My 72 3500S work in progress

[Dave3066]

I thought it was about time I took a leaf from some other forum users books and consolidated the story of my daily driver.

BACKGROUND

Back in early 2009 I was coming out of the RAF and looking for another job. One of the good things about coming out of the military is the support and time they give you to start a new career. I had 3 months off (on full pay) at the start of 2009 in which to find a job. Thankfully I managed to do just that and started in my current job in June 2009. One of the other really, really good things about being in the military as long as I was is the pension you get when you leave. I won't go into details but suffice to say that I'm now, and have been for the last 2 years, completely debt free thank you very much HM Forces Pensions.

Anyway I had a bit of spare cash so I started looking for a new car. At this time I was running a 1999 2.5 V6 Vectra CDX. Lovely car, fully loaded, brilliant cruiser for getting me up and down the A9/A1 every weekend to see my good lady. I put 40k miles a year on that car in 2 years. Round about March 2009 it started playing up. When I realised that the vauxhall technicians didn't have a clue and could only clutch at proverbial straws I made the decision to get another car. I'd always been a home mechanic and done all my own work on cars up until about 2001 when I coudn't be bothered and chose to let "the experts" do it whilst I enjoyed my life. After the shenanigans with the Vectra I decided that I wanted to return to a car that I could look after myself. The Rover P6 had always had a certain appeal, despite no-one I have known in my life until now ever having owned one. I remember stories about the V8 powered cars and had seen a few sorry looking cars seemingly abandoned on housing estates in the late 80s/early 90s. I'd always viewed it as one of those executive type cars that I would have driven in the 70s had I been in a job like the one I'm in today.

So I started the search, joined the forum and did my research. I was looking for a good condition, reliable car that I could use every day and I had a max of about £5k to spend. After a few weeks searching I spotted this one

It seemed a good looking car so I went to have a look. I was living in Suffolk at this time so it was a bit of drive to Chesterfield to view this car but I wasn't disappointed when I got there. The seller left me alone with the car to have a good look over it so armed with my buyers guide I set about looking in all the usual places for corrosion. The base unit appeared to be in excellent condition. The one area I missed completely was under the back seats. I can’t remember if I lifted them out but I was later to find problems down there that would require future work. Maybe I should’ve walked away when the seller proceeded to explain that I couldn’t look under the bonnet because the last time he’d parked the car he’d not quite fully applied the handbrake and as a result the car had rolled slowly forward into the front of the garage. The only damage visible was a slight bend in both the nearside edge of the front bumper and a slight kink in the bonnet. The seller said that these would be sorted before he would let the car go, which I was reasonably content with. I took the car for a test drive and she drove very well. No knocks, engine pulled well, gearchange ok, all the switches worked etc. So I made the seller an offer and we settled on a price subject to the aforementioned items being fixed. I then left, arranging to collect the car in a couple of weeks. This was May 2009.

Some pics of the car as they appeared in the ad:

Note the horrible steering wheel cover and soft furry centre console…..both of those would go very quickly!

So back I went to collect the car having been told that it was now ready. I had a good look under the bonnet to make sure everything was straight and off we went.

 

[Dave3066]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

The cars first journey was north to Scotland and a slot at the SARR at Thirlestane Castle. I was driving the Rover and my good lady was driving the Vectra. Half way up the A1 the Vectra broke down! We managed to get it to the hard shoulder and called the RAC. The RAC agreed to take the car back to Suffolk whilst we headed north and onwards to Scotland. It was quite amusing sitting on the hard shoulder of the A1 imagining everyone who passed laughing at the old car that had broken down and knowing that the Rover was perfectly ok. We made it to the SARR and the Rover’s first show with us. A couple of pics from that day:

Well gents I think that will do for a start. There will be more tales of my daily driver when I get time to consolidate a few more posts.

Oh one final thing to mention is that we thought we should give our Rover a name. We gave this quite a bit of thought and despite the fact that the car might have already been named, see air cleaner box below…….we settled on Verity. So Verity the V8 daily driver she is.

Dave

 

[happy days]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

Good post Dave, bit of a culture shock jumping from the vauxhall with the mod cons to an early 70s motor I bet. It does look good though and 1300 miles a month, wouldn't mind owning the petrol garage near you.

 

[Tam]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

Good stuff Dave, i can follow this one from the beginning , Verity looked good from the start and i know you will have made several changes

 

[SydneyRoverP6B]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

It's a great car Dave... One to keep forever!

How many miles has it covered Dave if you don't mind me asking?

Ron.

 

[Dave3066]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

It's a great car Dave... One to keep forever!

How many miles has it covered Dave if you don't mind me asking?

Ron.

Hi Ron

No of course I don't mind you asking. The odometer has just gone over to 30k so it's covered 130k, with over 30k of that in the last 2 years.

Dave

 

[testrider]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

It's great to hear how people come around to owning their cars - I think the members projects section is much more that just 'How I welded the such and such', owning them and running them makes interesting reading too.

