Well i owned it once, and apparently its still insured so someones still driving my old '93 landcruiser, designed around the late sixties.
A mechanics dream, no computer, straight 4 cyl 3 litre turbo diesel, honestly made and designed to be fixed in the field, every item getatable, 1 hour easy cambelt change, but the most amazing thing, even though the vehicle was made in Japan, every single electrical item, solenoid, relay, you name it had written in English exactly what it was and the voltage, never seen that before and unlikely ever too again, i wonder if any of the newer ones have that thoughtful touch.
ie, pull out the glowplug relay, stamped on the side..'glow plug relay 12V'...why can't all makers do that?
Slight difference to your dream OR, it isn't small, it isn't petrol, and you have to stand on the bumper or the tyres to get down and dirty, but you could virtually climb in beside the engine to work on it, no need to jack it up either, just get on your creeper and slide under.
No computer, but amazingly low emissions, not possible we are now told.
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Just looking inside the engine bay of my neighbour's Morris Minor yesterday. Thought he'd removed the engine until I blinked a few times and was able to see it. We discussed how easily a Rover V8 fits in the space available.
Engine bay of my daughter's Panda 1.1 Active seems to give good accessibility to components and is free of clutter. My 4x4 Panda is not so good as it has aircon and a big sump guard obscures the underside.
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The Land cruiser must have surely been Land Rovers worst nightmare GB, in remote area`s such as the Australian outback?
Wonder if they all still end up out in the Middle East when they get older?
Regarding the engine dream. Have run diesels now since 1991, but I had recently been reflecting on whether the current one will be the last. I`m referring to all the extra complexity now being fitted.
There`s a sort of internal `cut off point` where I would rather pay more for fuel to keep it simpler, no way (for example) would I buy into that DPF regeneration joke.
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Interesting you say that Oilrag. I have had diesels for 12 years and can't criticise them, they have with one notable French exception been ultra reliable and undeniably economical. The dynamics of the economy equation have however changed in recent times due to fuel price increases and differentials.
At the moment I am running two cars back to back as my business workhorses. One is my faithful old Mk3 Mondeo 2.0 diesel estate. The other is a Vauxhal Signum fitted with the 2.2 petrol unit.
I have been carefully monitoring the relative costs per mile of fuel usage. The Mondeo costs, at current prices, £45 to cover 350 miles. The Signum costs £50 to travel the same distance. I have checked and re-checked this figure by brimming to first click and relating it to miles driven.
So if I cover, say, 35k miles in the next 12 months it would cost me £500 more to do it all in the Signum. Or to put it another way 100k miles would cost £1429 more with the petrol car.
If you then allow for the retail price differential between diesel and petrol cars the cost difference becomes marginal, even when you take the VED debacle into account.
Couple this to my preference for the way a reasonably powerful petrol engine drives and the increasing concerns over diesel engine reliability and I have to say that the choice is no longer nearly so clear cut, even for a high mileage driver like me.
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 22/08/2008 at 09:44
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I was amazed by the space under the bonnet in the E91 318d SE I had for a week. Everything seemed easily reachable - even the aux belts, radiator, etc etc without having to remove everything else. Lots of room.
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Count me in your camps OR and Humph, if Toyo had offered the 2.7 V6 petrol in the hilux as a genuine uk car we would have bought that and put lpg on it, stacks of room underneath for huge gas tank capacity, unfortunately only available as a grey and i know from discussing at toyo dealers they will have nothing to do with greys.
Seems only yesterday that the diesel/petrol cost of motoring debate was undeniably pro diesel, not just the cost of fuel and the relative efficiencies anymore, you also have to consider the possibility of very expensive repairs, and as we read from our knowledgeable techies here, even getting a correct diagnosis is all but impossible.
I wonder if the makers will find some way to make the co2 output of petrols reduce by some high tech means, the petrol equivalent of the DPF, maybe recirculate/incinerate the burnt gases, that'll be fun...
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>>I wonder if the makers will find some way to make the co2 output of petrols
>>reduce by some high tech means...
A work in progress.
FIAT Multi-Air... I don't even know what VW's is called...
In persuit of thermodynamic efficiency I suspect they are straying towards the Atkinson cycle, under certain (light throttle?) conditions.
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This morning ! Dreamt of a late reg Austin/Morris 1100/1300 ticking over in that particular noisy way that they did (sort of loose bearings sort of noise) - it was a luxury version of the car with deeply chromed rear lights and two tone hub caps. I know what triggered the dream it was that insurance ad with the runaway Volvo colliding with the South African saloon version of the 1100/1300 which I saw last night.........In the dream I'd nicked a Copper's Airwave radio and was on he run..........
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My Dad bought a, then new, Van Den Plas Princess 1300 auto as his retirement present to himself. Brown with cream leather.
It wasn't a bad little car but he just looked too big for it somehow. Selective perception I guess as we had always known him to have large cars. It was his first and only automatic. He had a long but narrow drive and to get back out onto the street required a lomgish reverse, I clearly remember the look of horror on his face the first morning he did that with choke on. You wouldn't believe how fast a 1300 can reverse....
I drove it a few times when my then MG Midget was in a mechanical huff but never really got to like it much. I don't think Dad did either as he was often heard to mutter that he should just have kept his Volvo 244 going instead of trading down in size. I can't imagine there would have been a huge fuel saving or anything.
However, he did keep the VDP and sadly never got a chance to buy another car. My brother ran it for a while after Dad passed away but it just sort fell apart due to terminal rust eventually. It can't have been all that old at the time, maybe 7 years or something and certainly didn't have a great deal of mileage on it. Reminds you how tough modern cars are really.
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>Reminds you how tough modern cars are really.<
No - it's just that Leyland never learnt (or bothered) to rustproof cars. When the Pug 205 came along in the early 80s the publicity laid great stress on the 11-coat paint process. It seemed (still seems) to work.
My FiL had one of those VdP 1100s when he retired - it followed a Minx and a Minor.
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