Burnt grey SC

K

KiwiRover

Active Member
Do I look like I need another car? Apparently so! I was trying to sort out the wipers on a car for a Rover club acquaintance when he offered me the car in a deal that was far too good to refuse. :D So I seem to be the proud owner of yet another car. I had always admired this car as it is a virtual twin of our very first Rover, same year, same model, same colour scheme so I really couldn't say no. It needs a few little jobs doing, the lack of a wiper motor being the most pressing. There is also a slight exhaust leak and the exhaust rattles against the floor somewhere back there. The fuel gauge doesn't work, the ignition light came on as he was delivering it and the handbrake needs adjusting. It is quite lovely though. A lot of the interior vinyl has been replaced, as have the carpets. It's had a fair bit of paint to a reasonable standard, it won't win any awards but it looks ok. Engine runs ok, has a brand new grille badge fitted and came with a new sender unit for the fuel tank. It has a new battery fitted and has recently been recommissioned so all the fluids and brakes have been looked over and there is no rust to be found. Very nice! Not sure what the plan for it is at the moment but phase one is to sort the little niggles and make it legal and we'll see where it goes from there.



 
Can't argue with that acquisition, Kiwi. :D

While we're on, what's the record on here for owning the largest number of (complete) P6s at any one time? :LOL:

I've only got 3...
 
While we're on, what's the record on here for owning the largest number of (complete) P6s at any one time?
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I seem to have 9 at the moment, however one of those is a parts car and the Estate could hardly be considered complete. So that makes 7 basically intact P6s. Of those, 3 are basically good to go, legal and ready to drive. The '65 has the motor and box out, the '72 is the injection project, the lhd 2000 hasn't been run for a couple of years and the 'S' is buried so deep in a storage unit I may never see it again!
Plus there's the Range Rover, and the Stag. And the Missus Celica...
Does anybody know of any cheap storage facilities in Auckland? :LOL:
I may have to consider selling something at some point. :? But i'd rather just have more storage space. :twisted:
 
I'll see if it works tomorrow. I think it's an Autocrat brand but it hasn't survived particularly well as the plastic faceplate is kind of crumbly. I do have a spare Radiomobile I could use though.
 
Mate !
You must have the most understanding neighbours let alone wife on the planet .
Nice score by the way . I can understand why you jumped all over it .
When are you moving out into the country and building that super "Rover Shed" with full workshop and luxury living quarters above ,test track and skidpad ?
Love what you're doing for the P6.
Gerald
 
Neighbours can't really complain, everything looks presentable and the ones that don't are under covers. I don't really work on the cars at home anymore preferring to take them down to work where all the tools live. :)
I did have a serious look at moving out a bit, finding a place with some land and a barn but it was all a bit depressing really. If we borrowed another $100K we could almost get something as good as we already have, not necessarily with the barn. To get something that is on a par with our current property but with a bit more land and some decent sheddage we were looking at adding at least $200K to our mortgage. Not an option really. :( Plus the thought of having to pack and move all our stuff sunk the whole idea. Still, we might look at some remodelling of the house that could involve a garage.

Had a better chance to go over the car today and take it for a drive. The rattling exhaust turned out to be a broken rear hanger so that was sorted in short order, then the wiper assembly was replaced with a later link drive. This is not ideal as the wiring is completely different. The original type is earthed through the switch while the later type is powered from the switch but I bodged up a functional system in the meantime. Just no self park. :(
For some bizarre reason the mechanic that had worked on the car for the previous owner had decided it should be positive earth. :?: The extent he had gone to for this was to fit the battery backwards and polarize the generator (which wasn't charging.) So I swapped the batt around and removed the genny. A bit of a clean and repolarizing it had it working fine on the bench so I refitted it. It does now charge but the ignition light comes on at idle, and after a short drive it now needs a couple of thousand revs for the light to go out. I'll have a look at the control box tomorrow.
The exhaust leak seems to be in the joint where the pipe meets the manifold, as in, it's rusted through on the flare of the pipe. Not sure if I can weld it there so it might have to be replaced.
There was a new carb jet with the car and the old one was leaking slightly so I replaced that. The radio is as dead as a dodo so I removed it and fitted a blanking plate but i'll see if my spare radiomobile works.
That's about all for today, I did drive it out to visit a friend and found a few niggles. The gear selection is pretty crap (as usual) but I can fix that. The clutch release bearing is noisy. There is a slight whistling when you put your foot on the brakes and when braking downhill there is an odd clattering, spitting sound. :shock:
In other words, piece of cake! I love these simple projects! :D
 
