Tam

This turned up at the start of a Routemaster road run yesterday. 

Had a sticker in the window saying it was number 5 of 10 ZT-T made in Monogram Nocturne. 
Wide angle shot to include some RMs 

Still blowing here at 3am. Been some mad gusts. Loads of people close by have been without electric since 8pm and no chance of getting it back on before 12 tomorrow. Just about every road around here has fallen trees and branches. 
Horrendous but we've gotten away with it so far. Mainly minor damage to Garden stuff. O2 network has been down for hours, presumably mast damage! 
Plenty firewood tomorrow though. 

Still blowing here at 3am. Been some mad gusts. Loads of people close by have been without electric since 8pm and no chance of getting it back on before 12 tomorrow. Just about every road around here has fallen trees and branches. 
Horrendous but we've gotten away with it so far. Mainly minor damage to Garden stuff. O2 network has been down for hours, presumably mast damage! 
Plenty firewood tomorrow though. 

Project drive on the blue pens also! Nothing on the case just a tiny 75 on the metal bit. 

The Rovervitus is alive and well..... Despite my recent fleet downsize and promising myself and my wife i simply didn't need anymore cars.... Assuring her that i was planning to retire from saving and restoring Rovers to which i had committed myself to for many years, I went out and bought this today as luck would have it its only my wife's favorite colour (the same as her 25) so it kind of numbed the blow and she even cooked me Sheppard's pie for tea.... Normally i would get fuck all after another car purchase...

 
Its a 1983 2600 S.... So its not quite as blessed as my SD1 Vanden Plas but its a beauty all the same! Its got 83k on the clock a boot full of spares and a folder full of history obviously theirs a few niggles to sort out here and there but after restoring my other SD1 it really shouldn't be a problem weather permitting! 
 

 
It looks to be solid and has a fairly good MOT history for a 38 year old Rover!  Few paint bubbles but the interior is near immaculate as you can see
 


 
Lovely beige interior very similar to my 827 Fastback and i genuinely cant believe how good the door cards are.  It should be arriving fairly soon so will post more about it then but hoping to service it and get it straight off for MOT once it arrives! 
Long live Rover and all who sail in them! 

Running out of usable tested cars so need something to tide me over just in case.
The cars I have with the longest test aren't working correctly, Camry was just tested recently and now dead, the brat has a horrible grinding coming from the front brakes which leaves me with the 505 which runs out of test this month, an ldv pilot tested until next year and a 1978 Skoda Estelle to rely on. Everything else is out of test or slightly broken.
Also I quite enjoyed having a modern shitter last winter in the form of a mini of similar vintage so the focus will do for winter duties.

Sent from my moto g( power using Tapatalk

Oooh very nice! 
Alarms are a pain in the arse. One of the reasons I've not further investigated why my Xsara won't lock and unlock from the remote is it'll then set the alarm, and who knows what state that's in 😂 Turning the key in the lock locks the car but doesn't alarm it. Much safer. 
I remember a few years ago joining all the neighbors at 2.45am when the bloke over the way's mazda xedos kept setting its alarm off even when it wasn't locked and even running. I had my socket set under my arm so we took the neutral off the battery and we all went to bed. 

So, it's autumn now.

I knew that getting back into welding would be difficult, but I thought I would have remembered something! Turns out to not be the case, and it is like I am starting from scratch. I had also forgotten how much time it takes to make the repair patches. Oh well, it is started. My welds are not pretty but seem to be strong and the last ones were a big improvement on the first ones, and I managed to get two of the three patches on the first arch completed before my LED worklight went flat so darkness stopped play. Will continue tomorrow.

I posted these same photos on Facebook and had quite a lot of hate and told I should have done a "decent" paint job and the car looks shit as it is.
I never claimed it looked amazing but I'm happy with the progress I've made with it and now it's looking a bit more like a car it might spur me on to get it finished. I'm not sure a decent paint job will make much difference, it's still covered in dents!
Some people need to lower their expectations.

Obligatory roadside photos though!
 

BOOM



If only the photos could convey the Rover smell this car has. L’eau d’longbridge. Magnificent. 

Managed to pick up another one a few months back...  11800 miles from new, and in a Monogram colour - Chatsworth Gold.
Unfortunately it transpired after I bought it, that it had a significant water ingress problem, and while I was investigating that, it snapped the aux belt which put it out of action for a while. Over the summer I stripped the interior out totally, and sorted the various water ingress points (sunroof drains / missing plenum tubes) before sourcing an excellent condition replacement carpet (the old one was a bit too far gone) and building the interior back up. I was encouraged to see that the floor was in excellent condition with no corrosion. 
We're back on the road now, and although there are still a few things to sort - it's bloody lovely wafting around in what is basically an 'as new' Rover 75.

