Best car to have a kip in.

[junkyarddog]

I guess I could sleep in the back of My FE,

but I'd much prefer a comfy bed



I got kinda fed up with it's thirst............
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MbrjI1Ztbk

[JPB]

Now there's a damned fine idea! Mine used to manage in the region of 17mpg around the doors, sometimes stretching each gallon as far as 20 miles on motorway journeys, but what a shame that it was only after UK production ceased that the FE got its "official" Isuzu Diesel option. I'd pop out to Mumbai and grab one but my success rate at bringing cars home from foreign places is poor, as the Cord - currently sitting out in Venezuela with my name on the papers - would confirm, if cars could talk.

Which reminds me, I was just wondering who'd be the first to claim that they'd been able to sleep in a mini, steel, GRP or otherwise.

[arceye]

Sweet, an oil burner.
I remember going to the Shell garage near home and filling mine from empty to full, buying a gallon of oil and the lass behind the counter saying "£25 pounds please, that must hurt". Wouldn't mind a gallon of 20/50 and a full tank of 4 star for that now.

Never tried kipping in a mini though John, perhaps if you get the Cord home you could give it a go and report back?

[History]

The FE estate is a nice shape like a stretched Jensen Interceptor. Sort of.

The 2.3 went quite well and I believe the caravan guys rated it quite well. The engine is a sound engine but the dizzy and the carb let it down. A better more accurate dizzy and maybe an SU carb and maybe the MPG would be better. Weber did a kit for this engine.

Oil leaks from the flimsy cam cover were caused in the main by over tightening the bolts so that the cover bowed between the bolts. Hammer straight and observe torture setting as per Vauxhall specs.

Sleeping in cars attracts the police. I was once told by a copper that if any local houses get done the police will come and talk to me. I don't see the connection between kipping in a car and house breaking.

I do like a good kip. My youngest son 30 old sleeps like the dead he just shuts his eyes and sleeps regardless of noise.

At the moment as a second car I have a Jeep which isn't really my cup of tea. I am looking at estate cars. I am drawn to Volvo 245. I reckon the back of a Volvo would make a good pit to kip in.

[JPB]

Some of us found that the GM slant 4 leaked even more when we forgot to replace that wretched rubber washer between the camshaft carrier and the head. Not that I'm admitting to having done that of course. The Delco distributor can be replaced directly with a Lucas one from a Dolomite Sprint, which makes it so much simpler to change the points as they're above the weights in the Lucas. This is also a common swap into eight valve Dollies for the same reasons though both of my Automites had Optronic fitted, so no need to faff around and the Delcos would then be perfectly adequate for their purpose.

Sweet, an oil burner.
I remember going to the Shell garage near home and filling mine from empty to full, buying a gallon of oil and the lass behind the counter saying "£25 pounds please, that must hurt". Wouldn't mind a gallon of 20/50 and a full tank of 4 star for that now.

Never tried kipping in a mini though John, perhaps if you get the Cord home you could give it a go and report back?

I'd love to have gone back out there but work wouldn't fund surface travel again and I can't fly so, well, the rest of that tale of woe is well documented somewhere near here. The car matters far more than the wasted exchange opportunity though, poor wee thing is innocent in all of that red tape, funny handshaking and corruption among those employed to enforce the so-called law over there. Grrr, don't get me started, etc.

I remember putting petrol in the tank of my grey A60 on a Friday afternoon after work back when I stayed and worked in Windsor. Barkers' (in whose showroom window at the time was a lovely, Fiesta Yellow Austin 1100) forecourt wasn't the cheapest between the offices and my flat but it was worth "only" getting three gallons of their four star for my fiver just to see that lovely old ADO16. That would have been during 1989, just before I was sent back up here to work out of the company's Berwick premises.
Three gallons for a fiver eh. Oh man, I'm going to cry again!

There's a sleeping connection with the A60 too. A colleague had experienced a minor domestic incident and found himself temporarily homeless in one of the coldest weeks we'd had down there for ages so I rented out the Cambridge's back seat to him and at least he didn't get rained on as well as freezing his 'nads off. It was far too short even for his five foot nowt frame, and the front seat didn't recline or he'd have been able to make a brilliant double bed in there but at least he had the radio to listen to when the cramp and the cold kept him awake. He regularly ran the battery down but that was fine, it always started - first piston over the top - from the handle and off I'd go to work, leaving him to try finding a place to kip in Windsor & Eton Riverside station for a while.

[History]

3 gallons cost just under a quid when I started driving. Average take home pay was 30 quid a week and a house cost £5000. E type £2000 new.

Bob

[JPB]

I just spotted another car that was ideal for living sleeping in. There was a lovely Teal Blue Morris 1300 Traveller on the bay of E. I say was, it was from a well-known and respected trader, based down there in the People's Republic of Yorkshire and was snapped up virtually the instant he listed the car, hence no link.
The only trouble with that example was that it had received some replacement front seats from a saloon, and they don't recline, so it would have been impossible to make the bed up as BMC had intended (Maxi fashion; rear backrest going backwards down into the load space). Darned shame, as the car looked truly lovely, had a 3 dial GT dashboard fitted along with the GT steering wheel, had no detectable rusty bits and was sitting very level on its Hydrolastic.
All the benefits of the Maxi bed arrangement, but with an A series. What wouldn't have been to like about such a car?

[junkyarddog]

The 2.3 went quite well and I believe the caravan guys rated it quite well. The engine is a sound engine but the dizzy and the carb let it down. A better more accurate dizzy and maybe an SU carb and maybe the MPG would be better. Weber did a kit for this engine.

Oil leaks from the flimsy cam cover were caused in the main by over tightening the bolts so that the cover bowed between the bolts. Hammer straight and observe torture setting as per Vauxhall specs.

Yes,the 2.3 slant 4 is a really strong engine(there was supposed to be a diesel version based on the same block,hence the bomb-proof bottom-end)
but,they were difficult to tune and get running smoothly,always lumpy on tickover(the 1.8 was better in this respect)

I got fed up with mine,difficult to start,lumpy,thirsty and leaky,
plus I had the doner car/engine and always wanted to tackle a conversion.
Performance is the same with the diesel lump,smoother idle starts easy,returns 45mpg and doesn't leak

Thankfully I have never had to kip in it...Yet