Hi guys,

Thought i'd share day 1 of a new demo car build with you, because it was quite eventful.

Having spotted the ideal donor vehicle on Ebay and furious bidding war was entered into. 50p bids were flying around everywhere but eventually after some last second bids the Sierra 1.8 LX was ours for the staggering sum of £56. £6 more than the budget allowed, but the bank managers a kind fellow and agreed to extend the overdraft to cope.

So excited were we of the new aquisition that we collected it from Jnc3 M3 the very next day, handed over the large wad (well one note and some coins). It was love at first sight, blue, with new alloys and tyres even a rear wing, electric windows and a sun roof. It was going to be heart breaking to strip it.

The old owner had recently changed the head, and reckoned a little water was in the oil, hence the slight white smoke on start up. 115k miles and 2 owners from new, never used oil or water was his final words as we drove off. Me showing the way in my people carrier, Brian behind (the lucky b*stard getting to drive the beast).

Well the trace of white smoke turned out to be a cloud of blue smoke, that blotted out the vision of everyone following.

That cleared after about 20 miles, almost at the same time as the followers started clattering, and the oil light came on below 50 mph. Not phased by this we simply increased the pace until the oil light went out, after another 10 miles the light was back on this time at 60, once again we picked up the pace as we hammered past Clackett Lane services. Ooops, last oppotunity to put some oil in. Never mind we were nearly back and we didn't want the engine anyway.

As we zoomed down the M26 Brian took the lead to show me the way home. The smell behind was horrendous, and the puffs of black smoke spelt out the engine was not long for this world.

10 miles from home, whilst touching on 80 mph she finally let go. F1 blows ups have nothing on a oil burning CVH i can tell you, the cars behind were peppered with pistons and rods. Looking back i could see rods flying round though the bottom of the sump. She was dead, RIP.

So we had to tow it back through the schools out rush hour, which made us really popular with some of the scrummies out in their 4x4's.

Once home we could survery the damage. And there is was, 3 holes through the block, one ripped out sump. Through the holes we could see pistons, gudgeon pins and bits of rod sitting in the sump. We even picked out a large piece of rod to send back to the guy we had bought it from, just to show him perhaps he was wrong about it not using oil!

I had though that perhaps putting some oil in it might fix it, Brian suggested i fetch the tow rope.................

Darren

amusing. but on a tut-tut note, if this really did happen on a motorway then you caused a serious danger to others by dumping oil (whatever was left) and bits of engine all over the road with an engine you knew was going to go bang. naughty.

My nephew has a 1.8cvh that went the same way. He had a recon engine fitted last year but the year before that we fitted new rings just to keep it going for a bit longer. Just before its demise it was using 2 pints of oil a week, about 150 miles.

quote:

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Originally posted by dozracing
We even picked out a large piece of rod to send back to the guy we had bought it from, just to show him perhaps he was wrong about it not using oil!

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Lol!


Darren, you got any pictures?

Cheers,
JAmes

No pics unfortunately, but might take some next time i'm with the car.

Would love to have had a video, talk about a dramatic blow up!!

Darren

Darren

You have U2U re: raffle tickets?

Cheers

Mark

Gotta post us a few pics.

Get some of the busted up parts engraved with GTS and make them into keyrings or paper weights. Then stick them on the site.... Might make back some of the £6 you went over budget!