1981 Talbot Solara back from the dead

[mikesumner]

Hi folks,

I added a link to my previous post ("A 1981 Classic") of the Talbot Solara that I'm trying to get back on the road finally being started for the first time in 17 years.

There haven't been any comments on it since, so I thought I'd better start a new post in case people hadn't noticed I'd updated the original one.

Amazingly, if you watch the link below with the sound on you'll notice how it doesn't take very long at all for the car to "fire up".

This genuinely was the very first time the key had been turned (wth spark plugs in place) since 1992, and I was so impressed by the result.

http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb88 ... ion009.flv

[Rich Hanlon]

In a non-completely-unrelated post, I brought a Maxi back from the dead yesterday too... (Eight years standing)

Quote from this morning:

"It's not beige and orange, it's champagne and paprika!"

[Guinney1971]

Rich Hanlon Wrote:In a non-completely-unrelated post, I brought a Maxi back from the dead yesterday too... (Eight years standing)

Quote from this morning:

"It's not beige and orange, it's champagne and paprika!"

oh god Rich, you and your old British Leyland cars....... nearly as bad as
me and Phill with our Cavaliers! :lol:

Dunno if you've spoken to Rich yet, but we've now got 5 Cavalier Mk3's,
cos Phill rescued off ebay last week the last Cavalier to leave the production
line at Luton in 1995, and GM & Vauxhall Heritage have just donated a brand
new crate engine for it because the current engine is shot - there's a darn
great hole in the block where we think one of conrod's threw a wobbly! lol

[Rich Hanlon]

Fantastic!

Brand new engine into one of your existing cavaliers, transplant that car's engine engine into the 'last' car and you have a brand new one of your own!!!

Anyone got any Austin Maxi gas struts?

[Guinney1971]

Rich Hanlon Wrote:Fantastic!

Brand new engine into one of your existing cavaliers, transplant that car's engine engine into the 'last' car and you have a brand new one of your own!!!

Anyone got any Austin Maxi gas struts?

Oh Rich, you really are beyond salvation arn't you! lol :lol:

Thinking about gas struts for the Maxi, would they be common to other BL
cars of the time, like mebbe the Princess/Ambassador or perhaps even
a Metro?

Mike - great work on the Talbot - you bringing it to Eurotec?

[Rich Hanlon]

Yes absolutely – sorry Mike – didn’t mean to hijack the thread! It is satisfying getting something back from the brink isn’t it?

This period of automotive history was described in Practical Classics as something like an “automotive hinterland between Ted Heath and the Miners’ strike”, with cars from this period “awaiting the slipping clutch or squeaky wheel bearing that spell doom”!!!

(And thanks Claire – unfortunately Metro struts too long, Princesses never had them and Ambassadors are harder to find than Maxis!! I got some Granada ones which are the same 19” total length but the ‘sleeve’ section is too long and the piston too short – meaning it’ll hold the lid open beautifully but it won’t close!!)