Exit stage left...
I can't pretend the vendor said it was perfect and forgot to mention any bad vibes, far from it, in actual fact he was refreshingly honest and extremely helpful. It was advertised with problems and in the couple of days between agreeing a deal and collecting it, he'd done loads to try and get it to work properly again when he was a) busy b) about to go on holiday and c) had a new car to play with.
In a nutshell it'd had overheated and kept lobbing it's water out on the way back home from his job so he'd just bought another car (FIAT of course) and drove this hhome topping the water up along the way, seller thinking h/g had gone.
He'd mentioned it spewing water out of the rad and that the temp gauge had been higher than normal (before losing the water) and he'd just given up on it. A plastic pipe had broken at the back of the heater matrix (in the engine bay) and despite forcing it in a bit the bastard came out twice on the way home meaning stopping three or four times to let it cool down then top up again. Doing this just off the M57 wasn't really the greatest place but was marginally safer than the motorway itself.
This time we had broken pipe in a lot better so it was a few miles before it started shitting it's water out again due the 'leaking rad' so we stopped twice more to let it cool down and top up again.
Handily* we did discover we couldn't actually have a reverse gear in a pez station, or anywhere else really. TXT MSGD seller who said there was a knack to this, a knack that perhaps Paul Daniels alone knew how to sort.
So on and nearly home, decided to call at some shops and cleverly parked facing a post. My lad offered to push us back but I suggested that was no fun and 'don't worry, I'll find reverse'. Only I didn't find reverse at all, I merely rolled forward and into the post, much to the amusemt of several nearby people.
Anyhow got it home, bit miffed we couldn't give it a proper Italian test drive but determined to get cracking on the problems.
Reverse gear was the easy bit, there's a sort of cable that runs up the gearstick and is bolted to the side of it on a bracket of sorts. Undid bolt, slid the cable/holder up a bit, bolted it down again and it's working like a good 'un.
Bumper off, time to look at the radiator and the overheating, transpires there was a break in the live to the temp. sensor 'thing' (now fixed) and the bottom hose wasn't put back on properly last time it'd been off. Fan sensor 'thing' knackered, as are two plastic pipes for heater matrix so a trip to the scrapyard tomorrow should see us right for a handful of quids.
We are going to do a compression test on it to but we do think the h/g has NOT gone, so as long as the car hasn't been cooked we should be ok. Obv, it'll want an engine service, antifreeze etc but if it's ok we'll razz round in it for a couple of weeks at least.
Being the Sporting (there's a LOL in itself) it's reasonably well equipped (what a f*cking stupid place to put the electric window switches though!) and seems quite a laugh to drive. More tomorrow/later in the week after the scrapyard visit.
