A 'gentle' rebuild of my 3500
- Thread starter Mikep
- Start date
Mikep
Active Member
After fitting my new radiator yesterday I started to tidy up a few of the little scruffy areas on the car. The first one was the silver trim on the grill and headlight surrounds, it had come off in places and was dull everywhere else, so I dug out some old silver humbrol paint and re-painted it all. It is a massive improvement and really makes the grill stand out now. You will also notice I now have the Uk plates back on, although these are temporary as I have some new ones on order. These plates are modern and the rear one is a standard size so looks a bit silly.
As I dont have the cash for a new silencer and there is nothing wrong with the current one other than looking untidy I gave it a few coats of high temperature aluminium paint. I think you will agree it looks much better
The next job on my list is the leaking PAS box, not sure exactly where the leak is coming from. I can't really stretch to a new-recon one so I dont know if I should refurb this one, buy a 'good' second-hand one and fit that or refurb the second hand one then swap them over, that way the car is only off the road for as long as it takes to swap over the boxes. Any advice on this? It looks a tricky job to remove the box and change the seals, if the second-hand box wasn't leaking before it came out of the old car should I just fit it and worry later that it too may leak? :?
As I dont have the cash for a new silencer and there is nothing wrong with the current one other than looking untidy I gave it a few coats of high temperature aluminium paint. I think you will agree it looks much better
The next job on my list is the leaking PAS box, not sure exactly where the leak is coming from. I can't really stretch to a new-recon one so I dont know if I should refurb this one, buy a 'good' second-hand one and fit that or refurb the second hand one then swap them over, that way the car is only off the road for as long as it takes to swap over the boxes. Any advice on this? It looks a tricky job to remove the box and change the seals, if the second-hand box wasn't leaking before it came out of the old car should I just fit it and worry later that it too may leak? :?
JVY
Active Member
That looks like a good job on the grille and headlight surrounds Mike. Does anyone know if theses grilles were originally handpainted at the factory? Looking at mine, it is a bit dull like Mikes says his was. However, close inspection makes me think either Rover handpainted the silver on (or maybe a previous owner repainted it?).
Mikep
Active Member
I think that's what I'll do, I suspect the seals underneath but it could be a leaking pipe.harveyp6 said:
JVY said:
I think the silver on mine was original and didn't really look like it was applied by hand, but re-doing it makes quite a difference.
ThanksBrabus said:Car looks superb.Wish I could get my 3500S underway, but the wife and kids keep getting in the way
I think my wife is getting bored of me always working on the car but my little lad loves helping me fix Rory as he like to call it.
Mikep
Active Member
I thought I would add my latest job to this thread. I recently posted a topic concering the whining noise my gearbox developed last weekend, with some advice from HarveyP6 I started by removing the gearbox filter in the hope that the whine was caused by this being blocked and not something more serious. Well today during the rain showers I removed the sump pan and filter and gave it all a good clean out. Fitted it all back together and filled with some fresh transmission fluid and took the car on a test drive and the whine was gone! The gearbox was and still is very smooth so hopefully the nosie was just a cause of a blocked filter.
A few pictures of the work.
Removed the pan and thankfully everthing is very clean. Tbh honest I didn't know what to expect.
I can see now why its called a 'gun' type filter.
The inside of the sump as I started to clean it; you can see how dirty it is from what is on the kitchen towel.
The filter before I cleaned it.
It didn't look that dirty, but after soaking it in parafin the amount of crud that was inside it became evident.
The pan after cleaning.
The one thing I didn't expect to see was this surface rust :shock: I gave it all a good clean, but I would imagine that some of the debris was made up of rust particles.
I'm no gearbox expert by any stretch of the imagination and I'm sure someone will set me straight but I think all the debris has been in there a while. The reason I say this is the gearbox is performing faultlessy (touch wood) with no problems or slipping and I have been been informed that heavy deposits can be a result of a lot of wear. I do know the car had some gearbox work in 2008 where some of the clutches were replaced as they had failed. Im wondering if this is debris left over from this and wether this work could have been done without having to remove the sump pan; im sure if its was removed they would have cleaned it? as this car is now in use some of these deposits have been flushed about and partially clogged the filter. I shall stick to this theory anyway as its stops me worrying about imminent expensive work on the gearbox gearbox :|
All in all a very satisfying conclusion. The immeadiately frustrating thing about this was that if I couldn't fix it I would have had to cancel going to Petworth this weekend but as it stands its still on
A few pictures of the work.
Removed the pan and thankfully everthing is very clean. Tbh honest I didn't know what to expect.
I can see now why its called a 'gun' type filter.
The inside of the sump as I started to clean it; you can see how dirty it is from what is on the kitchen towel.
The filter before I cleaned it.
It didn't look that dirty, but after soaking it in parafin the amount of crud that was inside it became evident.
The pan after cleaning.
The one thing I didn't expect to see was this surface rust :shock: I gave it all a good clean, but I would imagine that some of the debris was made up of rust particles.
I'm no gearbox expert by any stretch of the imagination and I'm sure someone will set me straight but I think all the debris has been in there a while. The reason I say this is the gearbox is performing faultlessy (touch wood) with no problems or slipping and I have been been informed that heavy deposits can be a result of a lot of wear. I do know the car had some gearbox work in 2008 where some of the clutches were replaced as they had failed. Im wondering if this is debris left over from this and wether this work could have been done without having to remove the sump pan; im sure if its was removed they would have cleaned it? as this car is now in use some of these deposits have been flushed about and partially clogged the filter. I shall stick to this theory anyway as its stops me worrying about imminent expensive work on the gearbox gearbox :|
All in all a very satisfying conclusion. The immeadiately frustrating thing about this was that if I couldn't fix it I would have had to cancel going to Petworth this weekend but as it stands its still on
Mikep said:
It is debris from the friction material, and if the clutches were replaced then not only would the sump had to come off, the gearbox would have to have been removed as well, and like you I'd expect debris like that to be cleaned up, just like you've done. That's certainly enough to block the filter. I think the best thing to do is not worry about what might happen, and just enjoy using the car. The one thing I did notice was the absence of a magnet in there, which it should have.
Mikep
Active Member
harveyp6 said:
Spur of the moment job as I wanted the car for Petworth at the weekend. However if I take it apart again I shall let you know :wink:
Tbh I didn't put two and two together with regards to the magnet, I thought that if ferrous metal was in the oil then something would be seriously wrong with the componenets but I never thought of the casing rusting and causing ferrous deposits :roll:
Mikep said:
I wonder whether if you dismantled an old radio speaker to remove the magnet from that (which is massive by comparison) and then just stuck it on the bottom of the sump then you could have all the benefits without any of the drawbacks of having to remove the sump again. Just thinking aloud here.....
Mikep
Active Member
Dave3066 said:
Thanks Dave. It is a high-temp paint I bought in Halfords years ago for a kit car I was building to paint the cylinder head, I found it gathering dust on the shelf. I thought it would tidy up the tail pipe as it sticks out so far it made the car look untidy. Quite pleased with the result
Dave3066
Well-Known Member
Mikep said:Dave3066 said:
Thanks Dave. It is a high-temp paint I bought in Halfords years ago for a kit car I was building to paint the cylinder head, I found it gathering dust on the shelf. I thought it would tidy up the tail pipe as it sticks out so far it made the car look untidy. Quite pleased with the result
I was planning on going stainless for my 2000 as both back boxes need replacing but the suppliers don't seem to do the early 4-pot exhausts in stainless
I've managed to source a NOS back and intermediate section and wanted to tart the tail pipe up a bit. Think I'll have a go with the high temp paint.
Dave