jordanbasset
Well-Known Member
Those were the days, when you completed a long drive you had a sense of achievement if the car actually got you there without a problem
Anyone drive a MK2 Cortina?
- Thread starter Tomahawk
- Start date
Those were the days, when you completed a long drive you had a sense of achievement if the car actually got you there without a problem
pagoda
Well-Known Member
We had a Hillman Imp at one point. Could out-run almost anything (for 100 yards) from start. However we also kept a 1CWT bag of sand in the boot (front) to keep the steering steady. In wet weather it got scary without the ballast!
Biggles Wader
Well-Known Member
There was an easy fix for the Mini/rain problem. The classic design fault was that the distributor and much of the HT wiring was just behind the grill and there was no barrier to the water coming through. Later models had a plastic guard between grill and engine. A rather more serious fault was the brake pipe which curved round the nearside front subframe under the radiator. Any minor coolant leak would drip onto the bend in the pipe with inevitable results. No dual brake circuits in those days!
Quite a funny story how I know this---------
Quite a funny story how I know this---------
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
The traditional fix for the earlier ones was to fit a rubber glove over the distributor, with one plug lead coming out each finger and the coil lead coming out the thumb.
Designed by the same person who did the Yanmar 1GM10 oil pipes?
John100156
Well-Known Member
Yep that was it, the Vanden Plas R. It was much bigger than the A/C and M/O (which were very similar as I recall). A really beautiful car, smooth running and built like a tank. It was the first Auto I ever drove and as I approached a T-Junction on my first time out, I realised how hard you actually press the clutch! Lucky nothing was behind me, despite its weight it stopped dead, never did that again....great memories...
John100156
Well-Known Member
My memory is fading but didn't they have the SU or shallower Stronberg(?) carbs. I recall a similar problem when you take the tops off (use to fill the plunger with oil as I recall) they has a rubber diaphragm which if cracked could be the problem.
Great to roll the bonnet forward and work on the engine.....
PeteCooper
Well-Known Member
Until about 10 years ago my daily driver was a Sunbeam Stiletto in which I did 60 miles a day - I had previously had Minis for about 20 years. The only drawback was the number of times that people came up to me, usually whilst I was putting petrol in, and make some comment about how fast they used to be. It was a fun wee car but fast? 0-60 was something like 16sec I think - and that's slightly faster than the standard Imp.
escapism
Well-Known Member
My (summer) car is a decade older than the boat, and the 13/60 increases in value as that of the Seamaster 815 decreases. Both provide a lot of fun in the warmer months, and lots to do in the colder ones. The problem is that as the 13/60 price inflates, it is worth lavishing more money on it, while the boat expenditure on improvement rather than maintenance is probably money ultimately thrown away.
PS. Why do old Triumphs show crossed SV flags on the quarter?
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Tomahawk
Well-Known Member
So taking account of the comments about old cars... do we bang on about cherishing MAB's?
Billows
Well-Known Member
At least the MK2 Cortina looked like a car , not like a cross between a transformer toy and a handbag
Stemar
Well-Known Member
Back in the day, that was a car I always wanted, but they had an unenviable reputation for unreliability, especially those few in my budget. I suspect a well restored one now would be more reliable than a new one back then maintained by Citroen's "engineers" They're certainly one of the most comfortable cars I've ever been in. Am I right in thinking that RR use the same suspension under licence from Citroen?
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Zenith Strombergs on the Herald 13/60. Diaphragm fine, dashpot filled, needle valve changed, fuel pump changed, fuel pipes new.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Nobody knows. It was Michelotti who specified them for the convertibles (and I think the coupés) so they may stand for something in Italian.
RichardS
N/A
I'll wager that it was Super Speed ..... but in Italian.
