A look back at our gone, but not forgotten, 1993 Lada Niva Project, originally published on 23 December 2012

The 1993 Lada Niva – оценка (Assessment)

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:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada_Niva

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:

1. Broken engine mount
2. Fuel supply from tank
3. Tune and Tune-up the Engine
4. Dent removal
5. Headlight replacement

and so on…