LHD 2000 auto

Thanks for your interest + reply; my P6B is a 1972, NZ assembled ( Nelson factory ) Being restored, but no progress 'til I get back to NZ later in the year
I'll post pictures then; car was purchased on TradeMe in 2008 from Rotorua +is a low mileage original ( less than 50,000 miles ) that is getting a W58 Toyota 5-speed + a 3.9 LandRover Discovery motor that has been converted to carbs + bored + stroked to 5 litres; using a Leyland P76 crank + flywheel, smallblock Chev. conrods + forged pistons. All parts have been sourced, just not, err, currently in the car... :roll:

Will look fairly "stock" if you don't look too close ( ! ) Unfortunately an overseas posting has slowed this project down somewhat, but not damped my enthusiasm
I previously owned a 2000TC in dark Green with a tan leather interior and chrome wire wheels that unfortunately ended up in my Hillsborough workshop being parted out ( mid 1980's) as a mate hopped it over a traffic island at speed and that tucked the front crossmember back about a foot....

Always wanted another one and not hard to find in NZ, tho' not as many around in top condition as there once were; I looked at quite a few before I bought this latest one
Very poor interiors letting down most, followed by varying amounts of rust

best
GW
 
Mmm, sounds tasty! Sadly, the extremely low values of the cars mean that not many do a decent job of restoring them and interiors can be quite costly to fix. Also, a lot of NZ cars have the nasty vinyl seats. :(
I bought a complete set of wire wheels and hubs from a guy about 8 years ago, wonder if they came from your car? There were supposedly only ever 8-10 wire wheel cars in NZ. I'm aware of 6 including my own, all in varying conditions. (and my spare set of wheels makes 7) Most of them are Green, funnily enough.
I have made a little bit of progress on the car in the last week, in my spare moments I attacked the wheelarches and floors with a wire brush and screwdriver looking for rust. Just found a few bits of surface here and there where the underseal had lifted so this was all cleaned and Hammerited. Then I went over the floors and inner arches with chassis black to smarten it all up. I also cleaned up the inner wings and engine bay as these had quite a bit of pitting and filler. There was quite a bit of filler on the front 8 inches or so where a frontal impact had been clumsily repaired. I cleaned all this off and painted it but will obviously have to go back at a later date and re-do it as it looks pretty crap. The wings are all back on now and the water pump arrived back from the reconditioner today so I will try to get in tomorrow and finish some things off as I need to bring the car home again soon. (I had FOUR Rovers at work today :oops: not cool) I also found a set of rear mudflaps in my spares so they will be fitted in due course.
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Just spent last weekend camping at a music festival where my TC found a friend.
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Spent a bit of time chatting to the owner of this '62 MG Magnette, I'd never thought of the Rover as a particularly agressive looking car but when you compare it to the wide-eyed innocent look of the MG, it looks positively shark-like. There were a couple of other classics that turned up to the festival too, a powder blue '60s Mini, green Morris Minor, couple of old Bedford house-buses and my Aunt turned up with her Jowett Jupiter. Not a bad weekend really!
 
I have an unused set of Magstars here. They DO NOT fit the 2000TC that I am restoring which has the Magnum 500
Wheels and bolt set up. The Magstars are from a 2000 TC Automatic.






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They DO NOT fit the 2000TC that I am restoring which has the Magnum 500
Wheels and bolt set up.
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That's correct. The Magnum 500s had a unique bolt pattern. (was it 4.5" or 4.75" PCD?) I suspect that Rover were desperate for some sporty wheels to sell in the US market and couldn't get anyone to make wheels small enough with the right stud pattern so they bought what they could and altered the hubs to match. The Magnums were only used for about a year before the Rostyles became available. The Magstars, having alloy centres could have been easily drilled to any stud pattern by the manufacturers, thus making a small run viable. Whereas, the stud pattern on Rostyles and Magnums is part of the pressing and none of the American cars with a 5 x 5" PCD would have used 14" wheels.
 
Fitted the reco'd water pump last night and topped up the cooling system with antifreeze. Then had a good crawl around underneath looking for leaks. There are a couple of minor ones from the engine- rocker cover and 1 sump plug and a few from the trans. I tightened up the trans pan but it looks to be weeping slightly from the breather pipe fitting on the rhs (where the dipstick tube goes on the V8) and that is a right bugger to get to. :(
Also, the front carb keeps flooding. I've had the bl**dy thing off 4 times so far but it looks like it will have to come off again. I think the float is sticking. :x
What I want to do at this point is fit an aircleaner from a 2000TC to the HIF carbs to keep the engine looking correct. (Rocker cover is getting replaced too) Has anyone done this? I'm hoping the bellmouths from the HS8s will fit without too much difficulty.
Then just a few more jobs to get it ready for compliance: Number plate light needs rebuilding, Should be easy. Reverse lights not working, might be the switch. Trans mount is a little worn, are these the same as the V8? Exhaust needs adjusting as it hits the diff nose when reversing. Also the bootlid hinges need replacing as the lid sits really high on the left.
Other than that, we're almost there. (I hope!) :D
 
Not much progress of late, I had promised to replace the exhaust gaskets on a friends Nissan Terrano which wound taking up all my spare time. :( Work has also been very busy and I'm going on holiday tomorrow for 2 weeks, camping by the beach. (Won't be taking a Rover though 'cause all our camping gear won't fit!) I'm not entirely looking forward it to be honest. It is nice to sit around doing nothing for a while but after a few days I start thinking "If I'm not working, I could be playing with a Rover."
Then I get bored. After 2 weeks I'm desperate to get home and my beloved wants to stay longer!
Still, as soon as I get home, I'll book the lhd in for it's inspection and see what happens. Can't wait! :D
 
