Practically Classics Forum

The Renault is still waiting patiently. I got it a brand new clutch and a pair of front brake discs and I'm continuing to just find and buy the parts I know it needs as and when I can. Once the Triumph GT6 my housemate owns has sold the Renault will be coming home so I can work on it a bit easier. Anyone want a Mk1 Triumph GT6 for £12,000? It's lovely and red.

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I finished that patch on the inner arch today which looks far better for some seam sealant and paint than I'd expected.  It's almost entirely hidden by the bump-stop bracket which has lost one rubber bump-stop and the other is waiting for the sealant to set that I've used to glue it back on.  Dealt with as much of the rust as I could see and get to and gave everything a liberal dose of stone chip and purple paint.  I was going to use beige but I'd run out and since all this is going to be covered by the arch liner I'm reinstating I didn't think it mattered too much.  There's been a few other repairs in this inner arch in the past of a similar nature to the one I've let in, I didn't pick at them as they're solid and functional if not that pretty.  I went back and touched up the paint after these photos were taken, fitting the displacer meant I managed to knock a few bits of paint off here and there.




I also, with help from Mike, got the replacement displacer installed on this side which was quite a frustrating job as more often than not it was a two-person co-ordination challenge to get everything to line up.  Not fun.  Screwed the nubbin of the old pipe onto the displacer to stop anything falling inside it until I can get a replacement pipe made.  I may have a spare I salvaged from the orange car, I'm not certain, if I have that'll save me a little bit of cash. .


First fill on the front wing was pretty good.  Put some primer on to highlight areas that might be a problem (which doesn't show up so well with the camera flash enabled) and it'll need localised second fill before I get top coat on.  Promising start to the job.  You can just see the replacement bolt in the top left of the bump-stop bracket in this picture too since the old one decided to run away until I was cleaning up in that way important bolts do sometimes



The other thing I started work on was the bucket for the new rear light.  It's seriously fiddly stuff because of how I want to do it.  If anyone has that bit of bodywork from a Viva kicking around do let me know, it would save me bags of time in fabrication.

This will be quite a large update as I realise I've not been keep you abreast of work on the Rover. With the Princess' welding mostly sorted now and down to fairly manageable items and a great start work-wise to 2016 I've been able to lavish some attention on the Rover that I otherwise wouldn't be able to. The minor coolant loss and grumbly waterpump have both magically fixed themselves, which is a bit strange but I'm not complaining.

26th of November 2015
Today, I coerced myself into going to the unit to do something on one of my cars and picked on the Rover. Just after leaving the house the rain turned to sleet and threatened to turn to snow, definitely not ideal for doing bodywork. By the time I got to the unit it was just rain again and Mike fired up the heater so the place was actually pretty comfortable for working in. Earlier this year at the house I was living in the Rover had been collecting more scratches in addition to the few it already had. It was annoying me and I'd got as far as putting the touch-up paint on and then completely lost my motivation to go further and my spare time to do anything about it because of the house move.






I know they don't look like much, but when they're all over the side of the car and you're picking more up weekly the car quickly starts to look really shabby. A couple of them were very deep too and looked deliberate given how much force would have been needed to gouge into the paint to the metal underneath. Funnily enough, since moving to the new house these scratches have stopped appearing and apart from collecting a dent in one rear door in a car park, the bodywork has been left alone.

Even though I'd already filled some of the scratches in, there were still more to do that I hadn't bothered with since being at the previous house. It's a case of painting the scratch, then carefully sanding it back with 1000 grit, then painting it again if needed... tedious stuff but worth it.


I'm only working above the bump strip for now and at this stage I've got the rear wing and rear door polished with the front door sanded where it's been touched up but not yet polished. No point doing the front wing as that's being replaced.


I was very impressed with the Meguiars Scratch X 2.0 which my brother put me on to, it takes a lot of the effort of the job out and gives a really, really good finish just for the initial pass. The fogging of sanded paint is cut out really quickly but it doesn't seem to obliterate the paint you want to keep on the panel. It's also much easier to clean up than Farecla G3 which tends to be difficult to get off unpainted plastics and even paint when it splatters and better on my hands too which were nowhere near as dry as usual after this sort of work.


There's more to do on this side of the car but for a daily driver in the winter it is perfectly acceptable as it is now and the worst of the unfinished scratch touch ups are gone. Better still, the thin white scratches on this side of the car are also now gone. Before packing up for the day I had a quick go at the bonnet which I'd partially resprayed but not finished. Same materials again and a power polisher to make life much, much easier and with very pleasing results so far. The colour match on the leading edge isn't perfect, Flame Red is a devil of a thing for that, but it's close enough to be acceptable.


