right, well £3K buys into the top end of the 'every-day' classic market; bottom/middle of the P38 lemon grove!
If a deffy had driven you to distraction, with problems that are usually chunks of metal that are moderately easy to spot, understand and do something about; then a P38, whose 'problems' tend to be electronic, defy mortal vision, and where fixes require the sort of ritual incantations of a new age wizard.... get in, close sunroof, turn key three times sum wise, etc....... likely to have you on prosac within a month; especially one you could afford for £3K!
Being fair to the P38, the Diesel isn't SO bad, it seems as the V8's; but they tend to also be more expensive, and people hang on to the good ones.
Which really suggests a classic as the better bet for your money, of which you have sufficient to pretty much take your pick of what's out there.
Bulk of classics on offer are in the £500-£1500 bracket, and you should be able to find something reasonably tidy with Tax & Test for around a grand.
elsewhere, I've a detail 'hit list' of what to look for on a classic; but the big thing is rot.
Starting at the front arch, working your way back down the sills to the rear wheel arch, looking at the bottoms of the door pillars as you go, up the arch to the rear seat belt anchorage, and thence to the boot floor, where you can also have a look at the tail-gates.
Now; earlier cars are slightly less rot prone than later ones, but being around longer, they have had longer to let the rot set.
Finding a Rangie with decent shell is hard; they ARE out there, but very often little corrolation between price and lack of rot.
Seen immaculate bodied, early motors being sold for scrap value, later ones, that are little more than scrap, offered for silly money, often with claims that the 'sills' and or 'arches' have been 'welded'... which sounds tempting, but on close inspection, that 'welding' is opten not great; when they get 'failed' for sill rot, or arch rot, becouse you cant see much more than the immediete area of perforation, without stripping out the interior and fittings, people wade in thinking that they can 'sort it' with a few patch-plates.....and end up with something looking like a Google areal overlay of wales..... lots and lots of little patches with bird-**** 'hedges' round them.... over EVERYTHING.... even the tidier ones are often not that great, as when they realise how much needs plating, they simply stick a new skin over the top of the old metal.... which carries on rusting beneath, and spreading to the new metal..... which may or may NOT line up all that well.
Now, comes down to what you want from the motor; if you want something to hack-about off-road, this might not be too big an issue; you buy one that's on its way out, or been patched, and give it the attension of the electric wand, when needed.
Personally, I looked and hummed and harred, and figured on finding one as unmolested as I could, cutting to the chase, doing the welding 'properly' and not having to worry about it...... eva!
Didn't quite pan out like that; what I got, a 1992, 3.9 auto, looked like the rear arches had been stuffed with filla, but when I tried knocking that out; after some gobs of Davids had fallen off, I found nice neat metal beneath! And when I stripped back to inspect the boot-floor, I found it unmolested and un-holed; so those tow areas were 'saved' from attension, and stuck on the 'when they need it' list! Sill, door-pillars and floor panels though, were chopped out completely, and replaced, actual sill section cut out completely and a box section chopped in its place; which is thicker, stronger and seamless, so a LOT less likely to rust; though mainly just cheaper and easier than trying to reconstruct the sills from sheet or sections!
doing the 'lot' from front arch to boot floor, is ABOUT £6-£700 worth of work, if you pay some-one to do it; If you DIY, then materials, maybe £2-300ish.
Doing it 'as required' adding patches where most needed, is cheaper short term, but if you expect to keep the car more than a couple or three years, you'll get to a point where you have spent more in 'get by' welding than doing the job completely, and be running into the problem of welding patches to patches......
So, few choices before you begin; do you want something thats completely 'hands off' as far as work goes, in which case you want to be looking for something that has been 'done' and done well, or something that you can basically ignorre, until it goies and then chuck it away! OR getting one that you know needs to be done, and getting it done and done properly, before you put it into service.... In which case, knock a grand off your budget to get the car straight after buying.
That still leaves you £2k to hunt with, and pretty much choice of what's out there.
So.... what appeals to you? Do you want something 'street-smart' or 'on the Rough and Ready'?
Plenty of pampered street Rovers out there; but beware the polished turd! Very easy to get a Classic to 'scrub up' with a bit of T-cut, some plasticote, and a few bits from the breakers.
On the other hand, there are a lot of Rangies about that have been bought to 'do the dirty work', been used to haul DIY materials about, tow a trailer, horse box, or whatever, or do a 'bit' of off-roading.
They have dents in the rear quarter panels; boot-lids that dont shut properly, and interiors that look like a builders caravan..... BUT underneath, often solid motors, and to chuck around a quarrey or explore the lanes, the what does it matter?
BEWARE anything that has been modified!
Particularly anything advertised with lots of 'off-road goodies'.
Too many over enthusiastic owners get an old rangie 'cheap' with saggy springs and flakey bumpers, and cracked fog-lights; figuring they are going to pull all that lot off anyway, to make it into a 'proppa' off-roader. Without very much idea of how capable the car is as standard, or what their intended mods will do to the performance, or the consequences of them on anything else, they wade in and fit big wheels and lift kits, roof-lights and winch bumpers.......