It’s getting more random, I’ve just been asked to review a wireless doorbell 😂 

Ta da!

Spotted this a few years ago now - don't think I've posted it. Hands down the best plate I've ever seen, probably the best plate that will ever be.

I have the pleasure of looking after Audrey for a week 😁 I took her out today for a drive into Bath (there is a ? battery drain so she needs running every few days) She started absolutely perfectly btw, no evidence of a drain. Now this is the first time I have driven a 75 properly, I gotta say it was sublime. She gently wafts along floating over the bumps, and after getting past 20mph you cannot really tell she is an old diesel.I have always loved the interior of the 75, and even with a few bits still in the boot it is a lovely place to sit! I guess my only gripe would be that I find the seat bases a little short so there is no behind the knee support for me. She has the absolute potential to be a really lovely wafter and a great place to munch miles in. Approval granted 👍

And then in April 2017 I found this a five minute walk from our house. 


 
Anyone familiar with the 75/ZT forum will recognise this as one of the pre production test cars. It never left the Longbridge site until they went under in 2015 apart from the odd TV job dressed as a police car. 

And here still wearing police colours but also an MG Rover logo, like Longbridge internal police. 

There were plans afoot on the forum to have it restored but it certainly hadn't happened by this point. It was even on trims, which are quite rare in themselves. 

 
It hasn't  been there for a while but this red one that was with it at the same time is still there. 

 

Lets start with the exterior! Genuine barn find this one. Lived in an actual barn for the last two years and comes covered in actual barn find dust. Its 35 years old and has done 281k. So you would think the worst. But actually... Its not that bad!
The paint. Oh the paint... Its lifting, peeling and cracking everywhere. And I havent even washed it yet!
The doors are the worst so far. All four are bowed at the bottom and crispy. I cant see any major holes but theyre all in a pretty poor shape.
The front wings are ok. Rough round the arch edge but not rotten and not thin. Theyll get some brushed on hammerite to help them last.
Rear arches. Drivers side is fine. Again rough round the edge but not thin. The passenger side is worse. See picture. Its holed and very thin. However the plastic arch liner has saved most of the wheel well. Im undecided what to do here but I really like the rough look so whatever it gets will be minimal.
Floors and sills. Really good! No holes. Paint is flaking but the car seems to be undersealed so floors and sills have survived well. I will wire brush and reseal.
Bootlid is the wrong colour and theres paint sag in various places. But it has all the correct badges in my opinion!
It definitely needs a new set of tyres. Two dont hold air and the two that do are cracked like nothing I have ever seen. Every tyre is different but they are at least imperial so easy to source. Anyone got any recommendations for an equivalent modern size for 165R13?

Rover went to a new home in Peterhead this morning, got £700 for it so happy with that.

Drove this again the other day. It's totally fucking wonderful.

That's all. Thanks for reading.

Symptoms include: Divorce. Multiple Rovers. Empty bank accounts and hoarding of parts from years 1977 to 2005. 
My Rovervitis is so bad i am now buying back cars i previously sold...
So a few years ago i rescued this Rover 45 Saloon it was a 1.8 CVT of which they were only known to be three of on the road with this colour and interior. I remember at the time a chap called Craig Cheetham had the V6 model and he wrote an article on the car. it was one of the first cars off the production line and was a press car for its model. It had the rarest of the personal line interiors catkin green valour and an exterior colour celadon green pearl of which only featured on Rovers 45s for the first four months of production making it quite rare in its own right.
It had been sat in a yard in Birmingham for a few years and was in a very bad state mechanically so when i bought it i had a partial restoration done just to get it back on the road. However on the way home from Birmingham the engine blew up pistons one and four if i remember rightly straight through the block. Once the RAC got it home after a four hour wait on the hard shoulder i spent the next few months fully restoring it new engine box the works i did the lot below is a picture of the car when it was finished.

When it was finished i drove the car regularly and in that time it earnt the name Christine due to it giving my wife static shocks when getting in and out of the car and it not starting occasionally whenever she decided to drive it. The car also decided to spin out on a roundabout once at 40mph for no apparent reason but never caused me any issues and was a very comfortable reliable and enjoyable car.
 

 
After about two years of ownership i sold it to a chap down south and i never saw it again until last week when it popped up on FB marketplace it was listed as a non runner and its MOT has expired so i bought it back.
It will now be restored for a third time only this time il be keeping the car and will no doubt use it for the 100 mile daily commute to work. Which i am currently doing in an 827 so off the top of my head il cut my fuel consumption in half driving the 45.

Surely the ultimate registration for a lorry, HGV 1 seen on the M40 this morning. The same firm has 1 HGV too.

Monogram ZT-T in Taunton today. Diesel. Sorry to say not looking well looked after.