1991 Lada Riva Estate

[Rusted Pistons]

Well, I bought a Lada... ;D

I was in the market for a new daily and I spotted this up for sale in this very parish!

Travelled for 2 and a half hours to pick it up last Saturday and had a great drive back making full use of the free sombreros that came with it ;D was sat in traffic on the hottest day of the year on the M62 for a little while and all was good, which is handy! The radio was intermittent the whole way back but other than that it was spot on! I've never driven a Lada before and on the whole I've been pleasantly surprised, however the steering leaves a lot to be desired! It has a steering box and a hell of a lot of vagueness to it!

Its been a while since I've had a carb with a manual choke too so thats taking a bit of mastering again.

I fixed the radio on the Sunday, it was a bad earth so I renewed that and jobs a goodun, speakers aren't actually too bad either. The interior is mint - I'll get more pics soon.


daveyboy20

It has full service history and is only on 28k! Just had a new clutch and alternator and came with the original bill of sale (£5000) ;D


By daveyboy20

Last night I spent a bit of time with the T-cut and Autoglym and its come up well - I'll take some fresh piccies soon in the next day or two


By daveyboy20 at 2012-08-22

As you can see its received a mighty smack with the stick already! Its got a few rust scabs but nothing too bad.

Got a few plans!

The exhaust is blowing but that doesn't matter because I'm going to make a bit of a custom jobbie - watch this space. One of the main reasons I decided to buy it was that we could sleep in it at shows and general camping trips (tents do my head in!) currently there isn't quite enough room when the seats are folded flat to stretch out in the back but I'm going to modify the seat hinges with slide bolts which should give us potentially about 7 foot, just waiting on the hinges to arrive from Japan of all places! I'm gonna make some curtains that will clip in and out with ease too - I've bought some mega strong button magnets and will be seeing what I can do with a sewing needle!

Anyway, I'll update as and when I do stuff

[markbognor]

Cool!

[Dez]

when ya gunna lower it?

[Rusted Pistons]

Haha, I don't think it'll be going as low as yours somehow Dez

[Rusted Pistons]

By the way, if you want an idea of what the steering in a Lada Riva feels like - after 10 minutes driving it back I couldn't help but draw on the similarities between my new car and the bus from the begining of Playdays! ;D



I'm hoping I can improve it slightly!

[laks]

Very cool ride, too bad the 'wood' wasn't real-painted...
Or is it?

[hamps]

That's a cool ass lada

[Rusted Pistons]

""Please excuse occasional upside down pics - my free uploaded appears to be using annoying tactics to get me to spend 69p on it... I won't give in, just put your monitor upside down!"" ;D

I've been enjoying my first venture into Soviet vehicle ownership so far, done a few bits and had a few snags

One of the main reasons I bought this was the potential of creating a car we could comfortably sleep in and with our first camping trip coming up (last week) I got on the case! Not got many pics I'm afraid but I has a few.. First things first, curtains! I went to a local fabric shop and chose a material I liked, I went with digital cammo. I wanted it to be neat, simple and effective. I wanted them to be like 'off the shelf' Lada curtains, made to measure and no fuss in putting them up, I definately didn't want it to be a faff to turn it from a car to a bed and I didn't want ugly straps and hooks ha ging around when it wasn't being slept in. I decided on magnets as my 'clamping' method and as such found some tiny but über powerful button magnets on the bay. I measured up for two long side curtains and one rear and my girlfriend broke out the sewing machine. We sewed pockets for the magnets in and doubled the material for neatness - long story short it worked ace! Here's a pic from outside:



And one from inside - cosy



I had to adapt the rear bench seat as it was only allowing for about 4.5', now it's the length of the whole car! You can literally stretch out like superman and still have a few feet spare! Which is apt as here is the windscreen blind:



Went camping in Denbigh, 4 up with a lot of luggage:



Resulted in scraping flaps the whole way there! Looked ace though and drive fine!





