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General Car Chat / Re: That was dreadful !
« on: Yesterday at 21:34:51 »
The first two MX5's (pop up headlights and the facelifted one) are great little cars
- 19 September 2018, 10:59:06
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General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« on: 17 September 2018, 17:33:11 »Removed the radiator drain plug on the daily as it weeps when the car is cooling down, unfortunately only halve the plug came out. Tried to seal the remaining bit and screw it back in but pissing out as it cools down again.
Sure I have a spare used radiator in the shed at my dad's so you can guess next weekends job.
And the spare used radiator.... Weeps..... There's a few hours of my life I won't get back. I do have a brand new pattern radiator as well but it's not got the mounts for the external oil cooler do I fit / bodge it or do I spend yet more money on this car and buy another one?
I have a 3.0L auto rad on my3.2, junked the ext-cooler and used the internal cooler on the rad, but I did have all the 3.0L pipes too.
Aye that's the missing bit stopping me using the other spare Rad
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Omega General Help / Re: Rusty wheel arch
« on: 16 September 2018, 20:03:48 »Exactly - you need to enjoy repairing Omegas if they're going to last. I very much think of it as another hobby for me, and at least in my senior years it means I keep sort of active crawling around under the old girl getting covered in crap.
I've had an CD estate on the driveway going nowhere for the last couple of years and decided a couple of weeks ago to do something with it. Keeping it for spares was an original thought, but with the other estate CDX as a weekly drive and in tip top condition, I got the urge to go through it and make sure things weren't too far gone. New wishbones & steering rodsfitted last week. So far the front wheel arches & sills are all tidy now and protected inside and out, the front end behind the bumper is all sorted and protected....... I haven't even got to the rear arches and back end, so there's still a hell of a lot of work to do, not to mention cambelt, cam covers, handbrake cable, drilling out broken rusty screws, etc.
Sounds like hard work? It's enjoyable and feel as though I'm saving something in a throw-away society. Financially the car owes me nothing, and I'll easily get the budget down under £300 for a reliable winter runner.
Mine is a hobby too. As one of the group of us who have done up cars in the past which are now classics, the Omega falls into the same category now. I do run it as an everyday A to B form of transport, alongside other cars, but I couldn't run it without having another car. Every year it comes off the road for 2 or 3 weeks to have something fairly substantial done to it and as the design is 25 years old now, that puts the early ones firmly into classic territory. Mine is an 03 so it's got a long way to go. but I reckon it'll get there.
The parallels with Rover SD1s are interesting. In the 90s you could barely give them away as rotten old rust buckets and unreliable piles of ****. Now look at the values of tidy ones. The comparison is that if I were to buy another Omega it would not be on age and mileage it would be on condition. That's one benchmark I use to indicate the move into classic status.
Being older and having the benefit of a wider experience can colour our judgement compared to younger people who don't have that same perspective. Omegas are getting mentions in popular classic car magazines, one only last month suggesting people should go out and buy them as the numbers left have reduced by 48% in the last 2 years.
SD1s are cool now, Omegas can go the same way, after all they were better to start with.
I'd still love a Vitesse, especially a twin plenum one, failing that, a Vanden Plas EFI model.
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Omega Electrical and Audio Help / Re: Problems retrofitting NCDR 2011 in my elegance.
« on: 16 September 2018, 19:55:56 »CID needs code index 074 for a HID equipped 2.6/3.2.I agree
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General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« on: 16 September 2018, 19:51:23 »Buy a new cheap pattern rad, you know it makes senseAye... Oh well, would have been a free fix otherwise!
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General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« on: 16 September 2018, 19:50:46 »Mounting points should all be present, but you will certainly need to swap the hardware over
No they're not, otherwise I would have done that! However the very last Genuine GM replacement radiators have them as well as the internal oil cooler... must have been simpler that way, shame the pattern ones aren't the same.
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General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« on: 16 September 2018, 13:25:08 »Removed the radiator drain plug on the daily as it weeps when the car is cooling down, unfortunately only halve the plug came out. Tried to seal the remaining bit and screw it back in but pissing out as it cools down again.
