Hi all,

I'm new to french cars and the car I have just bought is purely for everyday transport. However, I have to say I am very impressed with and rather chuffed with myself for finding it. The car is a high mileage Turbo Diesel but you wouldn't beleive it had done half that to look at and drive it.

Therefore, I am looking for a website/forum that can help me out with the general workings of these cars and hoping to pick up an hints and tips to make jobs easier and maybe improve things a bit too. I am a competent mechanic and some of my work can be viewed here:

Smilers Site

So any help and pointers to other websites would be very much appreciated.

Cheers folks,

Smiler.

hello and welcome!

please enter your all your details into your profile, especially your location.

thanks.

OK, done.

Is there anything to watch out for/vulnerable to failure on the Air-Conditioning system? Mine needs charging but it has been dormant far a while so I am unsure as to wether it'll work again once charged.

there are a few active aircon topics in the technical forums,
so please check them out and reply there .

Welcome Smiler!
I see you're in Wiltshire, whereabouts exactly? I'm in Devizes. My dad has a GTX, a petrol one, though I expect everything is the same apart from the engine.

Hello Kriskarrera (is there a shortend version of that?),

I bought my car from Devizes!

I'm in Tidworth just off the A303 east of Amesbury. My folks live in Durrington which is where a lot of my automotive junk is stored much to there dislike!

Next time I'm up there I'll keep an eye out for any Mi16's (Espeacialy if that's your picture in your avatar!)

Regards,
Smiler.

I'm afraid not, I'm a bloke!

It's all military around here isn't it, I work at Upavon camp, well I do when I'm there.
I like Amesbury, it's my nearest place to buy Optimax. We once got from Amesbury to Devizes in 15 minutes - in an automatic 2.9 Granada lol

Buger! Never mind. In that case I don't mind you finding out I'm married with a little daughter.

It is very military around here. What do you do at Upavon?

Next time your there, look south and on the horizon you might see me. I have worked at Boscombe Down for donkeys years and spent most of my time in the large grey hanger that dominates the landscape in that area. A year and a half ago though I got promotion and moved to another less prominent (but now busyer) hanger.

How quick was the granny? Just asking as I've recently scrapped a 2.9 for it's engine for my Cortina. Though it was the 24 valve Cosworth version and is now mated to a 5 speed manual. 200 untuned bhp through a rear multi linked live axle and double wishbone front suspension all polybushed. It's hopefully going to upset a few new Audi drivers on the A303!

Regards,

Smiler.

Ahh the A303! Many an adventure on that road. I remember dad's 2.9i Grannie being quite reasonable for an auto but this was before we got the 24 valve Mondeo, which was a very basic spec and was 80kgs lighter than the ST24 and went very well indeed. Seems quite a few people put the Granada Cosworth engine into the Sierra Xr4x4. We had the 2.8 XR4x4 before the Granada. We've had lots of Fords over the years. I can remember being about 4 years old when we had a black 3000E Capri but the footwell had rusted so bad that you could see the road!
My dad's now looking at buying a GTI6.
I do office work at Upavon, I'm civilian. Not been in a while though I'm reluctant to discuss that on public forums.
That Cosworth into the Cortina will certainly cause a few surprises!

I'm civilian to, nearly all of Boscombe is apart from most of the pilots. I'm an aircraft engineer and now run a fleet of 5 hawks for the Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) with 6 blokes to boss around (read that as give me the run around!).

That car your dad is after, I'm not familiar with it, unless you mean the Triumph GT6. In which case he has very good taste! I have been lusting after one of those for years. A TR5/6 woul;d also be very nice but also more than twice the price.

The Capri sounds good. The most memorable of my old mans cars are the mk3 Cortina he had when I was a toddler and the brand new Rover SD1 2600 SE that he bought in the early 80's. That was a very impressive car.

The Cosworth into Cortina conversion is getting pretty comon now. In fact it must now rival the V8 conversions now that the engines/donor cars can be had for so little money.
Anyway, I'll see you around.

Regards,
Smiler.