$500 car

[w3jn]

Bought from a colleague who's leaving Athens.  The first non-American car I've owned - 1991 Land Rover Discovery.

No electrical fires yet!   Pics taken on top of Mt. Ymmitos, did some 4-wheeling up there last weekend.  You can see the city of Athens in the background in one of the pics.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Any car that run and looks as clean as the one you got is a good deal!

Lots of antennas on that mountain.

[The Slab Bacon]

Hmmmmm....................20 year old Lucas Electrics anyone?? For that price just keep a few packs of hotdogs and hamburglars handy along with a long stick!    

[w3jn]

Lucas fuel injection even  

Of course being British it has a slight waft of raw gasoline but amazingly everything works except the aircon.

It has a few minor battle scars but it's by far the best $500 car I've owned.  If it craps out, it's getting abandoned.

Mt. Ymmitos is about 3300 feet and its proximity to Athens is ideal to situate broadcashers.  The intermod up there is something else!

[ka3zlr]

Great deal on the car  That mountain.....wpheeeuu... tower man stay busy longtime big boysons..

73

Jack..

[WQ9E]

JN,

Bet you couldn't buy that nice a $500 car back in the States!  (unless it was VERY hot!)  I looked at a couple of Scouts last year that were a lot more money (and had a lot less body due to rust).

With any luck, the Lucas Prince of Darkness and Flame doesn't like to visit Greece.

Enjoy the mountains!

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

You couldn't buy the rims for that price! Regardless of it being the soccer mom offering from Rover, they are well-made and have/had one of the highest reliability ratings out there. Compared to renting a vehicle to take out 4 wheeling, ya done extremely well!

From the looks of one of those pictures, you solved your aerial issues, too. All you need is a big ol' roll of coax and a few of those strapping chromed alternators under your hood and you'll be whirlwide!!   

[The Slab Bacon]

Lucas fuel injection even  

Of course being British it has a slight waft of raw gasoline but amazingly everything works except the aircon.

You're a BRAVE man there Johnny Novice   

Hmmm................. Lucas electrics + Lucas fuel injection + the smell of 'oleene= run like hell!!       

[KM1H]

That thing qualifies as a WMD. I hope your fire and liability insurance is paid up

[WQ9E]

The gasoline fumes are actually a feature to warn the wanna be terrorists that Jihad Novice is in the Hood so stay away if you know what's good for you

[WBear2GCR]

How much would it cost to buy and ship a Rover Diesel engine by boat to here??

Somewhat serious question... might be able deal with more than one...

                   _-_-bear

Btw... wish I could get that sort of deal here... all the cars here are pure body rot...
What I'd love to get is a "110" which looks like the earlier "109" wheelbase "Series" Rovers,
but has an external frame... of course they ONLY seemed to import the automatic tranny
vehicles to the States, since they started on the newer styling...

[WA3VJB]

Yeah just toss the title in the glove box and if it craps out, walk away.

Here's a thought:  British = Positive ground ?
Had fun putting my hissette deck in a cardboard box in my '66 Austin-Healey, so the chassis wouldn't touch anything.

But hey -- do you think your Suburban would take it, ya know ?

[Opcom]

great for $500! if you are worried about fires, put a 50A or 100A magnetic DC breaker in the dash in series with the hot (using good wire, not the stock wire).. just shut it off when not using the vehicle.

[w3jn]

JN,

Bet you couldn't buy that nice a $500 car back in the States!  (unless it was VERY hot!)  I looked at a couple of Scouts last year that were a lot more money (and had a lot less body due to rust).

With any luck, the Lucas Prince of Darkness and Flame doesn't like to visit Greece.

Enjoy the mountains!

A nice old Scout would be my dream vehicle, Rodger.  Had a '78 Scout II that's essentially medium duty truck on a little chassis.  Absolutely indestructible except for the famed IH tinworm infestation.

This beast has one thing in common with the older Scouts - you can go into LO/HI range independently of being in 4WD.  2-LO is kinda nice for creeping in heavy traffic.

Interestingly it's mechanically very similar to the old-sk00l Defender.  Same engine (the Rover/Buick 3.5L V-8), 5-speed tranny, transfer case, axles, etc.   Other than the Defender it's perhaps one of their last serious 4X4s.  Land Rover's really gone to hell with the "luxury SUV" theme lately - all kinds of unnecessary gingerbread, poor ground clearance, low profile tires that are useless in anything but dry pavement, etc.  In other words, poseurs, just like any Murano, BMW SUV, etc.

I do prefer my Suburban, but parking and navigating that beast thru this city would be hell.  There are some crazy Greeks that seem to do it with Hummers and Escalades though 

[K5WLF]

Looks like you got a hell of a deal, JN. Like the rest of the guys, I'm a bit concerned about the Lucas electrics, but you should be able to mitigate that particular bit of British contribution to your ride. Love the Rovers. If you've got one, you just have to be creative about about plugging all the places the magic smoke tends to leak out of.

Enjoy. There ain't much -- if anything -- that can beat a Rover for just plain ol' off-road capability. Wish I still had my '56 Jeep CJ-5 though.

ldb
K5WLF

[w3jn]

So far so good with the Lucas electricals.  The guy I bought it from thoughtfully included a pair of jumper cables ("mandatory", he said!) but the alternator looks brand new.

It is a negative ground, Paul, so the horrendous aftermarket JVC stereo works (?) without jury-rigging.

