It's 27 years old, and it's had 27 winters of road salt. The bleed nipples will be rusted solid and have probably been rounded off by someone trying to unscrew them. Been there many times. If you can't get the bleed nipples moving or they snap off it's new brake cylinders or calipers, don't know whether they had discs or not.

The same probably applies to the rest of it, everything you touch will be rusted solid.

You said you are no mechanic - do you feel lucky?

Edited by focussed on 08/07/2015 at 23:42

Put your brain into gear and run a mile forget you ever saw the vehicle its at best scrap.

Yup-That's it in a nutshell !

Bit dogmatic about something they've never seen, but, sadly, that's probably the way to bet.

However, "the vehicle is at best scrap" usually means, in practice, that it isn't economically repairable, which in turn means that a repair at commercial rates exceeds the book value of the vehicle.

Pretty much anything wrong with an old commercial vehicle puts it in that category.

The only possible way around this, in the UK, is DIY. If you aren't a mechanic, and you aren't prepared to become one, then you have to be prepared to become quite rich, to either buy new vehicles and/or pay for maintenance by pros.

Commercials have some advantages for DIY, since they tend to be simpler than contemporary cars, but they are also bigger and heavier, so you might need some heavier equipment (eg jacks), bigger spanners, and more space to work.

Based on ownership of a Renault Dodge ex-BT workshop truck, you might have trouble finding somewhere to MOT test the bigger ones, since they wont fit on the hoist of most garages, and spares and information might be hard to find (though I think there's a Haynes manual for the Roadrunner).

They will also be especially scary to drive if there might be anything wrong with the brakes. Think 4 tonnes and a bus-queue.

Edited by edlithgow on 10/07/2015 at 08:53