The problems with the XR4i meant that I was on the lookout quickly for another family car. Ebay once again came to the rescue….
A 1993 Black XR4x4 2.0 ( Yes I had vowed never to own another 2.0 ) was on in the next town. I got outbid, but an email to the vendor resulted in the car being dropped off the next day ( baby toby was only 2 days old! )
It looked clean apart from the rear arches, had all the toys late cars had, drove nicely, etc… £190 well spent… I put my cosworth wheels on, and my nice cosworth leather steerng wheel to tart it up a little…
Well I spent £190……..
Alarm bells started ringing when the water level kept dropping, my heart sank. This time i decided that a convertion was too much work, the car was needed. I bought the necessary parts from Fraud, and asked a freind if he colud help ( he likes his twinks ) , I set to work without him as he was commig down from glasgow ( 100m ) … And was just about to start puttig it back together when Neil turned up, good job too! he took a look at the Cylinder head and spotted the tiny crack that was the cause of the problems.. We had a spare head, but still struggled to get it back together, tensioner was loose, thermo housing snapped, rocker cover leaked, PCV was lose… But in the end it all went back together…
The car ran better, used virtualy no water but smoked on startup still ( worn rings I guess ) but overall was useable.
Then I decided it was too small for the family and it had to go, fortunatly it had reached my theoretical Value For Money which is 10 Miles for every £1 spent… I had Spen ~£300 and covered 3000 miles..
Even more fortunatly, someone in the North East wanted it’s diff for his Locost Kit car. And agreed to buy the whole car for £250.. I wanted some of the trim off the car so agreed on a price of £225 delivered.
I had no time to remove what I needed before setting off, It’s amazing how much of a sierra interior can be removed whilst driving…………
And it was gone!