Looking forward to further updates on what needs to be done.

Hi there,

All in all with fees and transportation it cost just over £6k - ran a full Car Vertical check and all clear - it was listed as a DVLA milage discrepancy; however looking at all the previous MOT's this was simply a miss digit inputted by an MOT tester.... I had a video tour of the car via Copart that was worth it, my main object of that was to listen for any timing chain rattles....seemed ok but was alway going to be a gamble.

Scouse Exile wrote:

Hi,

For some context would you mind sharing roughly what it cost you? Outwardly it looks quite straight.

Will be very interesting to see how it pans out, does it have any accident history recorded?

Jon

Once I got the car delivered, it was time to investigate. Clearly, people don't sell a car like this at auction to make a profit. I knew it was likely because someone either did not have the knowledge or the budget to sort it out—my biggest concern was the engine.

Upon inspecting the car, it was evident that the engine had been removed and hastily reinstalled with an array of missing parts and incorrectly installed components. It was time to unpick it all and itemize everything. Going through the interior, you could see it had housed all sorts of engine parts for a while—dented leather and dirty marks everywhere.

But the engine starts and sounds sweet. It goes into drive, goes into reverse—but in park, the car rolls. Handbrake works, suspension works—all tires are knackered. I was amazed at how few fault codes were showing on the reader.

The airbag light was on and showing a crash sensor fault code—I assumed something was missing or unplugged. The ECU was loose. Various TCM errors were showing—again, the TCM was loose.

The power steering reservoir was loose and totally facing the wrong way (very odd), missing its bracket.

Missing fan shroud.

Wrong bolts used everywhere.

The boot was full of parts and bolts—thinking at this point, "Oh no!"

Ground strap in the wrong place.

Battery dead.

Leaky front transfer box.

Smashed passenger mirror.....

The list goes on...

But the engine is running up to temperature and sounds very sweet. Cleared all fault codes—again, very few fault codes showing, nothing major as I would have expected.

I only wanted to run the engine up to temperature once; now it was time to take it apart and put it back together properly.

As you can see - missing a shroud...the gearbox oil cooler also attaches to this shroud so that was just there loose.....

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Power steering reservoir loose, missing the bracket and totally facing the wrong way?

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Left and right Oxygen sensor heat shields in the boot.....

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Had no idea what this was - after spending ages going through TOPIX, I found it - goes on the rear right side of the engine

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Appreciate the detailed update, quite the project.

Shame about the damage to the interior but that’s the least of your problems I suppose.

The link below shows a YouTuber who bought similar aged one with what C sounds like the same airbag fault, his was an easy fix.

Given your ability to deal with the nonsense that someone else has inflicted on the vehicle I think you’ve got a reasonably solid deal. If you get it back to full fettle there’s certainly a margin in it.

Keep going, fingers crossed for you.

Jon

Top mounting bracket front he ECU was in the boot.....initially had no idea what it was..

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Had to replace a bunch of parts at the rear of the engine bay to re-house the ECU's and replace a uber of the rubber seals.... the scuttle panel willed replacing, the rubber seal is perished and it has been letting in water for a while....previous repair attempts with Tiger Seal look awful...

looks much better now.... still chasing a few parts for this...... ebay is my friend!

Painstakingly, I began working through the front of the car, undoing everything that had been installed incorrectly. I used cable ties to ensure everything was secured properly, with no cables touching anything hot. I installed a new shroud, refitted the gearbox oil cooler, and addressed various other issues.

The power steering reservoir was a total mystery—eventually, I removed it completely, refitted all the hoses correctly, and realigned it to fit properly on the bracket. Gradually, I got everything back in place, using TOPIX, YouTube, and Scuderia diagrams as guides. Along the way, I sourced lots of parts from eBay and Scuderia.

The engine is now fully reassembled, running to temperature as it should, with all the electronics working correctly. However, I keep getting a PCM error code: P007B, which seems to relate to the charge air cooler temperature sensor. I'm currently using my Carly reader, which isn’t as detailed as the Gap Diagnostics tool I’ve used before, so I’m not fully confident that it’s providing accurate code information.

More to follow =

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