You bought a nice one and have sorted out the niggles and made it better. I'm fairly sure that you would get a few niggles to sort when you buy a P6 at any price so it's not worth debating whether you should have spent more or less to buy it - as long as you're happy with it that's all that counts.

 

[Dave3066]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

Ok then guys and gals, sorry for the delay, far too long I know :roll: , back to the story…….

The car had the usual gremlins that you might find on any old car. The first one that threw me a bit was the fact that both indicator repeaters on the dash would flash when indicating left or right. A lot of head scratching was done on this fault. I pored through the wiring diagram for ages trying to figure out the current paths for the indicators and the repeaters. Eventually it came down to a bad earth from Socket B pin 11 on the instrument circuit board so the lights were finding their own earth. I cleaned up the earth wire (Light green & purple) terminal at the RHS bulkhead inside the driver's glovebox and it all started working as it should.

I then had 4 months of trouble free Rovering…..until the gear selector started playing up. Initially it was only evident when the gears crunched every time I changed down from 3rd to 2nd, but it would later become much worse and eventually lock up the whole selector mechanism.

There was much questioning and lying under the car on the street in pitch blackness trying to figure out what was going on. There was even talk of “5 speed conversions” ooooooh! I was having none of that though as I wanted to keep the car as original as I could.

The problem was indeed the selector though and not the gearbox itself. When I removed the gearstick the little knob on the end had completely worn down (or the bush that should’ve been fitted was gone). You can see the original on the left compared to a good one on the right.



Unfortunately the only gearstick I could get at short notice was about a foot long :shock: (well it felt like that compared to the short one I had), but I made do with it until I could get some time to sort the entire selector mechanism. It was during all this work that I discovered there were at least 3 different lengths of gearstick for the P6. The one that came with the car was a mid-length one, which I’ve not encountered again yet. I now have the very short one fitted, but more on that later.

I bought a new selector finger and remote shaft bushes and set about dropping the gearbox ‘a-la’ Harvey’s instructions to gain access to the selector mechanism. When it became obvious that my fingers were nowhere near long or agile enough to remove the remote mounting plate with the gearbox in situ, the gearbox had to come out. At this stage I’d never removed a gearbox before (from any car), I was doing this at the weekend and needed the car for work on Monday and I was doing it at the side of the road. Anyway, out came the gearbox for a good clean and for new selector shaft bushes and finger.

So from this:

to this:

With some of this on the way

Suffice to say that once all this had been done the gear selection was a million times better and continues to be to this day

More work in other areas would follow on not long after this when the alternator decided to pack up on the way home from work on a dark, cold winter evening :evil:

Dave

 

[harveyp6]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

The selector striker lever that you removed was the later type with the nylon bush on it that breaks and falls off, giving lots and lots of play, but you knew that didn't you. It will take a while for the new one to wear. With that and the ball missing off the bottom of the gearlever I'm surprised you managed to get any gears at all. I can't say I would have taken the box out, even though it is a bit of a stretch, but at least your box is nice and clean now. I'm glad there are still people about who are doing jobs like this in the gutter. Most people have got it far too easy these days.....

 

[harveyp6]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

I was doing this at the weekend and needed the car for work on Monday

Dave

That's a phrase I haven't heard in a long while, more's the pity. Back in the day that was most people's priority, but nowadays as most of the cars are "hobby" cars, jobs get put back until time and funds allow.

 

[quattro]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

I'm glad there are still people about who are doing jobs like this in the gutter. Most people have got it far too easy these days.....

After many years in my youth crawling about underneath my P6 on wet grass when welding, spending many a happy hour looking for the small screw/bolt/nut/fixing in the gravel drive, ramming screwdrivers into the oversized/worn out open ended spanner to get it tight on the nut, borrowing tools because mine were never up to the job, struggling in the dark on a Sunday night, and trying to rebuild cars with a haynes manual, I am glad to say that I am NOT one of these people and am happy that I have it too easy... 8)

Richard

 

[Dave3066]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

I'm glad there are still people about who are doing jobs like this in the gutter. Most people have got it far too easy these days.....

I am glad to say that I am NOT one of these people and am happy that I have it too easy... 8)

Richard

Now that I have a nice warm garage to work in I'm happy to say that I'm not one of those people now either

I think everyone should be made to work in the gutter at an early stage of their "hobby" to ensure they have an adequate appreciation of just how easy people have got it these days :wink:

Dave

 

[webmaster]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

I think most of us (of an age anyway) have served our apprenticeships in the gutter, so to speak.

I remember changing engines in a Chevette in the snow, we built my old convertible outside, I've welded rear spring seat repairs in the rain, hiding under the car

And because my garage is full of immobilised P6 project and junk, I still have to do day to day repairs out on the drive, which is gravel and a real pain to use.

I have however been planning an extension to the garage to give me more room, but that all changed a couple of days back when I came up with a scheme to demolish the garage and build a bigger garage & house extension, incorporating a 4 post lift, now that will be luxury if I can pull it off.

