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Ebony Black 4x4 Saph NOW SOLD - UPDATED WITH NEW CAR
Hi all.
So I have been a member on passionford now for around 14 years, I often post random questions & enjoy reading peoples build threads so I thought it was about time I start my own.
In the last 17 years of driving I have owned plenty of cars from a Nova Turbo to an E39 M5 with lots of others inbetween...loved the E39, was a cracking car!!
Only 2 of the cars I have owned have been RS's, both Saph Cossies.
The first one I purchased in 2006, It was a 400 mile round trip to see Paul Linfoot at RS Spares & Repairs. I traded with him for my current car which was an E30 325i Convertible with some horrible blingy wheels.
In exchange I got myself my first Cossie, it was a 1993 (K159FJN) 4x4 Saph, with the later cloth Recaro's totally standard other than running a stage 1 tune & exhaust.
I fell in love with the car straight away & loved owning it until my circumstances changed & I was forced to sell it 6 months later. The car went to a guy in Ireland that flew over to Luton airport, I collected him & his mate & they drove the car back to Ireland. I have never seen the car ever since Nothing about it all!! He must have been a member on here because its where he saw it advertised for sale. You cant even check the MOT status etc because the car obviously got put straight on Irish plates.
I regretted selling that car every day until I managed to purchase my second Cosworth 12 years later! Like I said I have owned plenty of other great cars in between, some of which are a lot better cars than the cossie but none of them are as addictive as the famous cossie. Once it is in your blood you just cant get rid of it.
Some of you may recognise the car as it was previously built by chrisa3 from this forum.
Here it is the day I picked it up, again after a long drive up north
I had originally seen the build thread that Chris had on here detailing the work he had/was carrying out & loved the work & the look of the care. He then advertised the car for sale & unfortunately all I could do was dream about owning it at that time.
Roll on Feb 2018 & I had made it my goal to own another Saph, I was now in a position to buy another one. I searched for a while looking for preferrably a 2wd in white, I posted a wanted advert & I received a message from a guy called Lee who had a 4x4 saph in black (the total opposite to what I had been looking for) .................
No harm in asking him for some pics, I recognised the car straight away, it was Chris's car that I had spent many hours drooling over.
Suddenly I did'nt care that it wasnt white & wasnt a 2wd.
Long story short I obviously bought the car & my goal was complete, I had another Saph Cossie sitting in my garage
The pictures that sold the car to me......
The first thing I needed to do was get it aligned as the steering wheel was off centre which really pisses me off when I drive a car so I took it to a good friend of mines garage to have the alignment carried out which also gave me chance to get a proper look underneath. If you remember Chris' thread it was mainly about an underside resto, I knew this car had been ridden of all the rot that unfortunately as we know cossies suffer with.
After enjoying it for the a month or so (with a straight steering wheel) I decided I wanted to make some changes, Firstly I decided I wanted to change the steering wheel as the originally one was rather tatty & I prefer a 3spoke 2wd wheel so I purchased one from a guy off ebay
As you can tell the centre spokes had slightly discoloured so I purchased some dye & redyed it, I dont have a picture of it at the minute but will get one soon to show how it came out.
I also love the look of ambers on a cossie, hence originally wanting a 2wd but decided I would buy some front ambers & see what it looked like.
I loved the look of it but decided I would keep the clears, I know at some point I will fancy changing it back to the clears but its an easy change & makes a big difference to the look so when im bored of the ambers the clears can go back on.
I started speakoing to Chris on her regarding work carried out etc & he mentioned that when the car was last at MSD they had mentioned it was running lean at higher revs so had recommended a new pump & loom. When Chris had done the restoration the only loom that hadnt been replaced for a new one was the fuel pump loom. So with that I booked the car in at SCS in Peterborough & I had the pump & loom replaced, after replacing it they confirmed they now had good power at the pump but car was still lean at higher revs & suggested mapping the car to ensure it was running healthy.
Something else I wanted them to look at was smoke mainly on overrun which Chris had also mentioned to me. He had been advised by MSD that this was the likely cause of leaking turbo seal, compression checks were carried out by MSD & all came back good.
I had purchased a cambelt cover as I like the look of them with the cover on & I got them to fit it while the car was there.
