INTRODUCE YOURSELF

Hi Rik and welcome to SCC mate. With regards your squeaks and before you start pulling your Cougar a part try conditioning your leather in the rear, go mad, get the conditioner every where, underneath the seats down the the sides basically wherever the there's leather. I say this cause mine was doing the same thing and this has put a stop to it.   

lottysvdub wrote:

Sorry not trying to be negative towards your car at all just trying to be realistic   
There's lots you can do to them and they are fantastic cars that are getting quite rare on the roads .
Really pleased you found us .... Maybe post some pictures up of your car and maybe see you at a club meet when we finally get one organised lol.
Oh and what's wrong with your Laguna .... I have been known to know a little bit about cars   

I am loving this club, seems massively friendly and very helpful. I have been made to feel welcome and the advice has been great.

I do not believe you are being negative towards my car, I have little or no knowledge on Cougars. So any and all advice is most welcome. I want to achieve a subtle look without anything too heavy on the exterior and keep it mainly modded for handling and performance. If I could get it to a sub 7 second 0-60 time I would be happy, at least it would keep up with the Laguna How realistic this is I do not know. A respray will be on the cards hopefully with-in 6months and I might change the colour, but this is very much undecided as of yet. I do like the blue. I want to put twin exhuasts on it, 1 pipe for each bank of three cylinders and I would like to keep the cherry bombs (they remind me of my old SD1 V8 Rover I had over 20 years ago). Not sure I want to put £5k into the engine to get 300bhp. Maybe the way to get close to the sub 7 seconds is to strip it right out and make her a little weight street racer? But then again I do like my comforts lol.

The Laguna.. Ahhhh.. now there is a halo car, a real wolf in sheep clothing, nothing better than racing a boyracer in a Type R and crushing their hopes and dreams with a big 5 door family hatch back that runs on tractor fuel Well a about 6 weeks ago I was getting a warning on the dash board of a braking issue, mainly under heavy braking, this gradually increased to under normal braking. However the car was braking perfectly fine so stupidly I ignored it. Then one night I parked it up and it was all good, no problem at all. Came out in the morning got in, start it up and put my foot on the clutch to find the pedal went straight to the floor!... So here is the thing, I know it is not the clutch as it had no slip and no drag at all, full bore starts and it was fine, not that I did that often. I also know that the hydraulics for the clutch and brakes use the same system and are linked and if the car develops a leak in the braking system as a fail safe it will lose the clutch leaving you with working brakes so you can still stop the thing. It is therefore my opinion that there is a leak in the braking system and the car has gone into a fail safe of no clutch. Also when I put my foot hard down on the brakes the pedal goes down, stops, but if I keep the same pressure on the pedal it will slowly carry on down, indicating that either air has got into the braking system or there is a leak. Everyone I speak to want to replace the clutch and mass flywheel to the tune of £1300   and are not interested in checking out my theory. So thoughts and opinions please? My girlfriend lives over 40miles away from me (I am in Shoreham and she is in Tonbridge) and the Cougar (25mpg) is blood expensive to be doing that a few times a week lol so I need the Laguna (45-50mpg) back!!

Many thanks for the very warm welcome   

Regarding the Laguna you need to be looking for fluid loss clearly .... Also fluid level in the bottle .
Check around the clutch pedal too for wet spots .... Just wonder if they run a slave cylinder on the pedal and then the master is a concentric bearing type inside the gearbox .
I will have a sniff around and see what I can find out .... But check for leaks 1st mate    

lottysvdub wrote:

Regarding the Laguna you need to be looking for fluid loss clearly .... Also fluid level in the bottle .
Check around the clutch pedal too for wet spots .... Just wonder if they run a slave cylinder on the pedal and then the master is a concentric bearing type inside the gearbox .
I will have a sniff around and see what I can find out .... But check for leaks 1st mate    

I have checked for leaks, very hard to tell as it has a full under body tray fitted, nothing like a Ferrari, just a pain in the arse if you drop a screw drive bit in the engine bay lol. Out comes the long magnet The slave cylinder is located in the clutch housing as I understand it. The fluid in the reservoir is low and it hasn't long had a major service so it would of all been changed and topped up, so should still be at max and it is well below minimum.

hello all,

because of a great man called Rick, you will all be blessed with my presence!