I'm looking forward to getting the whole car sorted, this took me much less time than with previous materials so I'm happy to give it more attention when I have a bit more time. Fuel economy continues to impress, the last tank was a very surprising 31.6mpg for mostly urban driving, I think part of that is the short 50mph stretch between the new house and town allowing the car to warm up properly. When I'm doing any 50mph+ driving regularly the fuel gauge moves so little I've been worried it's broken a time or two now, I really am not used to this sort of economy from a car of this size.

In other news, my brother managed to swap the Xantia estate he bought back off me for an MG ZT saloon. On paper that's ridiculous, but in practice he's finding it more suitable for lugging all the family about because of the absurdly huge boot it has and he's getting an awful lot more enjoyment from driving the thing. He did the swap shortly after collecting a Proton Saga pick-up and a Daihatsu Applause so he's also got three cars now. It has left us in the awkward position of having a trailer and nothing to tow it with though.

12th of December 2015
Not a picture update this time, but worth a read all the same as it reports on the general goings on with this car.

Last week, my housemate and I were heading to The South to visit friends. It was deemed cheaper to go in the Rover than in his Toyota Supra and since it should have been a straightforward trip to drop him off on the way down and pick him up on the way back I was okay with this. I should have checked the maps myself though, his estimate of a 4 hour journey ended up being 9! Thankfully, the Rover is the most comfortable car I've ever driven (suspension aside, Citroen and Austin have both beaten the Rover on that front with their fluid and gas systems) so apart from being grumpy about driving for so long it wasn't too bad.

That is until the M25 happened. The M25 with its bomb craters for potholes, one of which I hit so hard it put the tracking off on the Rover. When I got home and got it checked over 400 miles of horrible wheel-fighting later I discovered it was out by 11 degrees on the clobbered wheel! The return journey was a whopping 12 hours thanks to heavy traffic on the M25. It was not fun. We were restricted to 55mph on the way home, 65mph if I felt I could fight the wandering behaviour of the tracking being so far out but it was exhausting. Happily, I did get home after the 12 hour drive without pain of any sort, just tiredness as is to be expected, which is a first for me in any car.

After I'd had some sleep and recovered we went over to the tyre place to get the tracking fixed and they generously allowed me to get a look under the car while it was on the ramp. The mystery clonk appears to be the exhaust - which is practically brand new, still silver and still with stickers on - hitting the gear selector rods in a really particular way, everything else is nice and solid under there. Front driver's tyre has a flat spot and the front passenger wheel has a big old dent in it so that explains the vibration the car has always had that I'd put down to an unbalanced wheel.

The underside of the car is spotless. There isn't a speck of rust and it's all smartly and professionally by the looks of things, undersealed from nose to tail. I was seriously impressed with the condition underneath, easily the best car I've ever had in that regard. There are two tiny pinholes just appeared in the backbox that I want to replace anyway as I'd like twin pipes on instead of the funny single pipe but other than that I was seriously impressed.

With all of this the car is firmly cemented now as a keeper. It returned 44.4mpg on the run down and 47.5mpg on the run back over 650 miles in two days. I was comfortable for the duration, the car didn't use a drop of water (which is odd as it had been previously). I bang on about this car to everyone, it's impressed me so thoroughly at how competent, fun, frugal and comfortable it is. I am more than willing to throw money at it when I have it, this is a car that absolutely deserves it.

23rd of December 2015
Sorted out a little job today. Since I got the car the dash clock has always worked but is barely even visible so even though I set the time on it there wasn't much point. Recently, on here and on another forum I learned that this is usually a duff bulb and replacement is fairly easy. Here's a little how to on it. To the right of the trim (for RHD models anyway), ease a screwdriver (or in my case some scissors I found in a Princess I broke because I was too lazy to find a screwdriver) and use firm but steady pressure to pry the wooden trim free of the dashboard. Work your way along the top edge and you'll find it slowly comes free of the holding.


Here is the clock. The clip on the back needs disconnecting and this is very easy.


Was quite surprised that it was actual real wood rather than plastic, sign of quality there. I'm guessing the RHD stamp is because this is a right hand drive car. You can also see the spring clips that push into the slots in the dashboard which helps explain how this goes together and comes apart.




The back of the clock has a single twist-fit bulb. Mine had blown so we went out to get a replacement. Halfords wanted £2.50 for one bulb so we went to the local motor factors and got one for just £1.50 which is still more than I'd like to pay. I'm sure dash bulbs like this used to only be 10p or something. Blue bulb on the left is the old Osram one that was fitted, black one on the right is the new one that I've put in.


