My 2000TC 'Minstrel' needs a lot of TLC..

suffolkpete said:
Hopefully the starter Colin supplied will be ok, but for future reference, a good place to go for starter, or any other electrical work, is Nacton Auto Electric, of Ipswich, they overhauled my starter in a day and charged £42.
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Thanks, Pete. I'll bear that in mind. may be worth getting the old one repaired for a spare.
 
Fortunately I have had a few days to work on 'Minstrel' due to not being required at work over the Christmas period.
Update on the starter motor: the one I received from Colin done the same as my original and will not spin properly. I have taken it to a place in Lowestoft to get it repaired.
I have just finished cleaning and repairing the rear suspension which I took off a few weeks ago.. Fitted a replacement o/s elbow and n/s trailing arm. Just need to get a new lower bush for the o/s trailing arm. Will sort that from Geoff in a couple of weeks.
Here's the photos:











More to follow in time. Stay safe, guys and gals!! Happy New Year to everyone of you.
 
Good morning fellow P6 Rover lovers. Just a quick progress update on The Minstrel . I have finished all the welding now. I have finished repairing and spraying and refitting the De-dion Suspension system. The rear brake calipers have been removed, repaired, resprayed and refitted. The starter motor has been repaired and refitted. My son, Shane and I have got the engine running again. It took a while to get it running as we had to replace some wiring and sort the timing out properly before it would fire. As I had had the carb off for cleaning that had to be reset. The Minstrel now starts up virtually first and idles over nicely. The centre joint on the exhaust has been repaired as it was badly split and blowing. I am now onto the front brakes. I have had to cut both the o/s and n/s copper pipes that connect to the flexi-pipe on both sides as they unions would not come undone. Am also going to have to replace the flexi-pipe/copper brake pipe union mount to the suspension strut as both of these sheared off trying to undo the unions. I have had trouble with the o/s caliper as unfortunately I managed to shear one of the 2 smaller clamping bolts. Fortunately for me they were not high tensile steel and managed to safely drill it out. I managed to get some new replacement bolts from Westgate Fastenings for £0.80p. I had to drill out the bleed nipple and have replaced it with a new one. This had to be done on both Calipers. I have split both calipers to renew the seals. The O/S Caliper has been totally cleaned and resprayed and is ready for refit when I get some new copper pipe and unions. I am going to finish the N/S caliper today. The brake pads do not need replacing as they are all in great condition and have plenty of miles left in them.

Sorry for lack of photos at the moment but I am having to go through all the renovation process photos on Photobucket as I cannot get them to list properly as I title each photo. I have tried to list them numerically as I take them but this has not been very successful. This is really annoying as there are probably over 200 photos to sort. I will post links when I have sorted them out.

Many thanks to all concerned who helped me out with sound advice in the last couple of months.
 
Update on Front Caliper refurbishments. Fitted both caliper back on The Minstrel. Bled both sides completely. Brakes work great now. Down side is the n/s caliper now has a leak. The leak looks to be coming from between the 2 halves. I am wondering if I have pinched a seal in either of the piston bores or the small sealing rubber that sits in one half of the caliper. Was reading up on possibles causes when I came across the 'pinching' scenario. I want to thank Gary (Rovering) for his response to my request of another caliper. He has offered me one for a reasonable price. I have replied to him to say I am going to check for 'pinching' at the weekend and will get back to him.
 