Rick (ricardo) is my future father in law (i know lucky him) he has introduced me to the world of cougars!

i will collecting one this sunday and then be enjoying it for a week on temp insurance. it will then go under cover for a couple of months then i will be putting my current car (mazda mx5) into storage over the winter to carry on the modifications on that.
I will be driving the cougar throughout the winter then when the sun finally decides to come out i can swap back over to the mx5 and enjoy some more topless driving!
but what about meets in the summer months you say? not to worry i will still come in the cougar! as i will just take out temp insurance for that day! happy days!

anyway my name is Tom. 23yrs old and live with my fiance in horndean/waterlooville, near portsmouth. i am a supervisor at fullers brewery (yay free beer!!!     )
i have a mk1 mx5 which i bought standard and going through alot of changes with it all ready. 4x sets of wheels, paint job, it has a body kit consisting of front bumper, side skirts, and i recently put the original rear bumper on but inserted a rx8 fog light into it. i did all the prep work and fitted the kit myself. i done all the filling and sanding. everything done on my car i have done myself apart from applying the paint itself. which i have to say i am very proud of myself as i have never done anything like this before. (and it doesnt look to bad if i do say so myself) the interior is next!!!
i have Ricky, and his daughter Ria, to blame for my enthusiasm towards cars and i still say they were ones who opened my eyes to this amazing modification world and taught me a car should make you smile and be happy, not just something that gets you from a-b. << however that does help. my past experience with two RX8's ruined mt bank accout with endless problems.

anyway thats me i look forward to meeting you all and dont worry im in good hands with ricardo looking over me!!!

hopefully see you all soon.    

Hi Tom, Welcome to the forum mate,

So you have now come over to the dark side   

not completely but Rick has shown me a few pictures of different cougars, and i liked them and what can be done to them.

it will be a slow process but hopefully once debt is paid off and monies become available i can get started. luckily with working a deal out with Ricks new/old one he has already started and it already has a nice exhaust, lowering springs that need fitting and a strut brace. so a few things on it already just need to make a list of what else i want to do.

Welcome to SCC
You sound very enthusiastic about cars   and your mx5 hopefully there will be a late summer meet there's several members around your area

^^^ this i like the sound of!!

any sort of meet i like to go to

Welcome Tom, found your way in then mate. Check out some of the how to's etc. You'll find a few pic's of Cougars past and present. You can't have too much in the way of enthusiasm mate it'll get you through the rough times not that there's many of those with a Cougar. Occasionally some unlucky sod picks up a problem car but on the whole they're pretty bullet proof, what most folk love about them is the general ignorance and people not having a clue as to what they are which always amused me. I was always asked once I debadged my Cougar "Is that a Jag?"

Anyway mate spend some time feeding your knowledge, there's a few guys here who are like the Oracle for mechanical info and all things Cougar!

Enjoy!

thanks Rick. yes managed to find it!

cant wait till sunday! temp insurance is all booked and looking forward to my long journey home!

now i have the fun of finding wheels   

Keep an eye on the eBay postings here that the guys very kindly put up also keep an eye on the for sale section. There's a few Facebook Cougar related pages that I'll forward you as sometimes wheels come up on there.

Cheers Rick.

ill get all the info off you over the weekend over a few beers!    

For your info Tom and it looks as you already know pic's are generally best posted using photobucket or at least that's been my experience. I'm looking forward to putting my old Sig up, I even had a Christmas one LOL

cheers mate i really need to finish uploading my pics onto photobucket. will need to get my arse in gear and do it.

Hi Tom and welcome to SCC fella as for wheels the choice is endless but if I was on a budget I'd go for some st200 alloys I think the Cougar sits nice on 17s especially when lowered and the st200 alloys suit the Cougar IMHO   

Thanks mate I'll take a look. Won't be anytime soon so I'll have some time to find what I like. But I'll keep them in mind.

Welcome Tom to the only Cougar family to be in :-)
Any problems or info you want just ask .... Say hi to Ria from myself .... Met her a couple of times at SCC meets with Steph and of course the one and only Rick   

I had ST200 wheels on mine and they look ace at a decent budget if you can.

Welcome by the way

Hi Tom and welcome to the forum   

thanks for the warm welcome guys.

i shall keep my eyes peeled, and im sure Rick will tell me, as and when there is a meet so i will look forward to meeting you all!   

This is something we need to get sorted but just keep an eye open in the Events section for that kind of info. Things dry up occasionally, people busy doing stuff etc but sometimes some new blood can reignite the passions for these sorts of things.

Maybe, if CougarBobs around Saturday we'll shoot down to his just to say hi as he is literally on my doorstep and if course you'll be in my neck of the woods collecting your Cougar!

Sounds like Tom has your enthusiasm for all thing Cougar Rick   

that sounds good to me Rick. however im not insured until sunday morning so i will have to tag along in yours! but thats good as i have never been in you other one.

im thinking if we do manage to have a meet we could think about doing it at the west meon hut.
they do some lovely grub there and theres a nice big parking area in the field next to it.

(i cant post the link but just google "west meon hut" and all details will be there with the location)

there is also some nice roads heading into it too! and a bonus as there is a small tunnel near it and people that need to travel down the A3, get to go through the hindhead tunnel       

failing that i can find one of the pubs we deliver to with a nice big area for parking and with an added bonus i can use my discount card on all the food and drink!

The sooner we get this Meet sorted out the sooner I get fed LOL Some sound ideas there Toma and appreciate tge offer of a bit if discount.

Tony, Tom's driven and definately has the bug I just hope he enjoys his time with the Cougar as much as we all have. This is the third time I would've owned eLNOr so that must say something about the passion and longevity tge Cougar has to offer.