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Attn Vista

SmokeEm

By SmokeEm
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Vista Old Skool Keyboard Molester

Vista

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They're expensive cars, good standard ones are £30k plus in LHD, RHD like mine is harder to price, sure they're a lot rarer but there is a smaller market for them. That price is bonkers though.

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Vista Old Skool Keyboard Molester

Vista

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Sore point  :arnie:  :arnie: and a long story.................

 

The upshot is due to a failed water pump bearing in the front engine casing (the engine's achilles heal) it went for an engine rebuild not long after a bought it (in late 2005). The guy was allegedly a specialist with Montreal engines (they're a complex all alloy V8 with a very specialist and unique mechanical fuel injection system), to cut a long story short, he screwed it up royally and if he hadn't shut up shop and retired I'd be pursuing him through the courts now. When I got it back it ran terribly, was pretty gutless and would pressurise the cooling system if put under any real load. He had it back a couple of times, tinkered with it some more and then changed the head gaskets again blaming them and trying to charge me again as I'd supplied them (at his request I hasten to add, he told me to source the parts and where to get them from as it would save him time). Anyway, it still wasn't right and I just couldn't do anything with it myself, believe me, Montreals make sorting Fords look like child's play. So I had to find someone else.

 

It went to that someone else in November 2008 and I still haven't got it back. The engine had to come out again and it emerged the first guy had made a real mess of it, liner heights were uneven, liners were scrap anyway and shouldn't have been reused, injection pump settings were all way out and horror of horrors, he'd left one of the crank plugs out!!  It looks like using Valvoline 20/50 racing in it saved the engine as it gave it enough pressure not to have wiped then crank out. Engine rebuilt properly this time it went back in and would you believe it was still pressurising the cooling system? Engine came out and the heads off another 3 times in an effort to sort this, eventually I insisted the heads were sent away to be crack tested and sure enough, fissure cracks from one combustion chamber in each head through to the cooling water passages. It turned out that the first guy had cracked both heads by using a scissor jack in the V of the block and jacking the heads off the studs by pushing on the underside of the inside middle edge of each head. :mad2:  :mad2:  

 

Got the heads repaired but then it turned out the seals in the injection pump (it's an 8 cylinder inline plunger pump similar to an old skool diesel engine set up) had dried out and perished and were pissing petrol through into the sump oil. Unfortunately only two places in the world have the knowledge tools and spares to rebuild these pumps, one in the US and the other in Switzerland. I considered converting to a modern EFI system but it has never been done well by anyone and though I don't usually have an originality concerns, the Montreal is a pretty rare thing to mess about with. The place in the US had an 8 month waiting list and Switzerland about 4 months.

 

Fast forward to mid 2013 and the car is finally starting to come together and I hope to see it home again within a month.

 

In other words, no I do knack all miles in it per year but at least you know why. When I do get it back, the fords will probably be taking a back seat for a season.

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Vista Old Skool Keyboard Molester

Vista

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Posted

never seen one of these before, a nice looking car though

 

Mine is yellow and runs on Borbet A's. The original wheels are 14" Magnesium rims, the centre cone on one of mine broke up in the wheel balancer and the car didn't turn a wheel on the road again till I'd replaced them all. You can get 15" replicas (or you could, they were made by Compotive for Group 4 wheels) now but they weren't available 6 years ago when I bought mine

 

carshow014.jpg

 

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Alfa Montreal.jpg

  • 1 month later...
irishtorag Old Skool Tool Polisher

irishtorag

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Have to say vista u are definitely dedicated,

Beautiful car and rare. By time all the jobs are finished 30k wouldn't cover u imo

never mind all the stress of it all.You must have patience of a saint ;0)

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Vista Old Skool Keyboard Molester

Vista

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I only got it MOT'd yesterday mate so I've only done a few miles in it. It gets a lot of attention on the road but I think that's more because most people have never seen one before.

 

To drive? Well they never were a sports car. They have steering box steering which takes a bit of getting used to and even though mine has uprated brakes, dampers, springs and anti-roll bars, a nimble escort it isn't. It has its own charm though

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