I'm Lurigo, an engineering student from South Africa. I'm the owner an '81 Colt Galant Sigma GH down here in South Africa. It's my first car, and I've driving it daily for 5 years now, usually between home and university but also the occasional trip out of town. And some light off-roading for fun.
I have used a few of the posts on this forum to help keep it running, and have been wanting to make an account here ever since.
Details and history time! It's got the 1.6 4G32 engine, with Mikuni 28-32 DIDTA carb and those fancy silent shafts. It's got a 5-speed manual gearbox, though according to the manual that came with the car, the 1.6 was only available with a 4-speed in South Africa. According to the original owner, this specific Colt has a 2.0's chassis and gearbox, with a 1.6's engine and interior. I'm not sure how that happened, but I'm not complaining!
It was assembled here in South Africa by the Sigma Motor Corporation, a large factory responsible for local construction of vehicles from Mitsubishi, Mazda, Ford, Citroen and a few other makes. My car even has a little Sigma Motor Corp plaque in the engine bay. The 2.6 Galants actually originated from here too, having been offered with the 4G54 here first before being available with it in the rest of the world.
I'm the third owner of this Galant, the second being the first's son. Unfortunately, the odometer is pretty temperamental, requiring a coin shoved into the dial cluster frame to permanently press the trip counter reset button to work, and only has 5 digits plus the decimal, so I have no idea how many kilometers it actually has on the clock, how many weren't counted or how many times it has turned over. My guess would be anywhere over 200000km. The odometer currently reads almost 400km, having recently reset to 0.
Before I owned it, it had a small accident with another car, resulting in some damage on the front right corner, so there's been some repair work done to it. Not everything lines up quite 100% anymore, and some improvisation was used to repair the plastic frame around the headlight and indicator, but it's not noticeable unless you look closely. I like to tell people that the other car got totaled.
There's also an inexplicable dent on the underside of the car, right in front of the driver's seat, but that might be related to whatever happened to the front silencer box in the exhaust system, because it's missing and was replaced with a straight pipe. Rock or sidewalk maybe?
Other than the issues with the body, the rest of the car is still in great shape. Engine's running smoothly, no smoke and sounds great. Bit of a thirsty unit though, but the car's still worked me out cheaper than a new one even after 5 years of fuel and repairs! Plus it sounds great without that silencer box.
I've been doing small repairs/improvements on the car ever since I've got it, including but not limited to: Respraying the rusted wheels, fixing some wiring issues, new tires, cleaning the engine bay, replacing the radio, new accelerator and clutch cables (both have interesting stories leading up to them getting replaced), new front brake lines (also a fun story), new front shock absorbers, new fuel pump and light rust removal.
There are a few more improvements I want to make in the near future, as well as some modifications I'm considering. Mainly rebuilding or replacing the carb, getting nicer wheels and replacing the clock in the dash with something more useful.
That's my car pretty much, it's been such fun to drive and work on, I love it to bits!
There's a lot more to tell, so feel free to ask questions!
(Excuse the image quality, my phone with the nicer photos got stolen recently.)