Made a good bit of progress today, love it when work is quiet! I dug out a spare Radiomobile 1085 which seems to work so I wired in an ipod lead today and fitted the radio. Haven't got a speaker for it yet so i can't test it but at least it looks cool. :) Also fitted a rubber dash mat.
Had a bit of a fiddle with the control box, cleaned some contacts etc and it all seems to work as it should now. Ign light goes out smartly. We'll see if that sticks.
Next job was to sort the appalling gear selection. I have a tried and true method for this on series 1 cars. First make sure the gear lever seat and teardrop are ok, then I remove the selector finger and build it up to 1/2" diameter. I've done this with weld before but this time I welded a bit of steel pipe over it so that it is a snug fit in the gearbox selectors. Then I remove the bolts that hold the gear lever plate to the tunnel. This is held in place by some soft rubber bushes and a securing bar to the gearbox. I make up some thick oval washers to fill the oblong holes in the tunnel, remove the rubber and basically hard mount the plate. This gives the best shift action ever! A really nice precise click-clack shift. The only issue i've had on my TC is a little bit of lever rattle on overrun sometimes.
Last job of the day was to replace the front section of exhaust. I found an excellent spare piece and installed that, as a bonus I managed to realign the rest of the exhaust a lot better. Not a bad day's fiddling. We'll see how it drives tomorrow.
 
Making fairly brisk progress at the moment. I had a fiddle with the tuning yesterday but didn't acheive much. It runs fine, starts well but it does have a tendency to run on and the are a few ticking noises around the place. Not a major though.
Today I got to spend a few hours on it though. The lack of handbrake was down to a sticking piston in the LR caliper. Not wanting to do a proper remove and strip at this point I just levered it in and out a bit to get it moving better. The the very crusty and siezed fuel sender was removed and the new one that came with the car was fitted. I also replaced the clock with one that I had repaired earlier, fitted an inerior light bulb and fitted and wired up a pair of chrome backed Lucas square 8s. A very productive evening. If the weather stays fine I might be able to give it a wash and take some more piccies tomorrow. :D
 
I can never figure out where you get the time to work on all these various projects, Al. I know, understanding missus, no kids, etc, but I struggle to find the time to keep one Rover up to scratch, let alone the several dozen you appear to own. Having said that, tomorrow is put aside for the final stretch of reassembly in the ZF project. Throttle valve cable, valve body, sump, filler tube, driveshaft, etc... and start!
 
Hi Al. Just imagine if you had enough drivers to drive all your cars to 50th run tommorow, what an impression that would make. If you are not there saturday can I come and see it soon.
John.
 
A little bit at a time seems to be the key Warren. I can achieve a lot if I stay for an hour after work every now and then, however some projects are easier to make progress on than others. Weeks of welding is just painful and hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel but I love a new car and a simple project. Drive it, make a list, fix stuff. Make another list. Fun! :D
John, doesn't look like i'll be able to do this weekend but I have been driving the grey beastie to work (although it's not strictly legal yet :oops: ) so pop in anytime.
I had a bit of experimentation too. As I can't resist turning this into a clone of my first Rover I thought i'd copy the pinstripes that car had.

Fog lights fitted here too. I was also looking at pics of the old car and thought it was crying out for a little something else so I tried:

The rear pillars (though it's hard to tell in this pic) are covered in a brushed aluminium finish vinyl which actually looks quite good up close. I'm not quite as happy with the stripes as the red is a bit loud. So I will probably replace the red stripe with a thinner and more subdued red. We'll see how it goes. And I may change the wheels... :wink:
 
DaveHerns wrote,...
Don't change the wheels , those early wheel covers are great
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Dave, you're the only person that I have ever heard say that.

Hi Al,

Looks to be in pretty nice condition overall. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one in the same colour that I have seen locally, so extremely thin on the ground these days.

Ron.
 
'Fraid I'm with Dave here too. It's your car Al, but a standard trim City Grey S1 has always seemed to me to be the absolute epitome of what Rover stood for. Restrained and classy with the technology to perform. I'd want to lose all those visual ticks and keep absolutely standard.

That said, I do like the principal of that "stainless" 1/4 panel - just not on that car!

Chris
 
DaveHerns said:
... those early wheel covers are great
Click to expand...

Indeed, i don't know how Rover managed to worsen the style of the P6 hubcups through the years. The first ones were rather nice and they absolutely tied in with the rest of the car. Then, by late series 1 time they made them somewhat bland, and those of the series 2 are nothing more than indifferent. The 3500 S ones look special though.
However i understand Al's urge to recreate the car of his youth by introducing a few modifications. :)
 
Yes, i'm still undecided on it all. I will try toning down the stripes first and see how it looks. The rear pillar trim was just something I wanted to try and the brushed ally actually looks pretty good. But now that i've done it I kind of miss the clean look.
I too am very fond of the early hubcaps, they are a quality bit of kit. The later series 1 caps were a cheap copy and the series 2 caps are just horrible. I don't mind the S hubcaps but they are certainly a 1970s thing. However my options for wheels are a set of Cosmics, or I do have a spare set of wires. But everything is reversible, I wouldn't do anything permanent.
 
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