Well I thought I'd write a quick post about the car so far, basically I brought the car on the assumption that the head gasket had failed. A cheap fix I thought, as I have a spare td lump sat in my old estate that's been sat for near on four years.
Dispite my best efforts to make sure the engine was well and truly dead by attempting to force the car by its own means for the 24 mile journey back to mine (which epically ended up with me sat with a dead battery from restarts at the nearest BP awaiting AA recovery towards midnight), a quick once over back at mine confirmed nothing more serious than a somewhat broken water pump.
Lucky I got a recent one in the old car, hoorah!! (Pictured in the background)
The car was terrible to drive. It would tug and pull all over the place, especially upon braking. It was like the wheels were flaring out and not pulling back in again until the lie of the road pulled it straight again! A quick inspection underneatth highlighted some slight deteriation in a steering balljoint, and a pair of suspect looking wishbones. There was also a binding brake slider on the front offside wheel. Que. Old estate again to donate two less knackered wishbones and a brake calliper slider rubber boot.
Turned out the bushes in the wishbones were well and truly shot(in case you couldn't tell haha, as changing these nearly completely corrected the car, bar a light element of vagueness.
Last night was an interesting one in the rain. The rear footwell was full of water! A quick check under the scuttle panel revealed a hidden water feature holding nearly as much water as what would be needed to flood a living room, never mind a car! So I poked and prodded with a long bar until it whooshed out with force! I also noticed that where the tow bar wiring loom passes up behind the rear wheel into the inners of the car had a poorly fitting rubber grommet/sleeve that was catching water off the rear wheel and directing it straight into the car.. Hence the wet carpet and a soaked rear bench sponge and sound deadning! Now I'm playing the "dry the car out" game, rear seat currently in the loft!
The car needs tracking, rear brakes looking at due to a non functioning handbrake, two tyres, a new battery and a starting issue addressing, it's a pig to start most of the time and leaks fuel around the injectors, although I seem to have cured the leaks with some replacement leak-off pipes.
...that and it needs chipping haha!
The car was intended to turn around a quick buck from, but I'm starting to like the car... Wether I keep it or not depends how much used chip fat I can get my hands on, because it's competing with the economy of a mapped 1300 diesel Astra...
Hope you found all the bits 
