Hey guys.
After pining after a cheap mk1 fiesta to use as a daily for a good year or so, I finally realised such a thing as a cheap mk1 fiesta rarely exists anymore.
Combine that with the cost of panels if things go wrong etc, I decided to opt for the next best thing, Yep the MK2 Fiesta!
Being the lazy curse word I am I didnt wanna travel to get one (even though I saw lots of nice ones slip by), so played the waiting game, and sure enough, opportunity finally knocked.
A friend of mine from my home town of Felixstowe, had moved down the road to Clacton about 3 years previously and in March last year had stumbled accross a low mileage MK2 Fiesta he couldnt resist for a daily himself.
Luckily for me, he has always been a Vauxhall man at heart, and the call for a Vauxhall Nova caused him to put this little beasty up for sale....
Early (1983 A reg) Fiesta L, with 46,000 miles on the clock. Bit rough around the edges, and a few little mods, but otherwise sound.
First Job was removing the shonky modern wheel trims to reveal the ever so desirable standard steel wheels
But other than that, this is how she is
Powerflow Twin box system. The plan is to have the rear box removed (don't think it looks right) and replaced with a long upswept outward rolled pipe (same as my xr2) as I think this looks a lot better.
Weedy little 1117cc with manual choke carb (sounds like new actually)
Blue and grey interior
Sadly the chap I bought it off replaced the standard seats with XR2 ones, although thankfully he stuck the blue ones in so they do look kinda right
Massive Crack on windscreen (needs replacing)
Dunno if this is showing up well in the photograph, but the n/s wing is all cracked and crazed (no idea what caused it)
So anyway. Plans for the car initially are to change the wheels, lower it a bit more (its dropped 50mm at the mo, but will need to go down a bit more I think).
Change the exhaust (as mentioned earlier), replace the XR2 bumpers for some standard black ones, possibly lose the side mouldings, and possibly lose the clear indicators for standard orange ones.
Oh, and change the steering wheel for something a bit more comfortable, and fit a rev counter.
Wheels I am going to fit are these ....
13x7 et20 Borbet Atiwe with 175/50/13 tyres. Found them on German ebay earlier this year and picked them up for whatever daily I ended up buying. Although I don't have the correct wheelnuts yet!
Long term plans (if I keep her long enough) will be (ideally) rs1800i engine running efi (for reliability), heated front screen (if I can source one) and a corsa power steering conversion.
This will give me a good fast reliable car, with all the mod cons I like in a daily, but in a retro shell.
But will worry about all that later, get her sitting right and cleaned up a bit first and see how I feel
Anyways, thats enough waffle for now, will update as things happen with the car .... which if past (and other current) projects are to go by, will be quite slow
Cheers
jonni
After pining after a cheap mk1 fiesta to use as a daily for a good year or so, I finally realised such a thing as a cheap mk1 fiesta rarely exists anymore.
Combine that with the cost of panels if things go wrong etc, I decided to opt for the next best thing, Yep the MK2 Fiesta!
Being the lazy curse word I am I didnt wanna travel to get one (even though I saw lots of nice ones slip by), so played the waiting game, and sure enough, opportunity finally knocked.
A friend of mine from my home town of Felixstowe, had moved down the road to Clacton about 3 years previously and in March last year had stumbled accross a low mileage MK2 Fiesta he couldnt resist for a daily himself.
Luckily for me, he has always been a Vauxhall man at heart, and the call for a Vauxhall Nova caused him to put this little beasty up for sale....
Early (1983 A reg) Fiesta L, with 46,000 miles on the clock. Bit rough around the edges, and a few little mods, but otherwise sound.
First Job was removing the shonky modern wheel trims to reveal the ever so desirable standard steel wheels
But other than that, this is how she is
Powerflow Twin box system. The plan is to have the rear box removed (don't think it looks right) and replaced with a long upswept outward rolled pipe (same as my xr2) as I think this looks a lot better.
Weedy little 1117cc with manual choke carb (sounds like new actually)
Blue and grey interior
Sadly the chap I bought it off replaced the standard seats with XR2 ones, although thankfully he stuck the blue ones in so they do look kinda right
Massive Crack on windscreen (needs replacing)
Dunno if this is showing up well in the photograph, but the n/s wing is all cracked and crazed (no idea what caused it)
So anyway. Plans for the car initially are to change the wheels, lower it a bit more (its dropped 50mm at the mo, but will need to go down a bit more I think).
Change the exhaust (as mentioned earlier), replace the XR2 bumpers for some standard black ones, possibly lose the side mouldings, and possibly lose the clear indicators for standard orange ones.
Oh, and change the steering wheel for something a bit more comfortable, and fit a rev counter.
Wheels I am going to fit are these ....
13x7 et20 Borbet Atiwe with 175/50/13 tyres. Found them on German ebay earlier this year and picked them up for whatever daily I ended up buying. Although I don't have the correct wheelnuts yet!
Long term plans (if I keep her long enough) will be (ideally) rs1800i engine running efi (for reliability), heated front screen (if I can source one) and a corsa power steering conversion.
This will give me a good fast reliable car, with all the mod cons I like in a daily, but in a retro shell.
But will worry about all that later, get her sitting right and cleaned up a bit first and see how I feel
Anyways, thats enough waffle for now, will update as things happen with the car .... which if past (and other current) projects are to go by, will be quite slow
Cheers
jonni
to sort these, hehe.
