Senator/Monza... Talk to me!

[grifterkid]

Hmmmmmm, I find myself in somewhat of a quandry...!!! I'm going to buy a mid-1980's Vauxhall Senator, well I hope I am as I've seen one I want pretty darn badly. I've been told not to but I really feel the urge for this one and it's a BIG urge!

Now, can any of you good people tell me some stat's about them...?! Can any of you people tell me what I should do to mine (he says pre-emptively) when I finally nab it...?! Can any of you good people tell me tales of utter greatness related to these blocky lumps of executive joy...?! Any input would be hugely appreciated as I need to feed my mind on all things Senator and, to a lesser extent, Monza too...

Thanks to you all in advance, have some lovely pictures as a visual down-payment...

[retroandproud]

Lovely, wafty old barges with a reasonable performance kick too.... I'm sure the resident Monza expert, MonzaPhil, will be along shortly with his exceptionally broad knowledge of all things Monza/Senator shaped.....

[EmDee]

Oct 29, 2014 15:59:09 GMT grifterkid said:

Can any of you people tell me what I should do to mine (he says pre-emptively) when I finally nab it...?!

Welding.

[grifterkid]

^^^

I thought that'd come into the equation at some point...!

[deaddave72]

MonzaPhil is the man on this, but seeing as he is a mate of mine ( not to mention i bought a Carlton GSi off of him) he can run through the worst bits. Sure, it will more than likely need welding, the engines are robust and they also come with all sorts of lovely luxuries.

I will let him know that his expertise is required here

[MonzaPhil]

I'm here, what did I miss?.....

I'm sure you know the rot spots, front turrets, tail end of sills and rear valance. Buy it.

Mechanically bulletproof, CD should have LSD and digi dash, A/C and ABS are nice but rare. Buy it.

I'd go for uprated suspension (PMC or similar) and probably wheels. Buy it.

4 speed auto is very nice and not bad on fuel really, somewhere between 8 and 28 mpg realistically. The Senator handles and goes sufficiently well to make an excellent policecops motorway car. Buy it.

If you don't buy it, I will when it gets cheap enough to be in my get a cheap car budget although I want a white one.



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[Vintage75]

Oct 29, 2014 17:29:10 GMT EmDee said:

Welding.

As far as welding is concerned they are no worse than any other car of that era!
but do check around the front suspension turrets and rear trailing arms where the spring seats as these are 2 areas that do rot,
engines and gear boxes are pretty bomb proof! Engines are well known for reaching galactic miles with no problems!
other than that they are great cars that have good performance but not blistering and sensible running costs.

[MonzaPhil]

Oh, it's easier to get forgiveness than permission.

Hope this helps.

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[deaddave72]

Oct 29, 2014 18:00:43 GMT MonzaPhil said:

I'm here, what did I miss?.....

I'm sure you know the rot spots, front turrets, tail end of sills and rear valance. Buy it.

Mechanically bulletproof, CD should have LSD and digi dash, A/C and ABS are nice but rare. Buy it.

I'd go for uprated suspension (PMC or similar) and probably wheels. Buy it.

4 speed auto is very nice and not bad on fuel really, somewhere between 8 and 28 mpg realistically. The Senator handles and goes sufficiently well to make an excellent policecops motorway car. Buy it.

If you don't buy it, I will when it gets cheap enough to be in my get a cheap car budget although I want a white one.



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you cant drive them all at the same time! 

[MonzaPhil]

Can too

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[grifterkid]

Oct 29, 2014 18:02:39 GMT MonzaPhil said:

Oh, it's easier to get forgiveness than permission...

Pure and utter genius...!!!

Sent with my fingers crossed from my wishful thinking computeration device

[MonzaPhil]

This is my old one, Monza 2.



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[EmDee]

[hotfuzz]

As Opelnut has said, the Senator/Monza doesn't rust anymore than other cars of the 80's however the inner wings/turrets are the most important part to check.

My first Monza was 6 years old that had serious rot in this area. I can't imagine buying the equivalent Monaro now with rust let alone rot!

The engines are good but check fuel injector pipes, then check again. They weep like a fat woman sat down on a full bus.

[MonzaPhil]

Yup, rear suspension arms and their spring mounts need a look at, rear wheel bearings need a 20 gigaton press iirc.

They are good, solid (hopefully) reliable machines. Really well put together, utterly overlooked. I wouldn't be scared of any mileage unless it's making upset noises.

Trim, inside and out, needs to be tip top but I'd expect a knackered dash top, apparently there's a good repair shop in California...

Electrically, the fuse box is rubbish but responds to hitting, the efi is basic and effectively a stand alone system, the digi dash might need bulbs but is pretty good and easy to strip and inspect or repair, bad earths in tail lights are normally down to cruddy bulb holder to printed circuit interface situations, all front end lamps are dismantleableableable, heater fan can give trouble, resistor pack or switch (rotary on normal cars, sliding control on A/C cars) and the heater controls are vacuum controlled on A/C cars.

It's fairly common to have water ingress from under the windscreen into the footwells, right hand side houses engine ecu but easy to strip out and fix, idle ecu above is less accessible but more waterproof.

Electric windows are generally slow, central locking doesn't like to sit around but is really basic. Door handles can stick from lack of use. Senator and Monza could be bought with rear air shocks and either a valve or an electric pump. Senator has electric boot release and this can be retrofitted to Monza.

Ummm.

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[MonzaPhil]

You can never have too much GM tat.

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[deaddave72]

and thats not all of them is it sir !!

[MonzaPhil]

About half sir.

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[spineynorman]

Speaking as a man with four Senators on my drive (it was five, but one went to a new home last weekend) I say buy it. I may be biased as my dad owned literally dozens of Senators, Monzas and Royales when I was a kid but they're great cars. Mechanically bombproof, no worse for rust than anything else of the same era, insanely comfortable and superb cruisers.

[MonzaPhil]

And you can get the speedo to 150 apparently (with a long run up and where permitted, obviously) . Be interesting to GPS it.... allegedly.

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