Either that or ...... On the nose was a large "V" (for Vignale) badge, a "by G. Michelotti" badge on the bonnet, small "Vignale" scripts and a cloisonné Vignale-badge on the front wings, "Triumph Italia" on the rear wings with a set of Vignale crossed-flags (these are very similar to the ones on the S-T Vignale Vanguard, they are nautical flags for "V" and "S," the "S" presumably for Standard-Triumph), a large Vignale script on the boot handle and a "Triumph 2000" script on the boot. After the first 13, Ruffino took over production on an assembly line he leased from Vignale for the remainder of production.
Richard
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JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
The trouble was always more rust than reliability, though the electrics depend more on crossed fingers than Ohm's Law. Very French. The hydraulics just do their stuff. I'm told that they generally lasted about 4 years in the UK before terminal rot took them to the scrappy, so not much chance for the mechanics to cause problems. Good maintenance now is mostly a matter of squirting Dinitrol into every possible place on a regular basis. Servicing is not as bad as you might expect, but it's a complicated 1957 design which mean a lot of steps to do anything. I have changed the clutch on my own, which was a full day's work to get the engine out, a full day's work to replace the clutch and a full day's work to get everything back together. You have to remove the front wings, drive shafts, radiator and air ducts, front suspension spheres, battery cage, hydraulic reservoir, steering rack, steering column and more just to get at the engine ...
They did, certainly, but I don't know if they still do. The one bit they didn't licence was the brake valve under the "mushroom" which replaces a pedal. It's a remarkably complicated little gadget as it contains valves or the front and rear brake circuits and a slider which biasses braking to the back when the rear suspension is heavily loaded.
Rolls-Royce thought they could do better, but never managed to come up with one which didn't leak. In teh end they stopped trying and specified a disposable nappy to be placed on the undertray below the valve and changed at each service. The Citroën valve never leaks ...
Sans Bateau
Well-Known Member
One thing I took great pleasure from when owning a boat was the upgrading and maintenance, not everyones bag I know, but that is what I enjoyed. So when the boat went I bought a S2 Alfa Romeo Spider, the one I bought is a Junior, there are only a handfull of them still in existance, its a cross between the later Kamm tail and the earlier Duetto. Since owning it (the bodywork had already been restored with a bare metal respray,) I started to restore and rebuild all the mechanics. I have rebuilt the front suspension and last year the gearbox, a gearbox which I was not familiar with, likewise the spare rear axle which is on the bench at the moment. Not only am I getting pleasure from the actual mechanical work but also scouring the world for original parts.
Someone mentioned reliability, most of these classic cars can be fixed on the side of the road, no need to plug a computer in to reset an ECU to get it going again.
Someone mentioned reliability, most of these classic cars can be fixed on the side of the road, no need to plug a computer in to reset an ECU to get it going again.
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JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
A friend of mine had the slightly later one. After he had owned it for a few years, a mechanic servicing it noticed that the rear brakes were completely disconnected - as in, a blanking plug in the hydraulic line to them. It had passed six MOTs under his ownership like that, at various MOT stations, which shows just how assiduously or competently MOT testers carry out the road test they are supposed to do in place of a roller test when an LSD is fitted.
Sans Bateau
Well-Known Member
Many of the French cars in the 70's and 80's had very complex maintenance procedures, when I owned a garage in this period I soon realised there was lots of money to be made as the average workshop only want easy repairs, Vauxhall, Ford, Leyland. The French and other European makes allowed a premium to be charged.
halcyon
Well-Known Member
Was not that one of our big problems, marketing could only sell cheap cars, premium was hard work, When BL introduced electronic dashes the media ran it it down, only for it to appear on premium European cars after we scrap it. What we cannot see is a premium spec allows you to sell it at a premium price, thus R&D, production and sales costs. Think, BMW pre tax profits are around 10 billion Euro, what UK manufacture can say the same, but if we had one, how long before we heard the UK media and politicians shouting excessive profits ?
Brian
CLB
Well-Known Member
Those were the days, when you completed a long drive you had a sense of achievement if the car actually got you there without a problem
I still get that with my modernish Range Rover