Before refitting I turned the ignition to on to check it was working and huzzah! I have a visible clock. Pleased about that. I have to reset the time as it's currently wrong.


Last job is to push the trim back into place, start with the right hand side first and push until it firmly clips into place. Satisfyingly, it sits better now than it did, particularly on the left hand side. Not a big job, but a satisfying one.

5th of January 2-16
Today was a fortuitous one because everything was finally in place for me to kit the Rover out with a full set of five alloys (I like matching spares). I'm really happy with them and the car rides nicely on them too. Next job will be figuring out how to lower the car and there's a few options available to me. Coilover kits I've found so far are way too expensive for what I'm wanting to achieve but more affordable options are shorter springs of the correct size and rating or getting the existing struts modified professionally (surprisingly, this is cheaper than a coilover kit). I only want to bring the car down 40-50mm just to improve the looks, I'm not after sports car action or slamming it to the floor.

Really got to sort out those bumper brackets to get rid of the sag.




The other job I wanted to do was get the boot trims removed. I've noticed things have been getting wet in the boot again and with the excessive amount of rain we've had lately I've started seeing standing water in the boot so it was time to investigate. Look, matching spare!


The interior panels come out really easily, especially since Mike invested in some plastic trim removal tools that mean you can pull out the fir tree buttons without damaging them (well, unless they've gone really brittle which thankfully they hadn't in this case). Both side panels have half an inch of sogginess on the bottom of them, the boot floor board is soaked again and the carpet is damp so that's all drying out in the house. The water is sitting in the corners of the boot as photographed.




The only place I can see it might be getting in is the vents that are hidden by the bumper, you can see in that last picture that there's some water staining from it to the wetness in the boot. The vents looked in good order when I removed the bumper previously and I don't especially want to block them up to stop this happening so I'm unsure what the best course of action might be here.

Managed to find and order some proper new lowering springs for the Rover, they claim a 45mm drop which is more than adequate. I'm guessing it'll look like this.



I'll report in full when I fit them.

12th of January 2016
Accidentally did more work than I intended to on the Rover today because I had some help with sorting out the front and the rear of the car. As a result, I'm much happier with how things are now.

I really wanted to get a look at the front headlights, the passenger side one has always been badly aligned since I got the car and I wanted to know why. Usefully, I had the better condition headlights from my brother's old 216SLi which I also knew had better headlights than the ones my car had. So, off with the headlights which is a fairly involved but straightforward job of undoing the top bolts, the screws holding the indicator and under-headlight trim and the one really difficult lower nut holding the bottom of the headlight in place. First thing I noticed is a broken clip.


Nothing looked to be bent or damaged in any way. I was expecting some minor damage to explain why the headlight sat so badly but all was good. There are signs the under headlight trim has been repainted and was originally white and there's some evidence of a good respray on the driver's side front wing, I suspect the wing is a good replacement to get rid of a crusty original rather than accident repair. After a bit of wiggling about I got the replacement headlight to sit almost as well as the driver's side (which I also replaced since I had the better units to put in). I did have to bend the lower bolt bracket up slightly so I wonder if there has been a minor parking incident on this corner like on the opposing rear corner.


Alignment was still a little off and after inspecting the leading edge of the bonnet it turned out that was ever so slightly bent outwards on the passenger side. Gentle persuasion with a soft cloth and a rubber mallet had it sitting as well as it ever does on these cars.


The driver's side was much easier to swap the headlight on apart from the lower bolt which was nigh on impossible to access no matter how I tried. Mike ended up doing that one for me because he has small sensible hands. Both sides now look much the same, so I'm happier. The headlights are brighter and the alignment better, I could see far better on the very wet drive home.


Front all sorted I turned my attention to the back of the car. The side vents are the likely culprit for letting water into the car and to sort those the back bumper needs to come off. That's actually a good thing because the lower bolts for the bumper had sheared before I got it so it gave me chance to make a rudimentary repair to one of the brackets and weld new bolts on to the bottom of both to replace the sheared items. It's not pretty but you never see it so it doesn't matter. Liberal coating of rust treater and stone chip paint to keep things as good as I can.




Dropped the ball a bit here because I didn't take a picture of my now sag-free rear bumper. It was a devil of a thing to get seated back on the car because of the side pegs but we did it and it looks better than ever.

Before the bumper went back on I removed the rusty bubbles on this corner including the rear arch warts, gave it some rust treatment and a quick coat of red and lacquer. I'll redo the arch properly when I've got better conditions to do so but for now it's good. Everything cleaned up very nicely back here. The other side didn't need anything.


