The Beigemobile - AKA Bluey

Nutcase · 01-07-2007, 21:08

I think it was Leon asking about Bluey at the Essex meet. Well I'm bored (read should be doing paperwork for work

), so here's the story of how I ended up with the thing, and what I've done with it so far...

As you know, I've got a black turbo. The weak link on these cars is the gearbox, and as I'm a hooligan, I wanted to collect a few spares. So I stuck an ad up for a gearbox for a turbo. I got one response, from a Scottish chap living in london who said he had a car with a turbo interior so it would have a turbo gearbox. Er, ok I said, not convinced. He said he was going to scrap the car as the headgasket had gone, did I want it. I asked for details, any other problems etc. None reported. So unseen, I agreed to pay £50 for the car and £50 for delivery - for the whole car! A 1983 Saab 99 GL in babypoo brown, and 170,000 on the clock.

And so it arrive on 6th Feb 2005.

Something struck me as familiar - turned out that the car used to belong to one of the East Midlands branch of the owners club and was famous around that area, I'd seen it mentioned in the past.

Anyway, first clue all was not well was when I put some water in the coolant tank. And it all came straight out the exhaust. Hmm, head gasket VERY gone then:

But that was minor compared to the real problem:

Ouch. I rang the previous owner and pried a little. Turns out when the HG went, he kept driving. At 90. For 40+ miles. Yup, that'd kill the engine

So I went on the hunt. Do you think I could find a replacement 8v locally? So I ended up buying a 16v injection engine and gearbox with 160,000 miles on it from Witham, that came home in the back of the turbo:

01-07-2007, 21:08	#1
Nutcase Moonshine Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Chelmsford, innit! Posts: 3,979	The Beigemobile - AKA Bluey I think it was Leon asking about Bluey at the Essex meet. Well I'm bored (read should be doing paperwork for work ), so here's the story of how I ended up with the thing, and what I've done with it so far... As you know, I've got a black turbo. The weak link on these cars is the gearbox, and as I'm a hooligan, I wanted to collect a few spares. So I stuck an ad up for a gearbox for a turbo. I got one response, from a Scottish chap living in london who said he had a car with a turbo interior so it would have a turbo gearbox. Er, ok I said, not convinced. He said he was going to scrap the car as the headgasket had gone, did I want it. I asked for details, any other problems etc. None reported. So unseen, I agreed to pay £50 for the car and £50 for delivery - for the whole car! A 1983 Saab 99 GL in babypoo brown, and 170,000 on the clock. And so it arrive on 6th Feb 2005. Something struck me as familiar - turned out that the car used to belong to one of the East Midlands branch of the owners club and was famous around that area, I'd seen it mentioned in the past. Anyway, first clue all was not well was when I put some water in the coolant tank. And it all came straight out the exhaust. Hmm, head gasket VERY gone then: But that was minor compared to the real problem: Ouch. I rang the previous owner and pried a little. Turns out when the HG went, he kept driving. At 90. For 40+ miles. Yup, that'd kill the engine So I went on the hunt. Do you think I could find a replacement 8v locally? So I ended up buying a 16v injection engine and gearbox with 160,000 miles on it from Witham, that came home in the back of the turbo: