Cautious Hello

No. Somebody stole it. I opened the bonnet, and there it wasn't.

You are, m'fraid. Imps were water-cooled,

:)

There were a fair few other liquid-cooled rear-engine cars: all the Renault 4CV derivatives and developments were, too, right down to the last real Skodas - though they (all?) had the radiator at the front.

Hmmm... How big was it? That may have been a Chevrolet Corvair you had there...

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Fran saying something like:

Indeedly.

Fran wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net:

hmmm, nobody else has mentioned it so I'll just ask:

Are Bayford Thrust not producing leaded petrol any more?

Actually while I'm here, I'll ask a couple more questions:

1) Can a Talbot Sunbeam Lotus run on unleaded? I've never been able to find a definitive answer one way or the other.

2) What's the cheapest way, other than driving it (which wouldn't be that cheap), of transporting a car from one side of the country (Essex) to the other (Devon), bearing in mind it'll be a one way trip (ie I'm not coming back) and the car has neither tax nor MoT and isn't likely to get either anytime soon...

Cheers,

LHC.

Blimey, you're right! It's a wonder the poor thing survived at all in my naive hands... Is this the time to get me driving coat and stroll out, nonchalently whistling?

In message , Andrew Robert Breen writes

Nope, the 105 Skodas had a rear radiator like the Imp.

Um, no. It was an extremely naive young lady who really ought to have been born blonde.

Standard unleaded petrol is 95 octane. The Imp engine with 10.5:1 CR can easily suffer 'pinking' or even detonation if you run it on 95 octane. In its day the Imp preferred the old 5 star (101 octane), but it will run on 98 octane if the ignition timing is set right. Castrol Valvemaster+ will raise 95 octane to about 97-98 octane and has a lead substitute. It appears to work well. The premium unleaded petrols you can now buy at a price premium are around 98 octane so the Imp engine is OK there. The only concern that gets raised is whether the exhaust valve seat inserts in the head are really quite up to the mark if you're going to thrash it at all.

BTW, NEVER thrash an Imp engine until it's fully warmed up. The head-to-block mating surfaces aren't very large and the differential expansion between the block and head as the engine warms up is what causes the gasket problems. Once they're warmed up they're perfectly OK.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember The LHC saying something like:

One-way trip? I'd use an A-frame.

OK, so long as your car coat is one of those 70s brown acrylic fur-lined bum-freezers that we all had back then. And so long as you have a late model gold coloured Mk III 2 litre Cortina or something like that to drive off in. An Imp is obviously not safe in your hands...

FYI, Normal unleaded is 95 RON (RON being a type of octane measurement), Super is 97 as is LRP, Optimax is 98, and apparently some Tescos have fuel at 99 octane. It's printed on the pump BTW. If you need more octane, buy the highest octane petrol you can find, and use an additive, or just get some toluene and use that instead. BP recently announced a super high octane fuel (above a 100 RON), but it'll only be sold near race tracks. A while ago a few places sold 5 star leaded petrol, which I would most likely top any form of unleaded you can find, but the only place I knew of was in Castleton in the middle of the peak district.

Blimey, you haven't been reading the rules for a while, have you? If any wheels are on the ground, the vehicle needs an MOT, tax and insurance. You might get away with it for a short distance, but right across the country is just asking for a hefty fine.

Not according to Skoda:

"The vehicle received a new body, interior and dashboard and the radiator was placed in the front. Two basic models, the ?koda 105 with a 1046 cc engine and the ?koda 120 with a 1174 cc engine, were manufactured in various versions; from the cheapest ? 105 "

My 105S certainly had the radiator at the front.

checked some more: the later rear-engined Skodas (105 to 136) all had front radiators, but the earlier 1000s had them at the back (the air intakes on the rear wings are the give-away). The 4CV was rear-radiator, too. I've not quite figured out where it was on the R8 and R10..

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Willy Eckerslyke saying something like:

I speet on the rules. Mind you, last time I used an A-frame to tow the Scim from Leicester to Wales then Ireland, I wasn't exactly giving a shit about the rules. Point; I got passed several times by m'way plod and didn't get pulled once.

I've got away with bending the rules too on shorter, rural journeys. I don't think all that many plods actually know all the legalities of towing. But the OP seemed to be talking about something rough enough to attract attention, or perhaps I was reading too much between the lines.

No, it's not that rough, externally it's pretty good actually, engine- wise it's pretty good, although it's been laid up for a while. The problem is the floor-pan, it wasn't re-done when the rest of the bodywork was restored and I don't believe it'll get through another MoT (I was surprised it got through the last two to be honest!), but I want to get it to where I am now before I get it sorted. I don't want to be trying to sort things out from 300 miles away.

As for the a-frame idea, all it needs is one tax checking camera and you're right in it, I was thinking of either renting a flatbed transporter (Transit-type single vehicle thing), but they seem to be difficult to get hold of and I'm not sure of the insurance/license requirements, or having it transported, which is probably going to cost too much. The other option is hiring a trailer and towing it myself, but then I need to buy a tow-bar, get it fitted etc etc, so the costs start to add up.

Anyone got any experience with this sort of thing?

Toby.

/me hangs head in shame

My only defence is that I was young and all I knew about any sort of engine was how to clean the plugs and check the sparking gap on my C90.