Hello all, 

 

First time posting, sorry if this is not the right place for this question...

 

I have a 1990 1.4 Ghia, 5 door. Only a few miles, excellent condition, well maintained but only 74hp.

 

I live in Madrid, Spain and will need to drive to Budapest, Hungary. Not only this, but I was thinking of adding a roofbox to the car.

 

This is a 2,000 mile journey and the car has only 74hp, firstly, will it make it at all. Secondly, can it handle a roof box.

 

Thanks!

I had a Ford escort mk4 1987 with that same engine in and that was fine. If the car has been maintained properly I don’t see what it shouldn’t make the journey.   I have never used a roof Box but providing you are using the proper fixings for it I don’t see why that should matter. Of course the heavy things should go in the car and only light things in roof box.  The roof box might affect performance slightly but I can’t see it making the difference between getting there and not getting there.  If you have not used the car for a long run for a while I would do a test run to make sure it does not overheat on a long high speed run with some hills just to be sure.  In case radiator has silted up over time

yes but it will take time with that power 🙂

Hola!

Make sure the cambelt has been changed at the correct interval and the clutch is in good condition as the extra weight will put a strain on it.

Keep an eye on oil & water levels every so often and keep a close eye on the temperature gauge. 

Inflate the tyre pressures to fully loaded rate

Thanks all!

 

I pretty much have to max out at 60mph as any faster than that gets uncomfortable. This was my main concern with the roofbox. Of course, fiestas of this era are not known for their space and so I could do with the extra. Hopefully if I am careful I wont have to drop below 60mph.

 

Cheers!

A 2000 mile journey, defo check what the others have said ? 
 
Visually look/check and rotate each tyre, make sure they look spot on, no bulges or bad cracking.

Check all cooling pipes/radiator, any leaks/cracking of pipes can lead to bursts when red hot, then your not going anywhere.

Make sure the spare tyre is good & inflated, daft as it may sound but make sure the jack & brace are in the boot,
it's been known for folk to set out on a good journey, get a flat tyre only to notice they've no jack/brace,
another check is make sure the road wheel bolts are not seized up, we had a puncture once,
one bolt I could not crack off no matter what, luckily a lorry driver stopped and he'd got a
six foot steel pipe in his cab! That was used to crack off the bolt.

I was a sod for taking 5 litres of water & 5 litres of oil & 5 litres of fuel on long journeys, think about that too.