Mike was meanwhile turning his attention to those vents. The old gaskets had started to perish and judging by the water trapped between them and the bodywork they were likely the cause of the leak. After removing the old rivets, Mike cleaned up the vents and surfaces and replaced the vents with a suitable sealant and new stainless steel washers, nuts and bolts. A more than acceptable finish to the job I thought, particularly for something that isn't ever seen.




I'm leaving the boot trims out both to dry and to make sure this is the cause of the water ingress. Time will tell.

Another little job I wanted to do was fit the small rear door Vikings to my centre caps so they look like proper Rover alloys. I've only got two at the moment so put them both on the same side of the car. I have another two heading my way but no eta. I quite like these, finish the wheels off nicely.


Finally, a job that is incredibly small but which has been bugging me since I got the car; radio end caps. Those little bits of plastic trim being missing has been a visual irritation since I got the car, always seen just out of the corner of my eye. It is an eyesore no more.

12th of January 2016 continued
Just popped outside to get a picture of the rear bumper. It's not perfect, alignment is still a teensy bit off but it's better enough that I can live with it. I may fiddle with the bolts on the passenger side to see if I can lift the corner a bit further. Oddly enough, the driver's side has a much worse condition bracket but sits better.





You'll notice the numberplate is off, that's because I'm scanning it to get some reproduction dealer plates from DMB Graphics who can replicate precisely what is currently fitted. The rear plate is the dealer original while the front is presently a replacement, both are scruffy. New number plates make a big visual difference and should make it look a lot more loved. Anybody know anything about Trinity Motors?




Other news is the boot leak. I drove home through the rain and nothing came in through the vents. On inspection this morning there was water in the spare wheel well and it looks like it's coming in through the rear drivers side light cluster. This is easy to resolve at least and normal for Rover.

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That's you up to speed on the Rover now. It's still being excellent, I'm delighted with it. As a modern classic it's pretty much ideal. In other classic news, I found I do have a spare hydragas pipe to replace the broken one on the Princess but the condition of it is questionable so it may be used as a template to get a new pipe made. It's a difficult part to obtain so I'm glad I rescued it from the orange breaker car. The Renault, too, is due to receive some attention as I've been able to order a new engine gasket set and will be getting the head tested so we can get that running after a long time of it being idle.

I feel like I'm in control of my cars again and that's a good feeling. The only thing in my way at the moment is that it's just far too cold to be doing paintwork on any of them so I'm having to look for other jobs they all need doing instead.

You've been busy.
With your replacement bulb, you have replaced the bulb and holder together which is fairly expensive but you can pull the little bulb out and replace that separately which is only a couple of pence.
The correct number is written on the side of the bulb but I can look it up for you when I get home if you like. it's always cheaper to buy 10 from ebay and keep some spares.

Good work here, it's interesting to see how similar the Rover/Honda and my AE92 are when you look at small design details such as the vents in the rear quarters behind the bumper, the way in which the bumpers appear to have black filler strips but are actually black bumpers masked during manufacture (could that have been the cheaper way to do it? Can't see it myself..) and even the shape of the front marker lamps which look as though they'd swap directly for the Toyota ones found in the saloon versions of mine.
On a saloon, you don't strictly need the vents since there are no large areas of glass in that space but I'd have fixed them too - even if many folk would simply cover the openings with glued on patches to prevent any moisture from finding a way in at that point - for the simple reason that they were good enough to be signed off by the production engineers, ergo they're good enough!
I'm impressed not only by the fact that the trim strip on that dash is cut from actual tree flesh but also by its thickness in an area where [the strip] could have been little thicker than veneer and nobody would have known the difference.
Details like this fascinate me!


Excuse my asking the obvious question regarding the Hydragas pipe for the Princess, but have you tried Liquid Levers? It's a fair time since I last had cause to contact them but they provided both pipes for my '79 Maxi at a price that made it a bad idea to to roll about in mud under a scrapyard car in the hope of finding decent pipes that way.
http://www.liquid-levers.com/shop/product?xProd=18
I know that they don't mention the Wedge by name in the parts list, but they make these things and have the details of the dimensions for every Hydrolastic and Hydragas car ever built so I'd be sending them a cheeky wee email asking whether, given that they're sure to have absorbed the tooling costs by now, they could consider making a pair of these to suit your car.

The moving fluid is still hydrolastic fluid. We long ago replaced most steel pipes with 1500psi hydraulic hose on the 'Crabs. Pirtek and the like make them while you wait at a reasonable cost.

P45.