Roofrack came in handy for drying the washing that didn't make it into the tumble dryer before we left:



mega comfy and a nice nights sleep followed by a drive up to Moel Fammau for a walk up the mountain:



So far I've sealed up one of backboxes that was leaking pretty badly so the car no longer stinks of fumes.. Little tip by the way - I'm sure i'm not the first to think of this but having used exhaust paste/putty for years only for it not to seal right and to eventually blow off at high revs I decided to use some chemical metal type stuff and it worked superbly! Easier to work with and sets stronger - pretty much a permanent repair

Also, on investingating why I only get about 70% of throttle on full stampage of the pedal I luckily spotted that every time the throttle opened the accelerator pump gushed a torrent of go juice directly onto the exhaust manifold a few frantic phone calls the next day looking for a new diaphragn lead me nowhere (dealer only part - useful..) so I did the only we sensible thing and put the whole accelerator pump in my toolbox instead of strapped to my dodgy Russian carb. The result being that it idles like a pro street dragster and stutters on fast application of the loud pedal but I can live with this for now, I'm on the hunt for a new diaphragm

Got a few cosmeticy things planned - I may loose some stickers and gain others - fix the rusty bits soon hopefully - and I'm gonna loose the whitewalls, as cool as they are, my vision doesn't include them! Looking forward to another weekend of camping coming up as we're going to Chris Evans' Carfest - cant bloomin wait!

[PandaSelecta]

For all your Lada needs - www.lada.co.uk. Ask on the Discussion Page there and i imagine someone will have the diaphragm

[fr€$h&m1nt¥]

Spotted this on the bay of e a week or so ago. Nice purchase, I'd prefer a blank canvas, you planning on adding to what's done or riding as is?

[Davenger]

Top purchase Dave

[Rusted Pistons]

Yeah I tried to join that page the night before I bought the car but they lost my email, so couldn't register! Think it's sorted now so I'll pop over today and do some digging for parts!

Cheers fellas, I'm pretty pleased with it on the whole - I know what you mean about blank canvas though - I'm actually considering removing the wood, even though it looks pretty cool and it's probably the one thing that 'none car people' like it for. I can't help thinking that with no stickers on the bodywork and some polished paintwork, on simple black steels (ie lose the whitewalls) with fully red back lights, it's look ace. The bumpers are ally so will probably shine right up.. I'm worried that if I remove the stickers the paint will be horrible underneath but that's a risk I may have to take! I was considering dropping the front tyre profile for more rake however as it stands I can get into the football carpark with about 2mm clearance of the important bits, don't fancy ripping the sump off!

Got an eBay bargain NOS dizzy complete with all the bits and bobs as the start of my engine refresh for only £9 but on arrival I realised its different

Oh and there's something else I forgot to mention, when attempting to fix the diaphragm I removed the air filter and breather pipes and my word.. Not one breather pipe was clear! The fat sump to filter breather hose was clogged right the way through with minging curse word as were all the smaller hoses around the carb! The crankcase pressure must have been sky high and there's no wonder it felt a bit lifeless, it starts nicer and accelerates quicker now they are all clear.

The choke cable was also pretty stiff and difficult to push back in resulting in overshooting where it wanted to be in the morning and having to start it again. I lathered the throttle linkages with plusgas (all 350 of them) and the choke mechanism as well as sending some down the cable itself and it's ungunged the linkages a treat - it now starts SO much easier! The choke on full whack tickles the throttle lever and before I think it was so gunged up that it wasn't responding properly resulting in some frustrating starting attempts pre and post work! Now the next thing to sort is to dial out the play in the throttle linkages as on full throttle (pedal) there is at least 3/4 an inch left at the carb. This would explain why it doesn't seem to be able to build up the vacuum required to operate the second choke and that it feels strangled at the top. It's supposed to have 80ish bhp and feels more like 50! I reckon it'd be quite the mover with some more tinkering! I'm off today and tomorrow so I may work on freeing those horses from the stable ;D

[rebel2cv]

i have a soft spot for these i must confess, and with good reason, look at it! ace!

[VIP]

Seen this one on the 'bay, it's a real 'mix' of styles!

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1994-LADA-RIVA-1500-E-WHITE-custom-/150893687690?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item2321f6f38a

[Rusted Pistons]

So, made the Lada an even better place to sleep! Went to the market to get some foam cut cut by this dude:



Made the main template with the boot may and sorted the rest with a marker pen and tape measure:



It all folds up and stores in the boot - jobs a goodun

Here's his card if anyone's interested, really helpful bloke! (Admin let me know if this is frowned upon!)