Sure I have a spare used radiator in the shed at my dad's so you can guess next weekends job.
And the spare used radiator.... Weeps..... There's a few hours of my life I won't get back. I do have a brand new pattern radiator as well but it's not got the mounts for the external oil cooler do I fit / bodge it or do I spend yet more money on this car and buy another one?
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Omega General Help / Re: O/s brake oscillation/fluctuation
« on: 14 September 2018, 20:27:09 »
Discs warped
Wishbone bushes
Wheel balance
Take your pick!
Wishbone bushes
Wheel balance
Take your pick!
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General Discussion Area / Thanks TB!
« on: 14 September 2018, 20:21:58 »
….for giving the project a once over with the Tech II, very much appreciated.
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Omega General Help / Re: Rusty wheel arch
« on: 10 September 2018, 23:23:14 »You're confusing the subframe with the chassis...So is the chassis the rectangular beams running from rear to front? They seem to disappear at the front.
Regardless, that right hand sill needs work at both ends...
I agree work is needed on the cill, but the left hand cill was much worse.
Thanks for the quick response.
It does not look too bad, does it?
Looking at those pictures it looks repairable to me. If you like the car and are prepared to spend the money to get it sorted then why not?
The outer sills can be replaced with pattern items as you know or you could cut out and patch as required, the front inner wing to chassis rail and engine subframe mount looks a heck of a lot better than a lot i've seen but would need grinding away to see the extent of the corrosion.
The difficulty is the arch repair (As other people have said) as per your subject title - you can buy arch repair panels from Carz2 but the real problem is paint match... Silver seems to be a problem to match properly, even swapping doors etc i've discovered that different Z157 panels sometimes don't match, I guess it depends if a car has sat outside in the sun all its life etc.
Ultimately, we are all in the same boat now and having to work with what we have because the ability to find a rust free Omega for sale has long gone.
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General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« on: 09 September 2018, 18:47:43 »
Removed the radiator drain plug on the daily as it weeps when the car is cooling down, unfortunately only halve the plug came out. Tried to seal the remaining bit and screw it back in but pissing out as it cools down again.
Sure I have a spare used radiator in the shed at my dad's so you can guess next weekends job.
Sure I have a spare used radiator in the shed at my dad's so you can guess next weekends job.
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General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« on: 03 September 2018, 22:55:27 »Well no sign of it in the header and done over 1100 miles since the first low coolant messageWell yesterday, been getting the odd coolant level warning on the daily, found the remnants of the float in the reservoir (don't know where the plastic top clip is...). Had a new reservoir in the shed so put that on the project car then put its reservoir on the daily.You might want to find the retainer... It's just the wrong size and might find its way into the plumbing
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General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« on: 03 September 2018, 18:47:35 »
Well yesterday, been getting the odd coolant level warning on the daily, found the remnants of the float in the reservoir (don't know where the plastic top clip is...). Had a new reservoir in the shed so put that on the project car then put its reservoir on the daily.
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General Discussion Area / Re: Top 10 future classics in decline
« on: 01 September 2018, 21:29:55 »
Both reasons i'd say. Most are in banger territory now and few people will spend money on them.
Then there's those of us who still can't find anything in budget that matches or exceeds them in order to replace them.
Shame GM never gave us a proper mass production replacement....
Then there's those of us who still can't find anything in budget that matches or exceeds them in order to replace them.
Shame GM never gave us a proper mass production replacement....
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Omega Gallery / Re: My 53 plate CDXi
« on: 01 September 2018, 21:21:37 »
Often get 420 from my daily 3.2 on Scotland trips... but then I travel at silly hours of the night and am generally on cruise for the vast majority of the journey. Unfortunate commutes when I have to go to the office etc see around 320 a tank.
The other two generally get driven properly (ie not for work!) so don't get anywhere near those figures!
The other two generally get driven properly (ie not for work!) so don't get anywhere near those figures!