Thought I'd add a little history to the story...............
After signing up in 39th place for the S2N '06, the hunt was immediately on for a suitable banger. Now because I love Senators and Carltons, I wasn't so keen on using one of them as they're getting rare and I had no intention of bringing it back, so I figured a Granada or a big Volvo or something as I didn't even consider an Omega as I figured that a serviceable one would be well outwith the £100 cieling put on the cost of the car.
Imagine my glee when I saw a 2.0 CD
WITH T&T for £100 not 40 miles away!! Me and one of my teammates went up there like a shot and as soon as I'd driven into the garage forecourt we were meeting at, I knew it was sold, it really looked too good to be true!!
So £100 was duly paid and we set off down the motorway back home, me in my MV6 and my teammate in the CD. We played leapfrog a bit and tested it at 'high' speed and it all seemed tickety-boo! Until, about 20 miles into the journey, my mate starts flashing lights at me to pull over. (We'd just passed a layby!!!!
). So I take the next available exit, which is only about 1/2 mile further on and drive into a service station.
I opened the door of my car only to be met with the sound of a bag of bolts!!
'How long's it been doing that?' I asked my colleague 'Only about 5 minutes.' he said!!
I surmised that the failure was due to lack of oil pressure and that the bottom end of the engine had now gone the shape of a pear. So what to do? Turns out my mate had an XEV out of a Calibra that he sold me for a reasonable sum!!
So we changed the engine over one weekend back in April.
Which was great, but had an annoying cam sensor fault!! Tried everything including buying new cam and crank sensors, and it took me a month to figure out I'd mixed up two of the loom connectors!!!!
Then, after having tried to upgrade the brakes to 24v Senator items, I had a load of trouble with bad pedal travel. So that took about another month and a fortune in brake fluid to get them just slightly better, and to cut a long story short, I got an MOT!!
So then I/we set about decorating it.....................
A few weeks ago...........................
And how it looks today....................
All in all it's been an adventure and I'm not even in Calais yet!!! I've spent less time and money on cars that I intended keeping!!!!
If I can get to Calais I think my nerves will settle down a bit!!