They then knock out prop UJ's, diff pinion seals, rip hokey hangers off the chassis, and suffer a multitude of other faults, before finding that the sills are shot and the money they spent on that winch bumper, still waiting for something to be put on it, would have been better spent making sure the thing was sound before they began.... so before the test runs out, they try punting it off as a 'bargain'..... usually they are not; they are a collection of accessories, rarely worth the asking price and a pile of scrap with more hassles in them than a re worth fixing!
So, the closer to standard the better.
OK; what age and models to be looking for?
Well, post 1993, you start getting into catalysers, air suspansion, and the electronics of the P38 in the 'soft dash' models. These are some of the most rot-prone examples ever made, and becouse they are the 'last' of the classics, a lot of people offer them for very optimistic prices; but there are also a lot out there, with bargain basement price tags.
when I was shopping, I looked at a number of these. I was not TOO put off by the air suspension; it does have a reputation, but these days, with a little know how they can be 'sorted'. Ones that had been converted to coils though, were a little more worrying; no EAS faults to worry about, but the air-bags are not the only difference between coilers and EAS, there are some subtle differences in the suspension gemetry and linkages, and reports suggest that they dont ride as well as air bags, or as predicatably as OE Coilers..... For the right money, wouldn't have put me off, but something extra to worry about.
The 'EFI's' or 88-93 models then, seemed a slightly safer bet; and that's what I got, mainly becouse there are more of them about, becouse thats what they made most of, and becouse they are just young enough not to have completely rotted away.
'Loaded' with electricery, but not AS loaded as the later models, they still have plenty to go wampy on you; when I got my first Rangie, that was why I expressely AVOIDED the EFi models! Instead I bought an 84 Carb V8 Auto..... wind up windows, manual mirrors, no sun roof to leak or jam etc etc etc..... And found it MORE expensive to fix faults than an EFi becouse EVERY bloomin bit I needed was on the 'deleted' list.... and UNLIKE the earlier 2-doors, which with classic cudos, people saved bits for, or you could get pattern copies off.... getting stuff for the mid-eighties motors proved to be hard work, and often biting the bullet and paying main stealer prices!
So, those models have thier appeal in simplicity, but they also have thier 'niggles' like any other.
Earlier, two-door models, gaining classic cudos now, and you can pay an AWLFUL lot for one that is in tidy fettle; but, well supported, and nice and simple, they can be an attractive proposituion.... dont know how much added luxuary they'd offer over a deffy..... but some I'd guess!
BUT, you wan t a deisel..... you say becouse of insurance.
Is that your only reason?
The diesels are pretty 'gutless' compared to the V8's, not incredibly less thirsty, and they are a lot more noisy...... stilll probably a revalation after a deffy, but still....
V8's on LPG are pretty cheap to run; depending on variant and how you use it of course, but with LPG at about 55p a litre, running costs can be lower than the diesel models; or even a 'normal' saloon car.
And a 'standard' V8 is often loaded less by insurers than a 'converted' diesel, while, if you shop about, you can find classic or specialist policies that are fairly reasonable.
You dont say how old you are, but if under 25, and possibly if under 30, if a V8 is do-able, you may want to avoid the 3,9's though as apparently they are stuck in a Porshe hight insurance group, where the 3.5's are more 2.0l Sierra! A couple of younger 'mates' I have have told me that insurance on a 3.5 was no more than a TDi disco, while the lad that dropped aTDi motor into his 84 classic in place of a three fiv, was dissapointed he his premium didn't go down.
So worth investigating there.....
As for diesels; well, the VM 2.4 & 2.5 models of the Ei era would be the ones I went looking for.
They tend not to fetch the premium that something with a TDi in it, even something converted to TDi fetches; and while the old VM motor was much maligned for being expensive to fix when it went wrong, after eighteen or twenty years of themgoing wrong niggles are all well recorded, and it would SEEM ht they are often less hassle, and less expensiv than a TDi, which seem just as likely, if no slightly more so, to give grief these days. And youhave the fall back on them, that if they do go pair-shaped on you, you can, reasonably easilyand ecconomically, dump an ex Disco TDi into the hole.
As with warning about stuff 'modified' for off-roading, given your budget an the luxuary of choice; I would avoid anything with a diesel 'conversion' ike the plgue!
A TDi may be 'just' tempting, as youwant a diesel, and I have seen some done fairl neatly; but transit engines, big perkins, dihatsu engines (ESPECIALLY Dihatsu engines!), done for 'ecconomy', often defeated by an expensive conversion, frequently dont get done well, even the ones advertised as 'expensve proffessional conversion'.... and usually using a second hand engine anyway; the have SO many pottentialproblems from the conversion, and the unknownsabout how it was one, and with what, or by who, that its alottery as to whether you find a good-on or not, and if you o have a problem, a bigger lottery as to w#hoe difficult it may be to sort out.
So, in conclusion; my startng point,from your 'brief' would be a reasonably tidy, 2.5VM on something like a G-Plate, advertised for around £1500-£1700, the more unmolested the better, and I' look to knock the price back to something more lie £12-£1300,on the 'usual suspects like the sills, boot floor, the VM 'reputation' etc; Then after purchase, chuck a grand at it to get the 'usual suspects' sorted properly; everything 'welded' as it should be, in one go motor ervices, brakes surviced, and little faults like he PAS box or panhard bushes sorted, and then ...... enjoy..... hopefully a few years of reletively 'trouble free' Rovering!
