I started this blog by saying that I am not an experienced mechanic. In fact, I’m not a mechanical in any way shape or form. So buying a used car, particularly one like the Tiger, comes with a certain degree of nerves.
These nerves were heightened during the wait to here the verdict on if I’d bought a lemon or not! On the 27th August I dropped the car into Alan at AC Mechanical Repairs in Reading for an inspection. First time I’d met Alan and he made an entrance clutching a trophy from his recent successful foray at a time attack event at Donnington. I left the car and popped into town for a spot of shopping and breakfast with my better half.
I’ll say now that Alan was a really nice chap and, although Alan hasn’t done any work on the vehicle yet, his professionalism and friendliness was clear. I’ll have no hesitation of leaving the car with then when the time comes.
On returning here was the verdict:
On Initial Inspection Found Vehicle Generally In Very Good Condition With The Exception Of Minor Repairs & Upgrades As Per Recommendation.
Exhaust could do with a repackable silencer and renewing external support rubbers (Weak/Damaged/Insecure), slight gearbox oil leak (Internal input shaft), cooling radiator leaking, offside front shock absorber leaking, steering wheel slightly off centre (Geometry), fuel pump wiring connection requires securing, front brake discs have slight uneven wear mark – possible replacement/uprated brake pads required, offside front upper ball joint gaitor split!
Okay so there’s a bit of a to do list but I breathed out at the ‘vehicle generally in very good condition’.
The radiator replacement was always likely to cost a bit and with the budget having been stretched a little buying the car I was nervous about the gearbox leak. Alan reassured me that it was extremely minor and something to monitor rather than act… a relief!
The rest didn’t seem too much of a problem. It will just be a case of breaking it down into a sensible order and then seeing how far the pennies will stretch.
A couple of jobs that I’m happy to tackle are the support rubbers for the exhaust and the radiator replacement. You’ll see that I’ve posted about those already.
I’ve already ordered the new ball joint with intact gaitor. I think that I’ll book this into AC for Alan to do. I’m almost certain that I will need a full alignment after this (I do anyway judging by the comments) and I’m tempted to have the front shocks replaced too so that I’m only paying for once for everything to be aligned. That’s a decision I still have to make. I could leave the shocks until during the winter. Either way I’ll ask Alan to do the wiring as this is beyond my current skillset.
The car only has discs on the front with drums on the back. I will at some point do a full disc conversion. This would be a sensible time to address the issue of the slight uneven wear on the brake discs (it is slight and the braking is just fine once there is a little heat in the discs).
The unpackable silencer would be a useful upgrade as I suspect I’m close to the 100dB limit at most tracks. I’m going to borrow a sound meter from work and test it properly before I prioritise this though.
Overall I’m pleased. Not quite as clean as I would have hoped for but far from a bad decision!
Tim’s Tiger blog 