Toyota Carina, VW beetle, and T25 Camper

Wow, nice!
These are great, my dad has a later injection model of this, just rolled past 300.000km. He bought it with 128.000km on the clocks.
Serviced it regularly, replaced the exhaust 2 times, and recently the clutch. That was it. MEGA reliable and they drive really nice!

Looks great, these have a serious following in Ireland.

Strong money at £2000 though!

You lucky lucky sod, great find !

Less time spent on the Carina has its advantages.  I have, after some 5 years, got my 64 beetle refreshed and back on the road.  It has gone from Cal Look to period rally look.  I just love the vintage speed look.  I MOTd in July, and been using it on and off since.  However, the scottish salting season is almost upon us, so it wont be long before its resting again.

A wee update is required.  I sold the Camper back in May, and it trundled off to North East of England.  so now I had some cash.  For ages I've wanted a MK1 Golf.  I've had one before, but it needed too much work and at the time I was lacking in resources, and more importantly time, so it was sold on.  However, finding a decent mk1 is not easy.  I also wanted a 5 door model with the big block, as I have family to run around.  Nothing came up that ticked the boxes.  But then I spotted a mk2 GL with just 15k on the clock.  So I compromised and bought it.  Being a GL, it came with the 1.8l engine with progressive carb and best of all power steering, well, I'm getting on a bit.  That meant I could fit a wider set of rims without having to join a gym.  To here it is


The car was stock when I bought it.  But it let down the car a bit so I went for a set of japanese racing alloys.  The suspension has been switched for Eiback springs and Bilstein B4s.  They give a great ride, and tighten up the stock rolly polly handling a treat. Inside its lovely and original, bar my prototipo.

The seats are minted, the only niggle is the dash has a big crack in it.  But I got a spare one with the car.  But that can wait for now.

The first jobs were to replace the seized thermostat.  A job that is made more tricky by the power steering pump being right in the way.  still sacrifices have to be made.  Next up was the timing belt, and I decided to buy new allen headed socket bolts to replace the rusty original ones.  Fortunately they all came out.  Once I had sorted this I got it back on the road.  But only managed a few miles before the Pierberg carb starting living up to its reputation of being a real pain in the RS.  No wonder they call it a pooberg.  With 5 aux add ons that can go wrong, its a nuisance.  Despite the expense I splashed out on a new weber replacement, with its simple manual choke.  It really did transform the car.  For an aftermarket kit, it really is very well engineered.  The only niggle is the angle of the bracket that holds the throttle cable is slightly off, meaning the that cable sits at angle exiting the conduit.  I've made a bracket that bolts to the rocker cover than supports it and keeps it in line.  However, I still needed to fit a stronger throttle return spring as the one supplied is too week to return the throttle promptly.

Next task is to replace the main bush for the gear change, its a bit sloppy and change the engine oil.  I've been through all the brakes, and replaced the pads and disks.  The pedal feel is not the greatest (compared to the Carina), but it seems to work okay.  In the longer term I'll do the front wishbones, and pull the rear axle to clean it up and do the bushes, but for mow they are fine.  Once the basic mechanics are sorted, I plan to tidy up the shell.  They are a few areas of surface rust underneath that need nipping in the bud.  Also the front slam panel could do with a trip to the powercoaters.  The only bad bit of rust is the leading edge of a front wing, thats started to disolve but the wing is easy saveable.