Bugger

In news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net, Doki decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

You're better off with an E class (W124), but 190Es are ok,.

*Avoid* white, ditto manuals, don't go for anything totally poverty spec.

Wind up windows are a no no.

You could get a decent W124 230E for £500, but it'll most likely be a bit of a mutt. 260Es are rarer, but better, but again it's hard to find a nice one.

320E is still worth money, as are 300E-24s.

Try to avoid 4 pots, but the 190E isn't too bad.

190E 2.6 is vastly underrated.

I know someone has one of those. A 260E, I think. K reg or so. Don't think he'd be willing to part with it, but it is bloody good even if it is white. I thought they were just the 190 with a different engine. Is it a different shell as well?

In news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net, Doki decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Yup, the 260E is a W124, the 190E is, IIRC, a W201.

The 260E is an E class, so it's bigger. The 190 was the forerunner to the C class.

It's all a bit confusing because on the 190s E means "fuel injection", whereas on the 200s E is the class of car.

So you can get a 200E with a carb, but 190Es are injection.

190Es are pretty cramped in the back, the E class is a fair bit bigger, but they both look pretty identical. I love Mercs and I have to look carefully to spot the difference in traffic..... I suspect you'd like a 190 2.6. 170bhp straight 6 in a 190...

For £500 it will be ready for some serious service work if you plan to to keep it for a while, but would make a great bangernomics car if you get one at the right time.

You won't get one for £500 but you do know there was a 2.5 and 2.6 litre version that was a 16v Cosworth built engine and it was designed to take on the M3 in DTM races, but never really took off as a road car.

Piece of advice for you mate. If you want a cheap and solid car, one that will last well, run for ever and settle for any old oil as long as it changed regularly, and given a decent coolant mix, buy a Skoda Favorit Blackline.

My base model favorit forum Carb model was great on fuel, bit body roll but hung on well, little bit dull after the Estelle, but only let me down once after I got it, and that was shit in the carbs the same week I bought it because it had been run ow on fuel.

If you get a blackline, you get factory glass sunroof, better seats, leather steering wheel and gearknob, alloy wheels, about 35-40 to the gallon. It's a camchain engine so no belt to worry about. The chain isn't tensioned so always rattles after the first 10k miles, but usually good for over 60k. Best bit is, the parts to replace it (chain and new sprockets) is £12 and getting it fitted by an ex franchise independant shouldn't be more than £150 (inc parts and VAT).

Only about 60BHP as standard, but you do have the whole of the Czech tuning industry available to you (including twin carb or thottle body manifolds, proper motorsport coilovers, driller/grooved discs and motorsport compound pads for the front and shoes for the rear etc, or a rear disc conversion using a hydaulic handbrake etc), and they did succesfully campaign in WRC Group A and Group N rallying. Club rally guy I know had one putting out 130BHP on twin carbs.

Early (carb) models are 4x98 PCD (fiat Alfa lancia 4 stud), later injection models are 4x100 (older Toyota, VW) so you have a big choice of alloys, and 15's with low profiles.

Oh and the Blackline spec models can usually be picked up for arround £500 with at least 6 months ticket in very good nick. This is a blackline

And this is a Favorit Extreme styling kit from CZ use XE.com to work out the Czech Koruna to GBP prices.

Mix that with a 130-150BHP throttle bodied engine and I reckon you could do all that for under £2.5k, starting with a base £500 Blackline to playwith first as a daily driver and a second engine to get built up and tuned for about £50 from a scrappy for a good one with known good head gasket.

Don't mean to be funny, but it's got an even worse image than the Volvo 340. Speaking of which, none in the admag today, no non-barried GTis, and 1 slightly knackered sounding 900 Aero (1990, misfire, going to look at this afternoon).

Image of the Fav now ain't that bad. And there is a younger element in the club now that do silly things to the cars.

Much as I prefer Favs to Felicias, I reckon this one might be a bit less barge like than normal.

Miss-fire might mean knackered plugs, timing out, vac leak, or hall sensor on the dizzy might be missing. 1990 isn't too bad a year for

900's although by then they were sticking the Aero kits on LPT's and non turbos as well. I'm sure there was an Aero model rather than just kitted that was only LPT. make sure it is minimum a T16, if not a T16S (even with the kit on).

I had a Felicia 1.3 LXi as a courtesy car, on an N plate. It was without a shadow of a doubt the worst thing i have EVER driven. And that includes the seriously knackered, seriously knocky suspensioned, AX 1.1 4 speed i had for a week when the 405 died...

The Felicia is a lot lardier than the more basic Favorit. Of course it is smoother and more comfy, but that isn't everything, and there are bad Felicias as much as there are bad cars of any make.

And I think that Group A one might be a little bit quicker than a normal one. I had a Felicia Estate for a day as a courtesy car while my Fav was in for Service and MOT. It felt sluggish because of the extra weight, even though it was the same engine in a more powerful state of tune with injection instead of a basic twin choke carb.

That's crap, that is (IMHO). I always thought the whole advantage of a chain is that it lasted a whole lot longer than a cambelt - the average cambelts lasts around that time, and doesn't rattle.

Peter

-- "The humble bic biro draws 13 beards, 9 devil moustaches and 49 penises on newspapers in it's lifetime."

Chains do last the life of the engine, generally, but the tensioners and guides can wear out. Chains usually stretch a bit from new and this pushes the tensioners out to max more or less before the engine has run properly in. Since they are often pumped up by oil pressure, it's common to get alarming rattles from chains until the tensioner pumps up and the time they break is usually when they are slack and catch on something.

If you get pre-stretched chains that fit with the tensioners in default positions, they won't tend to rattle, ever. And they'll last for ages.

Optionally, buy a pushrod. the chains are far smaller and don't develop any slack to worry about. My v8 chain has done something like half a million miles all told. Better off with actual gear cogs rather than a chain for really huge faultless, rattleless mileage like on a Rolls, but hey, we're not all millionaires.

AFAIK diesels have gear cogs rather than a chain (or belt) and that's one reason for their reliability.

Tensioned chains tend to last a long time. Both my Skodas still had perfectley good camchains with minimal rattle at 58, and 67k miles.

Factory recommend changing them at 35k, but I don't know anyone who does.

Biggest benefit chain has over a belt is, while the links stretch (actually they were arround each link pivot and gt more play) it's very rare for a chain to actually break, which is the biggest point of failure for belt engines. Worst thing I've heard about a chain engine with a neglected chain and no tensioner or failed tensioner is that the chain slapping the water pump housing will eventually start to saw it's way through the pump casing amd maybe part of the block. Very rare, but does happen. I think the one it happened to was a Skoda engine with 120k on the original chain, and it had been tuned to rev out to 7k with balancing and lightening instead of 5.5k. After all the work he did on lightening and balancing he trashed a perfectly good block my not bothering with £150 of parts and labour, or the £12.50 parts if he had done it himself while it was out and apart for the rest of the stuff.)