1995 lada riva estate.

Buttons from left to right (that aren't the picture of the clock or wavelength selector) say 'hour', 'minute', '>0<' (zero, probably for the stopwatch function or Like the '00' button on Japanese car clocks?) and 'IND'.
Judging from the translation on the top, the clock features an automatic stopwatch timer so I would assume the clock button or IND switches between functions, which is potentially why it appears that the clock resets when power is cycled.

Just seen you’ve said wavelength selector so I assume that’s what the one on the left is.
I need to hook it up again and give it another try with that, bognor reckoned it should work on FM but I was just getting static so might have been on medium wave.

Yea, the big button would be wavelength I’d say based on process of elimination. The timer is seemingly automatic from the machine translation of the top cover, I guess it’s a drive time counter. Other than that it’s just the usual ‘3 wavelength don’t connect it to the mains only a car’ stuff.

Amended for truth. 

As the car was on the ramp I did a few other underneath jobs.

First, new rear shocks and poly bushes for them. The poly bushes were part of the ladapower kit I bought so I may as well use em. Shocks are Sachs ‘touring’, new old stock designed for towing caravans etc., so a bit uprated.

As you can see all the hardware was cleaned up and zinc galv sprayed. The colour scheme is getting a bit ‘clown car’ under here, good job it can’t really be seen!






I then swapped the old rotted fuel lines out for some new ethanol proof stuff. I only use codan bought from reputable sources. I’ve had customers baulk at the idea of fuel hose being £15 a metre, but more fool them.



Then gaygeorge emptied a can over magical jizm over the fuel tank id cleaned up-


Actually I need to do a little rewind there, as I didn’t show you all my amazing labour-saving fuel tank cleaning setup 🤣

Remember all that residue inside it? Well, I removed that with a cement mixer, a ratchet strap, a couple handfuls of nuts and bolts and some diesel-



If it’s stupid and it works it’s not stupid!

But any what here’s the freshly protected tank ready to go in-


And the fuel lines and sender wires hooked back up. I had the foresight to take a reference pic when I took this apart so I knew where they went.


New filler neck and clips, as that was perished too-


And that’s about that. I’ve just got to fit the stone guard for the filler neck once the second coat of paint has gone off, and I’m almost done underneath.


I don’t actually have tons left to do on this thing now. Finish off the brake refurb (more on that later), rejet the carb and make the adapter linkage, and a bit of engine reassembly, and it’s not far off MOTable.

So where am I at? Well, about where I was before really. Although I’ve done a lot in 15 months, little of it was to do with this car.

Here’s as it sat then-




I was messing about with wheels to see which I liked best. I’ve gone with the ATS for now.

Eventually after I’d built a recovery truck it got dragged up country.




It was dumped in the new yard, and decided I should probably do something with it first as it needed less than most others, and it would make it sellable if necessary.

That and I actually had loads of easy stuff to be going at- boxes of new parts that just needed fitting, a bit of painting, that sort of thing.

Here’s a pic I took of er, something. Think this was when I’d cleaned up and refitted the water pump, bypass pipe and associated fittings.


Same again. Seemed important at the time 😂


Here’s some new heater hoses too.


Then I put a second coat of black on the remaining running gear bits so I could start fitting those up.


Once the cooling system was back together I turned my attention to the fuel system. I swapped the jets in the weber DGAV carb to make it 1600 pinto spec rather than 2l, as it makes them perfect for the 1500 lada engine. I put some new gaskets on as well whilst it was in bits.
This carb has an expensive manual choke conversion fitted, so I’d bought a lada choke cable from ladapower for about £2 as part of my last order, so I fitted that up-


It still had the Ford linkage on it, which was a problem as it didn’t correspond to the lada one at all.


EBay furnished me with this for £8, and it’s a really useful bit of kit. No figuring out the linkage ratios as there’s enough variation on it, and it turned up next day.


With that on I had two ends, this and the linkage arm on the firewall. I just had to figure out the bit in between.


Which, as I’d done it all before, was dead easy.
Here’s the pic I used for reference of one of the old setups.


I vaguely copied it, the jist of it is I cut and lengthened the plate with the pivot on that bolts to the carb studs, and shortened the threaded rods a touch.
Here the pivot plate done-


A bit of paint-


Then fitted up-




As everything else had now been cleaned and fitted up, including putting the water pump pulley on and a fanbelt, it was pretty much ready to see if it would start up…

Click back a page 😬

Ever since I did my first red one I’ve struggled to find anything that suits them better. And this car is obviously far superior as it’s not red.

Sounds bloody good. Slave cylinder on my niva was the culprit for my lack of clutch, and super easy to change on that too. Do the alternatirs on these have an external/separate voltage regulator too? Had to replace mine when i had it, there's a bosch upgrade available i believe if the same.