 

[rottenlungs]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

Couldn`t help but agree about the apprenticeship on the roadside. I did a minor rolling resto of a series IIA landrover (109" 2.25lt) which at one point included swapping the back axle in the snow, this would have been in Bristol in winter 1991 - 92 at the tender age of 18, just! I grew up in a fairly swish street and the neighbours grew to 'love' the sweet smell of EP-80 oil that used to sluice from her many gearboxes..

Back to your very nice 3500S, what is with the paintjob on the aircleaner? Very glamorous..

Cheers

James

 

[Dave3066]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

Back to your very nice 3500S, what is with the paintjob on the aircleaner? Very glamorous..

Hi James

The air cleaner box had already been painted like that when I got the car. I looked up Ragnar after I got the car and apparently Ragnar Lodbrok (Ragnar "Hairy-Breeks", Old Norse: Ragnarr Loðbrók) to give him his full name, was a Norse legendary hero from the Viking Age. Hence the link with Rover.

It's a good story anyway

Dave

 

[SydneyRoverP6B]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

Dave3066 wrote,...

More work in other areas would follow on not long after this when the alternator decided to pack up on the way home from work on a dark, cold winter evening

Hi Dave,

Did it turn out to be brushes or was it the regulator that gave up the ghost?

Ron.

 

[Dave3066]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

Ron

Without jumping too far ahead in the story.....although this happened nearly 2 years ago now ......

The main feed terminal to the alternator decided it had had enough and corroded away to virtually nothing. It wasn't as simple a fix as replacing the alternator though (when is it ever that easy) so there's a bit of an "I learnt about Lucas charging systems from that" type story to follow

Dave

 

[rottenlungs]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

Thanks Dave, that`s a good yarn. It is nicely painted - the kind of thing that wouldn`t look out of place on a showman`s traction engine.

On the subject of daily drives, I bought my P6 in 2002 and commuted across the Wellington region in NZ for 3 years, apart from getting hot if stuck in traffic for too long she didn`t miss a beat. Plus, 3500`s are good sleepers because they look pretty stately but still have plenty of torque when needed.

Cheers

Back to your very nice 3500S, what is with the paintjob on the aircleaner? Very glamorous..

Hi James

The air cleaner box had already been painted like that when I got the car. I looked up Ragnar after I got the car and apparently Ragnar Lodbrok (Ragnar "Hairy-Breeks", Old Norse: Ragnarr Loðbrók) to give him his full name, was a Norse legendary hero from the Viking Age. Hence the link with Rover.

It's a good story anyway

Dave

 

[Dave3066]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

The next job on the car was to get the distributor reconditioned prior to fitting an electronic ignition system. I’d toyed with the idea of leaving the points set-up alone but I very quickly got fed up cleaning points to cure the odd misfire etc. I managed to source a distributor for not very much money on eBay and, following a recommendation from Brian-Northampton, sent it off to H&H Ignition to be completely refurbished. The guys at H&H did a great job on it and it came back all sparkly clean and ready to go.

The old one shown above wasn't in too shoddy a condition

Nice shiny new one

Taking things one step at a time I swapped out the newly refurbished distributor for the old one and decided to leave the points in it to make sure it was operating correctly. Once I’d established that it did, apart from an odd erratic dwell angle fault, I set about fitting the Pertronix Ignitor and Flamethrower coil. The first installation did not go well with the car refusing to start :evil: . There was much discussion about ballasted coils and rev counter feeds, ignition timing and power supplies for the ignition module etc but it turned out to be a faulty module (more :evil: :evil: ). A new module was fitted, for which I’ve used the ignition fed 12V supply to the windscreen washer bottle (more on that later too) and I’m pleased to report that after more than 2 years the set-up is working very well and I’ve had no problems with it

A couple of months later and the front suspension would require some work to sort out a load knock coming from the passenger side. That was caused by some very worn shock absorber bushes. I could’ve got away with replacing just the bushes; however, not knowing how long the shocks had been fitted I decided to replace them (new polybushes too).

This brought about my first encounter with one of those “special” tools that we should all have a full set of (or at least know someone who has). It’s a great feeling when the job is going well but you get to stage when you realise you don’t have said “special” tool. This usually happens when the car is in bits and you’re trying to put it back together. Normally it’s something simple like that bolt that none of your sockets fits properly, or the nut that’s tucked away where all your spanners are too long to get into and you can be sure the toolbox grows by one more tool following that. For the purposes of this job it was the lower shock mount bush compression tool that squashes the bush sufficiently to allow the split pin to go through the correct set of holes. After a good hot cuppa a solution was found using a spanner and a long hex driver attachment.

These days I use a hex driver attachment and a fork type balljoint splitter.

Job done though and the silky smooth P6 ride was restored to normality again. The next job would manifest just over a month after this one and was the dreaded alternator saga….

So in that time honoured fashion I’ll leave you all hanging on that note and post the next part of the story shortly……….

 

[testrider]

Re: My Daily Driver - 72 3500S

What do they actually do to recondition a distributor - there's not a lot in there is there?