I've been on the forum for about 1 and a half years but haven't made a thread about my car yet so I thought I might start one up
I first bought my coupe from the UK during August of last year, the previous owner had the car advertised for almost 2 years before I purchased it, so it did need a bit of TLC and maintenance but the bodywork, undercarriage, interior were all in fantastic condition given their age and even the engine was super smooth so it was worth the asking price.
We took the trip down overland which was about 2 days to Malta. The car had a couple of minor issues, the window relay worked on and off, the radiator was spewing coolant out of the top and had been sealed off with some plastic sealant, needless to say things got pretty hot in Italy with 40c+ weather , it was spewing coolant out around the engine bay, the a/c didn't work either which didn't help .
During the trip down we topped up the coolant constantly to keep temperatures down, also due to the car and exhaust having been lowered quite substanitally, it was scraping a fair bit and half way down the noise changed and the car clearly had the exhaust cut along the middle. When we finally got to Sicily to board the ferry for Malta, the ferry's ramp was at such an angle that the exhaust caught on it as we boarded and it finally cut in half . I was gutted to say the least that we finally arrived in Malta and the exhaust was ****ed
The mechanic in our garage came to wait for us outside the ferry with a tow truck, we exited the ferry and raised the car outside on the tow truck so that we could tighten the rear part of the exhaust so that it wouldn't scrape till we could get it back to the garage. The mechanic later managed to weld the exhaust, though not professionally it's held up till now and have had no issues as we raised the height after this
So this was the car, home finally
DPP_1033 by ryanaqui, on Flickr
DPP_1022 by ryanaqui, on Flickr
The wheels weren't looking too smart at that moment in time
DPP_1029 by ryanaqui, on Flickr
The leak in the radiator:
DPP_1035 by ryanaqui, on Flickr
The first things done with the car, was a full service and trying to get the aircon working, all that needed sorting was a leak in one of the pipes and finally I had aircon . After that, we managed to find a radiator from a local supplier, needless to say I was peed off to find out it was a Nissens unit but I needed it fitted as I was using up lots of coolant .
The car developed a misfire, so we had an EFI Express Coil Kit installed vs the old coils and also had new spark plugs fitted which sorted that out
We got to fitting the radiator and found out that after taking off the condenser unit that one of the fittings on the unit was knackered and could no longer be used, the unit itself was also in quite a state, so we got a replacement unit locally a few weeks later and found out that the fittings for the pipe were different and we had to have one of the ends of the pipe from the compressor to condesner changed. We tried removing the pipe off of the compressor, we got it off along with part of the compressor housing .
We waited a few months and finally had the new a/c compressor installed with a new a/c pipe and I had aircon once again . Though right now it's leaking as there is no cold air coming out and the compressor is making a bit of a noise as well, oh well
Here she was after a bit of cleaning up and maintenance
DPP_1310 by ryanaqui, on Flickr
More to come as I think I'm overdoing it for a first post on this thread
I first bought my coupe from the UK during August of last year, the previous owner had the car advertised for almost 2 years before I purchased it, so it did need a bit of TLC and maintenance but the bodywork, undercarriage, interior were all in fantastic condition given their age and even the engine was super smooth so it was worth the asking price.
We took the trip down overland which was about 2 days to Malta. The car had a couple of minor issues, the window relay worked on and off, the radiator was spewing coolant out of the top and had been sealed off with some plastic sealant, needless to say things got pretty hot in Italy with 40c+ weather , it was spewing coolant out around the engine bay, the a/c didn't work either which didn't help .
During the trip down we topped up the coolant constantly to keep temperatures down, also due to the car and exhaust having been lowered quite substanitally, it was scraping a fair bit and half way down the noise changed and the car clearly had the exhaust cut along the middle. When we finally got to Sicily to board the ferry for Malta, the ferry's ramp was at such an angle that the exhaust caught on it as we boarded and it finally cut in half . I was gutted to say the least that we finally arrived in Malta and the exhaust was ****ed
The mechanic in our garage came to wait for us outside the ferry with a tow truck, we exited the ferry and raised the car outside on the tow truck so that we could tighten the rear part of the exhaust so that it wouldn't scrape till we could get it back to the garage. The mechanic later managed to weld the exhaust, though not professionally it's held up till now and have had no issues as we raised the height after this
So this was the car, home finally
DPP_1033 by ryanaqui, on Flickr
DPP_1022 by ryanaqui, on Flickr
The wheels weren't looking too smart at that moment in time
DPP_1029 by ryanaqui, on Flickr
The leak in the radiator:
DPP_1035 by ryanaqui, on Flickr
The first things done with the car, was a full service and trying to get the aircon working, all that needed sorting was a leak in one of the pipes and finally I had aircon . After that, we managed to find a radiator from a local supplier, needless to say I was peed off to find out it was a Nissens unit but I needed it fitted as I was using up lots of coolant .
The car developed a misfire, so we had an EFI Express Coil Kit installed vs the old coils and also had new spark plugs fitted which sorted that out
We got to fitting the radiator and found out that after taking off the condenser unit that one of the fittings on the unit was knackered and could no longer be used, the unit itself was also in quite a state, so we got a replacement unit locally a few weeks later and found out that the fittings for the pipe were different and we had to have one of the ends of the pipe from the compressor to condesner changed. We tried removing the pipe off of the compressor, we got it off along with part of the compressor housing .
We waited a few months and finally had the new a/c compressor installed with a new a/c pipe and I had aircon once again . Though right now it's leaking as there is no cold air coming out and the compressor is making a bit of a noise as well, oh well
Here she was after a bit of cleaning up and maintenance
DPP_1310 by ryanaqui, on Flickr
More to come as I think I'm overdoing it for a first post on this thread
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