I've managed to get hold of a 1990 Fiesta 1.4 Ghia, which will be used for my Scouts to learn some mechanics on. It starts and runs easily, and the bodywork is in reasonable shape in terms of rust. Things I've found wrong with it so far:
Central locking only works from passenger door, not driver's door.
Boot release button doesn't work.
Brakes are very spongy, I practically had to stand on them to stop it from 5mph.
Handbrake is not very tight.
Front bumper is a little away from the bodywork on one side.
Quite bad oxidation on bonnet and roof.
At least one tyre is almost bald.
All three wiper arms are pretty rusty.
After running it for several minutes to warm up and add a bit of charge to the flat battery, there was a loud "whirring" noise from under the bonnet. I work in IT and it sounded like a CPU fan failing, but louder. I presume this is the radiator cooling fan which either needs some lubricant or replacing.
Other than that, it's not in bad condition really, for its age. It even came with a boot full of spares including lights, spark plugs, brakes, oil, original dashboard clocks etc. I'll let you know how we get on with it and what we manage to fix (or break), fortunately some of my leaders are more mechanically adept than me.
Central locking only works from passenger door, not driver's door.
Boot release button doesn't work.
Brakes are very spongy, I practically had to stand on them to stop it from 5mph.
Handbrake is not very tight.
Front bumper is a little away from the bodywork on one side.
Quite bad oxidation on bonnet and roof.
At least one tyre is almost bald.
All three wiper arms are pretty rusty.
After running it for several minutes to warm up and add a bit of charge to the flat battery, there was a loud "whirring" noise from under the bonnet. I work in IT and it sounded like a CPU fan failing, but louder. I presume this is the radiator cooling fan which either needs some lubricant or replacing.
Other than that, it's not in bad condition really, for its age. It even came with a boot full of spares including lights, spark plugs, brakes, oil, original dashboard clocks etc. I'll let you know how we get on with it and what we manage to fix (or break), fortunately some of my leaders are more mechanically adept than me.
