The moment we had some time, the Lada was moved into
the heated shop at Grand Touring Concepts for an inspection to see what we had
gotten. Getting the non-running Lada into the shop was an affair all of its
own. We had spark and air alright, two-thirds of the ingredients for combustion,
but still we could not get fuel to come up from the tank. Since we didn’t have
to go far, it was decided to use an old trick and place a small jerry can of
fuel under the hood with siphon hose to feed the carburetor.
Since there was ample room underhood where the spare tire normally
resides, the gas can dropped in quite naturally and we were set. The little
engine clattered to life and not only ran, but drove under its own power into
the shop.
From there we were able to begin defining what we had.
If you aren’t familiar with the Niva, I suggest the following link for
a quick primer; I will build up a “driver’s perspective” article at a later
date:
Starting with the body, out front there was a very obvious winch bumper
with a rope style fairlead, the factory white paint had been re-sprayed with a
near match, which was peeling in some places. There was some surface rust, but
no rust-out that required repair. We didn’t buy this vehicle to be a show car
trophy winner, so a bit of rust and rough paint was acceptable.
The roof was heavily dented from someone presumably standing on it, and
the wipers were simply wrecked. Back to the good side, the BWA 15”X 6” wheels
were wrapped in a set of 205/80/15 Aurora Mud Tires which were in very good
shape.
The interior was another story, when new a 1993 Lada would rate a 3 out
of 5 by North American standards, ours arrived as a definite 1 out of 5,
perhaps a 3/5 by Lada standards. The interior was there and still mostly in
place, the Cossack seat covers over the “school bus vinyl” heavily worn, a
stereo system had been installed at some point (why?) and removed, leaving us
with a somewhat compromised electrical system.
Moving to the driveline, we found the oil soaked 1.6L engine literally
sitting on the front differential, because one of the previous owners had
actually removed the broken engine mount, and it was not located with the
vehicle. In the rear we found a bent control arm, but that didn’t appear to be
a major repair item. A Weber conversion had been done which was a huge plus,
the exhaust had been partially redone with a Magnaflow muffler, a good starting
point.
It might be difficult to imagine, but the cooling system was intact and
leak free, a bonus there.
We began to build our growing list of things to fix:
Broken engine mount
Fuel supply from tank
Tune and Tune-up the Engine
Dent removal
Headlight replacement
and so on...