Heres the car at SCS when I dropped it off
Bad picture taken in a dark garage of the cam cover, but you get the idea
When the car was at Scs I spoke with Harvey who stated the car has a lovely clean bill of health & runs really well, the smoking issue is just more of an annoyance. He did offer to get the turbo off & sent away but I have a guy that will look at it for me for a lot less than what they would have charged me so getting the turbo looked at is on the 'To do List'.
I also purchased a NOS uncut Ford key with working torch from Ebay, still to be cut.
I also decided to lay a bit of carpet in the garage
So the to do list when the weather gets better is:
- Turbo off & rebuild
- Fix a small power steering hose leak
- Oil & filter change
- Roof lining & C Pillar replaement as its a little saggy at the rear & just generally old
- Seats out & carpet clean
- Gliptone the leather (again!!)
- Paint mud flap fittings as they have started to deteriorate
- Have some paint done on a few areas that niggle me
- Get it on a ramp & give it a proper clean underneath
I will be keeping you posted with the jobs ive got planned on it which wont be straight away but im sure ill get tempted to get it out the garage & crack on if its dry & not freezing cold!
In the meantime here are some random pics of the car.
A very nice example you have there. The ambers suite it very nicely
Thanks guys, I need to get some small bits done to it for it to be exactly how I want it but it’s a cossie, the list never ends!
I also like the ambers but will definitely put the clears back on at some point again, it’s funny that for 5 mins work changing the front indicators it gives a totally different look to the car
I'm in the same position, got a list going of small bits that I personally want to sort....It's getting smaller then I add something else...
Nice colour, bet it's a pig to keep clean.
Exactly you tick one thing off & add another 2!
Yes it does show dirt very easily but if I’m honest it never goes out in the rain & is only used in the summer months.
Mainly because of how clean it is underneath,
I haven’t done too much recently due to the car being locked away in the garage for the winter & my garage isn’t the biggest so it’s pretty impossible to carry out any larger jobs.
What i I have done though is taken the dash apart to remove the clocks, I done this the repair the milometer as it decided to get stuck on 89999 & also the bulbs needed replacing as it was obvious quite a lot of them had blown.
Repairing rhe milometer was a first for me & a fiddly job but rewarding, put it all back together tonight & it looks a lot better now when the lights are on.
I also painted my front tow eye cover & passenger front jack point cover, they were both missing when I got the car so I sourced a second hand tow eye cover which was painted in moonstone originally & the jack point cover was unpainted & brand new. They turned out pretty well & am happy with the results.
I also ordered some roof lining samples from AS Trim, the most comparable was one called cloud grey, it looked more beige but was the best match of all of them
The plan for this weekend is to get the turbo off & sent away to replace the seals as I believe one of them has a slight leak due to a bit of smoke on boost & over run, fingers crossed this will resolve the issue so I’ll update once it’s back on.
Well with the weather being very much spring like today I decided to get the car out....and dismantle it.
I have been meaning to take the turbo off for a while to send it away to midland turbo to have it rebuilt.
The brother inlaw came over in his mental skyline & we set about removing the turbo, it was a bit of a bugger to get to one of the manifold bolts, I’m sure you all know the one, but we got there in the end
I then washed the car & pushed it back into the garage & put the cover back. Will await the arrival of the turbo back.
Turbo was delivered back to me today, Midland Turbo were absolutely faultless, they collected the turbo on Monday & it was back with me today looking brand new. Really impressed.
looking forward to getting it back on
Last edited by domink_goodfellow; 08-09-2019 at 09:08 PM.
So today I finally got to put the turbo back on with the help of my brother in-law.
All seems good & went to plan, took it for a brief drive but the weather was terrible so didn’t want to drive it to far.
doesn’t seem to smoke anymore so really happy with the outcome. Here’s some pics
Took the car to my brothers storage unit today to do an oil change, it would have been rude to not get some good pictures while I was there. Here’s a few
10-01-2019, 08:20 PM
Ebony Black 4x4 Saph NOW SOLD - UPDATED WITH NEW CAR
Nothing about it all!! He must have been a member on here because its where he saw it advertised for sale. You cant even check the MOT status etc because the car obviously got put straight on Irish plates.
. Nice to see it still being looked after. Doesn't seem 5 minutes since it was sitting in my garage 