Tell him Dave with the Lada camper sent you

Right, this week we had problems in Lada land.. It stopped charging the battery up, started off intermittent on the volt gauge, just displaying 12v instead of 14. First time the gauge read 12v whilst driving back from work I thought the fan belt had gone so popped the bonnet only to find it there spinning away. Hopped back in to see it was reading 14v again so put it down to dodgy gauges. That weekend I did some work on the seat (runner stopped running) and carb (full throttle on the pedal was about 2/3 on the carb due to 500 different slacky rods) but before I could have a congratulatory cuppa and lap of the block with extra horsies I spotted the volt gauge mocking my hard work with a paltry 12v display. Couldn't get it to fix itself this time (I did the same thing, popped bonnet and stared at belt but it didn't work) so started to investigate. It had a brand new alternator and brand new wiring to and from. It also had a battery isolator (rally style) in the cab - all with dubious looking wiring. It also had a defunct alarm sitting proudly on the wing with the biggest rats nest of wires, some disconnected - others scotch locked to permanent lives. I did the only sensible thing and showed it to its new home:



Sadly this had no effect whatsoever. Except maybe a nice decrease in weight! Anyway, turns out kill switch had lived up to its name and killed the voltage reg. So she's back in business! And 1/3 faster

[homeforsummer]

Suspiciously similar to the alarm I removed from my Beetle, not actually connected to anything nor to the siren itself, nor the little red LED on the dash.

I'd never knew there was such a thing as a "for display only" alarm system, but apparently it's quite common

[viva_65]

thats ace, what hinges were you getting from japan? i was thinkin of a bench in the front of my viva that folds down

[Mark]

So much better than a tent.

Always liked these and want an FSO pick-up myself.

[Rusted Pistons]

Alright chaps - the Lada has been receiving more attention, put a few thousand miles on her since I got it, mostly been reliable bar the charging issues I had - recently been running badly but I'll get to that

I bought Dez's old Mountney boss as I had a nice old mountney rim that I've been kicking about for years (including a stint of 3 years as a wall ornament) and its transformed the handling! The comical amount of play has now been reduced to a more acceptable 'large' amount of play, bonus!

Not the best pic as its just after I fitted it in the dark:



It's been ace to be honest - made a few long distance trips as well as commuting every day, the heater is incredibly good although took some working out as the controls don't seem to fully relate to the functions - a good read of the manual and it all made sense!

It recently started to use a lot of fuel and wouldn't idle properly unless the choke was pulled out a bit :/

I can't remember if I mentioned but not long after I got it I spotted that a few vac pipes were split so set about changing them and thought I'd check out the breather pipes only to find that they were 100% blocked from top to bottom particularly the main crankcase breather pipe I spent a while cleaning and replacing pipes and it ran much nicer - I fettle with the throttle bars at the carb to unleash the rest of the horses as it wasn't opening fully either. So knowing that all the vac pipes were ok I was a bit confused at the awful idle and the raise of revs when the Lynx test was applied. Then I spotted one of the nuts that holds the carb to the manifold was halfway up the stud! On checking the rest, all four were making a bid for freedom!! So I cranked them down and fired it up - sorted! Smooth as a snooker table. It's now much more torquey and has stopped spluttering at low revs, its much more enjoyable with the carb attached to the engine.

Now - readers of a nervous disposition (and particularly those who have enjoyed the 'woody thread' that recently graced the general board) look away now....





I know technically I don't need to explain myself, as it's my car, but I will anyway! As cool as it looked with the wood - my photoshop mind couldn't help dewooding it. I have a vision for it, and the vision didn't include the wood - or any of the stickers on the body. The slab sided creaminess was obscured by fussiness. I'm thinking low, creamy and shiny. I literally spent a whole day with a hangover and a hairdryer taking the stickers off - unfortunately under the wood was an original stripe which also doesn't feature in my vision and my god is it an absolute bar steward to remove. One whole side was fine, heated it up and it peeled all the way off. The drivers side however! What a pain, 2 hours to do the front wing, blisters and bent nails and chips of paint on the floor So only two doors and a rear panel to go ah well it'll be worth it. I need to buy some paint for it anyway as I'm gonna repair some of the rust patches as I want it clean 'n' cream. Missed out on some Alfasud alloys for it due to some bad eBay sniping practise - gutted! I like the black steels though, so not a disaster.

Here's some more pics, I hope you feel the vibe I'm going for - I do feel a bit bad for removing the previous owners work but at the end of the day it's not how I want it and it felt like I was driving someone else's car around! I've photographed one of the unique stickers that were on the rear quarters and I'm getting them reproduced for the rear window










Yes that is a patch of paint that came off with it doh!

I then thought I'd go the whole hog and see how she looks minus the roof rack:



Yep, pleased with that! Might sell the rack if anyone's interested PM me.







Jut got to grow some nails back and put aside another 10 hours to get the rest of the stripe off the drivers side!

[AB car pix]

Looked fun before, but I'm sure if it was mine the novelty would wear thin after a while too.
Def prefer without the roof rack as well!