5 GT Twin Turbo...  ticks all the boxes, but too many people interested = high price

That list is, however, the "did not finish" list.... we found a car... and it was either a total bargain, or a complete lemon... time will tell.

The car? A 1991 Mitsubishi GTO - 3 Litre - Manual - Naturally aspirated - 4WD - All wheel steer.
The price?  A smidge over £500 !

So that obviously begs the question "how ?", well kiddies, lets have a look what's wrong...

• Paint peeling on the roof
• Paint missing on the boot
• Faulty antenna
• Missing front speakers
• Some internal trim is falling off in places
• Drivers seat has seen better days
• Drivers window is badly scratched
• Cruise control doesn't work
• The clutch is knackered
• Missing a few internal lights, a couple of external ones
• No spare tyre
• Rear seats are essentially useless
• Upholstery is faded and stained
• Central locking is a very temperamental
• Brake disks are scored and warped 
• Oil pressure is low

Apart from the clutch (which is still working at the moment anyway and apparently "relatively" straight forward to DIY if you aren't in a rush), and the brakes (which will likely only cause a bit more wear than usual ,  there's nothing which really going to affect us.  Cosmetically we always intended to spray whatever car we got anyway, and most of the other bits are fairly trivial.

So that's it.  Saab will be being scrapped for a grand total of £180.  Less than we paid for it, but still more than we thought we would get.  A lesson learned there... never buy a cheap car sight-unseen.

Photos of the GTO will follow shortly...

It's worse than that, she's dead, Jim.

Well.

Rubbish.

After a cold night poking and prodding the car for the final list of Things That Will Make It Fail An MOT, we found the mother-lode.

After a chat with the excellent and knowledgeable chat at our local Saab indie, we have had to pronounce her only fit for Tesco burgers, so its off to the mechanical equivalent of the glue factory.

The silver lining? We get to go car shopping again! Thankfully before we blew any of our budget on fixing Lake Saab.

If anyone has an interesting car to sell for 500 quid or less, please feel free to get in touch.

I don't like experts.

Spoke to our local Saab indie today to get an idea of any real show stoppers we need to look out for. I have a shopping list of things most serious among them is that the Bulkhead/Firewall and wing on RHD NG900/9-3's have a tendency to part company.

This is an MOT fail and about 800 quid to repair (dash, steering wheel, rack, break servo out, weld on some brackets, then put it all back). Before Saab decided to call it a day they were doing repairs at some or all costs covered. I suspect we have missed the boat on it though.

Currently we have on our job sheet the following....

• Front & Rear calipers
• Front & Rear disks & pads
• Spark Plugs
• Rocker cover gaskets
• Power steering hose
• Air,Fuel,Oil & Cabin filters
• Oil, Hydraulic & Brake fluids
• Tyres
• Interior courtesy light
• Head unit & CB
• Windscreen Wipers
• Tonneau cover
• Roof mechanism
• Headlight and indicator bulbs.

I think that's it..... Once the weather eases up we shall get out and check the various issues that could catch us out, who knows we could have a gem underneath all the "minor issues" we have found so far.

Every Day* I'm Tinkering

Some more things have happened to the car!

Firstly we got it off the front drive as it was somewhat in the way, especially when you have half the interior spread around doing a solid gold likeness of an exterior piece. It now resides pride of place on the patio.

This week we also gave it a once over and counted all the jobs we have remaining. The biggies are still the brake system and the roof. In our discovery process the battery is repeatedly dying and the low pressure PAS return hose has perished. Additionally, there is oil in the tops of the spark plug wells, which we believe is coming from the rocker gaskets, we shall know more at the weekend when we whip the head off.

Good news, some fumbling with various motors has allowed us to resurrect the tonneau retention clip system, this will be going back in this weekend, and will hopefully allow us coax some non-manual life out of the hood.

If not I have a plan, it involves a large number of relays and some very questionable wiring.

What could go wrong?


*lies, its like, once a week at best!