:oops: What did I tell you? :oops: I went on holiday and bought a V8 and the poor old lhd got pushed to one side again!
Anyway, my TC was hired by a film company for a brief appearance in an upcoming TV show. $300 for the use of my car for 4 hours! Thank you very much! So with a little bit of cash incentive I started debating what to spend it on. In the end it seemed the decent thing to do to get on with the lhd's re-vinning process so I threw in a battery and some fresh gas and brought her down to work. A quick clean was first and then up in the air to sort the main issues. A couple of rubber hangers fixed the exhaust alignment problem and the inhibitor switch was replaced after a bit of a fight. It's not easy to get to is it?
Next day it was over to the inspector. Unfortunately she failed. :( It's not too bad, headlight alignment, moisture in the front indicators, worn steering idler. That's all easy stuff. They did however find a bit of rust underneath and some previous repairs that require an engineers cert which could become costly. I duly delivered the car to a friendly engineer on Wednesday. I talked to him on Friday and he hasn't made a decision yet but is getting a colleague to have a look on Monday so fingers crossed! I'll know tomorrow whether this will be major or minor.

On the upside, I did get to drive the thing out to Penrose which is about a 25 min drive. Furthest that's been in 11 years! And she went quite well. A bit fluffy at times and a few rattles and such to sort but a very smooth ride and I'm impressed with the 2200TC/auto combo. Very nice and torquey.
Oh well, no backing out now. One way or another, within the month I will have the car road legal. I just might have a new credit card limit to go with it. :LOL:
 
A 2200TC and auto box should go well together. The key to the TC engine does seem to be to reduce the carbs down to 1 3/4" like the 2200TC, so that you get the good low speed response. The conclusion being that the 2000TC is a tad over-carburettored with the twin 2".

Chris
 
Well, it's been a long time coming but the green machine is finally on the road. The compliancing was done some years ago but subsequent problems with the carbs and brake booster saw the old girl put under a cover when the V8 arrived. The last year has seen me attempting to build a garage which has put all non-essential car stuff put on hold and had my forum input reduced to virtually nothing (I've still been checking in daily though). The garage project has got as far as a concrete slab being laid and while I was recouping some funds for the next stage I thought I'd move a couple of cars onto the slab to clear some space in the driveway. One of these cars was the LHD exhumed from under a cover and a pile of boxes in the carport for the first time in 5 years. I towed it up the back and put a new cover over it. Then I started looking at it. I could actually get to it again. I put a battery in it, cleaned the points and squirted a bit of petrol down the carbs and she started without much fuss! :D So that prompted a fresh burst of activity. The brake booster and fr calipers were removed, cleaned, lubed and reassembled. The HIF carbs were still pissing fuel out and I'd always hated them so I set about adapting a set of HS6 carbs to fit and fitted the early AC air cleaner. The front bumper that came with the car was a V8 one so I finally replaced the correct type and took the opportunity to fit my early alloy overriders (thanks Chris W and Ebay!) and re-mount the icelert. I also fitted a NADA V8 style blacked out grille that I had prepared earlier and fitted my Delanair centre console. (not properly hooked up yet but it looks cool) Then a cut and polish and quick clean and she was on the road for the first time in many, many years.

New grille, overriders and Icelert

Rear overrider.

Delanair.

Engine bay.
After a slight mishap with the radiator, her first outing was to the Galaxy of cars show on 1st of Feb. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great so I didn't take many pictures but I did get to finally use my American dealership display licence plates for the first time.

 
Nice. 8)

I must get round to a bit of grille-blacking on Bruiser. Mind you, I haven't been doing much of anything on her or the other cars over the past few months. Not even driving except the wife's Pug. Boring but mostly reliable (only mostly).
 
It's starting to look like an annual thing with this car. After that car show last Feb I drove it for about a week or so then parked it again in favour of the TC and didn't touch it again 'til December. But I decided it would be nice to have the use of it again and the TC is becoming due for some major attention so I set about getting it back on the road. First off was a session of wire brushing and scraping underneath to sort out the loose underseal and surface rust and then the seized fuel sender was replaced. Annoyingly this resulted in several issues. First I got the pipes around the wrong way, then it transpired that a decent run on the reserve line resulted in fuel starvation and dying in the middle on an intersection (very embarrassing :oops: ) and then one of the brass adaptors started leaking. Must've drained the tank 4 times trying to fix all these probs. But then followed a new wof and rego and a couple of weeks of daily use. Things have been going well so with the aid of a co-worker we gave it a polish. I had a closer look at the Magstars and decided that they could use a refurb so I took the opportunity to tidy my set of Cosmics and fit new tyres. Cosmics were then fitted to the car with new wheelnuts and have to say I really like them. I think the Magstars will be overhauled and used for shows now.

From the front, cool overriders and Icelert on show.

From the back. Crappy mudflaps and non-standard side trims will be replaced in due course.

Good interior (vinyl) with Delanair and newly fitted early tacho pod.

All the left hand drives together!
 
Looking really good! Cosmics are a great wheel design and they really suit the series one P6.
In the first photo it looks as if your doorfruit tree has grown a nice crop. Pluck 'em before they spoil, won't you. :wink:
 
I think they suit the car. Oddly enough the only other P6 I have seen in NZ with Cosmics is a very nice series 1 V8 in Arden green. This is the second set of Cosmics I have owned, my first set (which were pretty rough) were stolen from the shed at work a year ago. I was amazed to find another set on Trade me last year in better condition so jumped on them immediately.

That doorfruit is in ok condition and will be transferred up to the shed soon. Just out of shot is a pile of rear wingberries but sadly they are all rotten. :wink:
 
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