Good morning people. Sorry for lack of project updates in the last few months. Apart from work commitments I have been spending nearly all my time getting The Minstrel ready for her MOT. I put all her interior back together after a bloody good clean of the seats. Put new carpet in too. Gave her a good coating of underseal all over underneath. I spent a full day a 3 Saturdays ago getting all the lights working properly. Tuned and timed the engine and made sure the emissions were good. Checked all the fluids. I couldn't figure out why the gears were hard to change. So I checked the clutch.Cylinder only to find it was totally empty. Filled that up and is was a bit easier to change gear. I checked the brakes and found the handbrake wasn't working properly. I dismantled the rear brakes and took off the handbrake mechanism. It was totally seized with dirt and rust. Took it down the workshop, stripped it right down and cleaned it up. Put it back together and put it back on the car. Tried the handbrake. It worked perfectly as it should. Booked the MOT for the following Monday. Driving her over to the MOT at Premier in Beccles, I could feel the brakes didn't feel right and the exhaust was blowing a good 'un. Went back later and he said she had failed. No surprise there! But it never failed on what I expected! She failed on: (1) Dip headlight wasn't working one side although it was when I done the lights. (2) The windscreen washer not working. Found it had a broken pipe inside. (3) 4 small holes I had missed when welding. My son sorted the headlight problem for me. I done the welding bits over a couple of days. Repaired the windscreen washer. I took Minstrel back to Premier yesterday. She passed with flying colours!!! After picking her up from the MOT we drove to my friend's to let him know. We got stuck in really heavy traffic (no surprise in Lowestoft!!) and she started to cough and splutter. Thought she was going to stall a couple of time. Anyway we got to where we were going. When we went to leave my mate's she wouldn't start. She just wouldn't fire. There was a good spark at the points but not getting to the plugs. I took the dizzy cap and cleaned the contacts. Put it back on turned the key she fired up. But very erratic. Misfiring and choking out. We managed to get her running okay enough to start the drive home. We drove less than a mile and got in traffic again where she stalled! Eventually managed to get her running again after a couple of minutes. We drove no more than a few hundred yards and got stuck again behind a muppet who needs to learn to drive again. Right on Lowestoft bridge she cut out again. Some kind guy helped us push her off the road where I managed to get her running again. We eventually got home and parked her up. I am certain the fault is to do with the carb as she is seriously over-fuelling and I think that is causing the the plugs to misfire. Me and my son are now going to have a look at the problem. Will update later. But I am so happy and proud she is finally on the road!
 
Good work! And encouraging to read that the teething troubles haven't left you too despondent. You'll soon have them sorted and really begin to enjoy driving.
 
My V8 had similar stalling issues, purely down to lack of servicing (by the previous owner, of course...). If you renew the ignition service items & filters etc & then tune it up, I'm sure it will be cured!
Keep going - nearly there now!
 
I would check your floats Stephen. Over fueling can be caused by the float developing a leak and sinking. Fortunately Burlen sells new ones.

Other thoughts are boiling the float chambers, I had that problem with my car fitted with HIF6 carbs. The float chambers are on the underside of the carb body so that and modern petrol with ethanol (~5% here in New Jersey) meant the fuel boiled, floats sank because of boiling fluid and over fueling fuel flooding out of the float chamber vents.
 
Great news about after all your hard work.

TC is hard beast to set up til you get the knack of it. Check the floats and needle valves. I had terrible trouble with replacement valve not seating therefore over fueling. also check both chokes are going off you wont get far when the cars warmed up and one of the chokes are sticky.
 
Thanks for your comments and advice, guys. Have since found out problem is nothing to with over-fuelling. Believe it or not there is no spark at No1 plug. We have tried changing plug, changing lead, points, condenser even swapping leads around....with no change to problem. she runs reasonably well on 3 but a bit lumpy. I have spoken to all of my close friends who all have classics from Mk's II and III Zephyrs, Zodiacs, Consuls and Caddis. None of them can explain or find what is causing this to happen. Strangest thing happened this afternoon. When we got back from a Classic Rally in Lowestoft, my son and I thought we would have another look at the problem. A friend lent me some LED plugs to check the spark on my plugs. We put all 4 on, started the car, all 4 plugs were sparking! Took the LED's off and started her again. Took the No1 lead off, no change in engine sound or power. Still no spark on the lead. Nothing wrong with lead as we tried it on another plug. I thought I would check the timing. So connected the leads to the battery and to No1 plug. Started the car and the strobe light was working! If there was no power going through the lead why was the strobe light working! This really has me buggered and confused. Any clues, please?
 
I forgot to add my car is running on a single carb. This was changed prior to my owning the car. And Also from what I have seen she is not running rich.
 
Lack of compression won't be the problem if you have no spark*, but TBH from what you say I'm not sure that you don't have a spark.

* Unless you've got 2 problems of course....
 
harveyp6 said:
Lack of compression won't be the problem if you have no spark*, but TBH from what you say I'm not sure that you don't have a spark.

* Unless you've got 2 problems of course....
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I know the problem is electrical not mechanical. When the car is being driven it doesn't feel like it is only running on 3 cylinders. Although a bit lumpy it seems to drive reasonably well for a 45 years old car. Also the car hasn't been driven in at least 15 months although the engine has been run a few times.
 
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