Bear, I'd have no idea on shipping a Rover diesel.  Best way is probably a LCL container.  I'd think you could do better with something else unless you have a dead Rover needing an engine.  This one has the little gas V-8 that Rover re-did from the 215 Buick aluminum V-8 so it has a tough sound 

[ke7trp]

My Friend had one.. What a nightmare that thing was.  You got a heck of a deal though!    Make sure you have that special wrench for the lug nuts..   We got stranded with a flat and realized we had no way to get the lug nuts loose.. Then we realized nobody in 200 square miles did either.

C

[The Slab Bacon]

That thing qualifies as a WMD. I hope your fire and liability insurance is paid up

Nah, just keep a couple packs of hotdogs handy at all times. 

what the hell, they dont call em carbeques for nothin.   

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Yeah yeah yeah....

Aside from Johnny and anyone who actually owned and worked on Brit vehicles routinely, ya gotta wonder how many of the Lucas horror stories are first hand and how many are just 'passed along'. So-n-so knew so-n-so who had a such and such. Reminds me of the old saying "All Harleys are junk, they leak oil" from the AMF days.

I must've been awfully lucky, I had 3 MGBs, 3 Triumphs, 2 Land Rovers, 4 Jags and a Mini. None of them ever had anything resembling a fire - electrical, brakes, fuel, or otherwise. They all did suffer from the typical Lucas wiring/Smiths gauges deficiencies, but a 6th grader could trace out their wiring and fix those little bullet connectors pretty easily. Methinks a lot of it came when folks started buying used XJ-6s and maintaining them like Chevys. Come to think of it, the only problem area in the XJ-6 I had was the Borg-Warner tranny. $500 to get it rebuilt in 1988 dollars.

OTOH, I did have several US cars like Mopar 318-based rigs that caught fire due to that lovely automatic choke set up they used on an otherwise-sweet engine. They'd either catch fire or suffocate themselves at traffic lights, so you had to carry a screwdriver on the front seat to stuff down into the butterfly to get it started again (after removing the air cleaner cover amidst a chorus of honking horns at a busy intersection). Also witnessed a couple of Hitler's Vunder-vagons light up when accumulated oil leaked from the push-rod tubes caught fire. The only imported car that ever caught fire on me was an Italian Lancia, which I admit was a pretty cheesy vehicle overall(though it did have a high redline). And even then, I tore the offending wiring out which removed the smoke, and the car still functioned as before, everything worked and only the engine smoked.  Must've been some redundant system.

BTW Johnny, I saw a sweet TVR Vixxen some years back that the owner had dropped that nice little al-uuu-mini-um Rover/Government Motors V8 into. 'Twas a rocket. Suspect any problems you have with your rig will be more about the amenities and less about the mechanics.

Enjoy it. It's all good, mostly. 

[The Slab Bacon]

Todd,
        I've owned and repaired many british motorcycles. (Triumphs & BSAs) All had elecrical problemz!! Mechanically they were reliable as a rock if you had frequent bolt tightening partys. (parts would vibrate loose and fall off!) I put over 100k on a 1963 T-120. (for those who know what that was) And it never had to come home in the back of a truck.

BUT I'D LIKE TO HAVE $1 FOR EVERY TIME I HAD TO RIDE IT HOME AT NIGHT WITH NO LIGHTS AND A DEAD BATTERY                

[The Slab Bacon]

Oh, yea, I forgot this one! A buddy of mine bought a new Jag back somewhere around 2000. He showed me all of the computerized electronics on it and I just rolled my eyes thinking about the Prince of Darkness having anything to do with all of that complicared stuff. I think my buddy said it had 3 computers in it, I just sighed in disbelief.

He said he bought the car "as an investment". When he sold it (with next to no miles on it) some years later he ended up taking a hell of a loss on it. He said noone wanted them and that "you couldn't give them away"

I wonder if the Lucas electrics had anything to do with it    

[w3jn]

Most of the Lucas troubles on older cars revolved around grounds, those terrible Smiths guages, and voltage regulators when I worked in that shop.  Lights, turn signals, etc would get corroded grounds and all kinds of weird stuff would happen.

We got a LOT of fire damaged 70's XJ-12s and XJ-Ss in that shop.  The fuel rails had little splices in them - rubber hoses, held on with garden variety hose clamps.  IIRC there's 30-50 PSI of fuel going thru that rail.  Sure as hell they'd spring a leak.  The owner would turn the ignition to "on", wait a few seconds as normal (all the while raw fuel is spraying over the engine), hit the key, and WHOOMPH.  Most of the time the car was totaled.

Very few problems with the computers on them.  The interiors and accessories were pure crap though.

Then there were the XJs with the SU carbs, and the owners who never knew to fill 'em with oil...

[ka3zlr]

Never had a problem with my old six cylinder ford and I bought another one never interested in these jallopies.

But still a good deal.

73

Jack.

[KC2YOI]

The Rovers that burnt up that I know of were ones that saw occasional use and had oil leaks that were ignored.

British cars and bikes seem to do well when used daily.( I've owned a few second hand cars and bikes and liked them. Rust killed mine  

Dust/Oil/Petrol/Heat = BBQ  
If you have chronic oil leakage, douse the warm engine w/ simple green or the purple stuff by Castrol and rinse followed by WD40. Allow the WD to evap. as it WILL catch on fire, believe me  ( and fix the leaks )


Re: American Trucks, I built my own "dream" Chevy.
A 94' Extracab 4x4 with a UPS/FritoLay 3.9Liter 4cyl turbo Cummins w/ a tow truck 5spd OD trans = 23 to 26 mpg on cut and filtered waste oil, #2 and pump Diesel.
I drive it 400mi/wk & love it!

[ka3zlr]

Everyone Gasp.. Gasp..LOL  A Super Chevy...