MikeMelb
Active Member
Trivial compared to Mr Rouse.What was actually the problem Mike?
I've pieced it together based on a few of the bits of paper I saved with my delivery docs.
On delivery the bonnet release did not function properly and there was a great deal of paint over spray and evidence of general body work having been done, relatively poorly, before delivery. We set off pretty well straight away for Scotland to "run in" the car. Almost immediately one of the fuses blew and after struggling to open the bonnet, discovered that there were no spare fuses. On the first petrol stop the car filled with petrol fumes. Light pressure on the back of the front passenger seat caused it to fall away.
On stopping to jack the car up to look for the petrol leak, discovered oil leaking fairly heavily from the final drive, automatic transmission and engine sump. Thought I'd better check levels and after struggling to open the bonnet noticed quite a bit of oil leaking from the steering box.
Rubber around the front quarter window had come adrift, misaligned bonnet had rubbed paint off front fender.
Car tended to stall when slowing down, yet the transmission wanted to surge away rather than creep. There were clunks in the drive train and front suspension.
So those were the items to which the Rover company was responding.
Subsequently, before the first service, the carpets in the floor wells became totally saturated with water presumably due to lack of proper sealing somewhere in the base unit.
There were numerous other things which have faded in my non-existent memory, but I did take the car up to Solihull and leave it with them for about a week before I left England.
Travelling in Europe when the car was between 12 and 18 months old, the voltage regulator gave up in northern Finland.
At a service in Malmö Sweden they diagnosed that the transmission leak was due to "Plain washer for flange was missing on the gearbox" . This may have lost something in translation but suggests that whatever remedial action was taken by the Rover company previously had missed this item, or perhaps caused it.
Clearly the design of the car was brilliant for its time it is a pity the execution was so lacking.
Anyhow forty-seven and a half years later none of this really matters.
And whilst I shudder to tally how much it has cost over that time truth is it has survived rather well. Getting it out of Europe's climate and salted roads no doubt helped.
Last edited: