Zelandeth

Dentist checkup.
Oh look, I need yet another three fillings, and one of them is bloody huge.  That will be two further visits and £400 please.
Oh joy.

I almost had a crisis when I saw the Lada Niva. It's a 64 reg, left hand drive of course.

Dentist checkup.
Oh look, I need yet another three fillings, and one of them is bloody huge.  That will be two further visits and £400 please.
Oh joy.

We be home.

Only +10 minutes from Google's original estimate which I thought wasn't bad going.


She had one distinct cough after we'd sat in a traffic queue for 15 mins or so, but other than that didn't miss a beat the whole 120 miles home.  I reckon that cough was just one of the plugs getting loaded up a bit most likely.
Used exactly half a tank of fuel which my math makes to be roughly 45mpg.
It is possibly the strangest car I have ever driven.  
I guess my brain was kind of prepared for it to be in some ways reminiscent of the Lada, but it really isn't (other than being damned noisy at speed).  In the Lada everything is heavy (except the excellent gear shift) and fairly vague.  This is really the polar opposite.  All of the controls are light (the clutch in particular you could press with a finger), and the car feels light and nimble.
Actually gets up and goes a lot better than I expected given the blazing 26bhp on tap.

The fact they have put sound deadening on the underside of the bonnet to attempt to tame the ridiculous amount of noise generated by that engine does somewhat amuse me.
The vast majority of my experience with two stroke engines has been with a couple of Detroit diesel...which share one thing with this, the fact that biblical amounts of noise are generated...I don't think a bit of padding really is going to make much difference!
The car was absolutely happy to buzz along at 55mph and definitely had more to give it needed - but I was definitely taking it easy on the trip home.  Not least because I was having to lean halfway into the passenger seat to see where I was going because the driver's side wiper is loose on the spindle and only wipes about 1/3 of it's intended stroke (most of the time).
Ride is a little bouncy but not at all jarring.  Kind of unavoidable in such a light car, especially with such a comically short wheelbase.  Surprisingly comfortable I found, even if the driving position is exceedingly odd.  

The seat is very low to the floor, and because of where the wheel tub is the pedals are massively offset to the right, the accelerator being well over the centre line of the car I think.
Nice little period accessory, intended to track fuel usage.

It currently seems to be jammed up but I'll see if I can get it working.  Would be nice to be able to set it to when I next needed to plan to refuel.
Something it also shares with the Lada is a heater which could double as a blast furnace.

It is *fiercely* effective.  First air cooled car I've driven which actually has a halfway decent heater, even if it did take me a few minutes to figure out the controls.
Which is a good thing as otherwise keeping the windscreen demisted might have been a bit of a chore given I've apparently got the optional indoor swimming pool specified.

Not particularly surprised.  The windscreen definitely leaks and there's signs of water ingress from around the rear windscreen too - I'll look into that in due course.
There are some areas where the wiring will definitely be needing some TLC.

Plus we've ascertained that there's an earthing issue somewhere in the vicinity of the offside headlight as the indicator is back feeding into the sidelight circuit.
The fuel usage meter is currently dead as when the tank was replaced the sender for that apparently was also removed.  They're pretty cheaply available though so that should be simple enough to reinstate.  It doesn't actually give you any numbers, it's just a bar graph based on flow rate.
The taped in switch was originally for a fog light installation, that will be ousted for a correct switch which actually fits in the dash which I'll probably run a reversing light with as that's actually useful.
It also needs a Damned Good Clean inside and out and a few bits of paintwork touching up which will have it looking a lot better I think.
All in all, quite taken with it so far.  It's a wonderfully bizarre little car, and my immediate reaction is that yes it has shortcomings, but it doesn't seem anywhere near as bad in any way as the urban legends would have you believe.

You know I called that fault resolved?  Yeah... about that.
First thing today I wound up swearing at the fuel pump again as I discovered that it was now leaking from the base gasket.

Thankfully it stopped once I got in there with a stubby wrench and got a little more tension on it.  Without having to remove it from the car yet again.  A job I am thoroughly fed up of doing!

With my confidence boosted by yesterday's good running we went out to drop off a whole bunch of oil at the recycling centre.

Aside from the temperature getting higher on the gauge than I would have liked before the stat opened (the joy of aftermarket parts?), things were going well.
Right up until about 90 seconds after that photo was taken.


That "fixed" fuel pump has only gone and completely stopped pumping now.  Previously when it was playing up I was still getting *some* fuel, so you could nurse it along even when it was acting up.  Today, nope.  Nothing.  My guess is that I'm going to find that one of the valves has unseated itself.  That however is purely going to be to satisfy my curiosity, it clearly just doesn't want to live, so that pump will shortly be getting chucked in the scrap metal bin.  Not without a certain degree of vindictive pleasure I might say given how much time I've wasted on it.
Electric pump and blank off plate have been ordered, along with a few other bits and pieces.

Thankfully a friend of mine only lives a few minutes away, so salvation arrived driving a Nissan Pixo and gave me a run back home (seriously, I was like five minutes drive away) to grab a couple of things to hopefully get me going again.  Especially as recovery was estimating about two hours of a wait.  Made it clear to the operator that we would be trying to get the car going in the meantime, and would call them up to cancel recovery if we were successful.  I also asked for them to get the recovery agent to give us a call for an update before actually dispatching.
Grabbed all of the testing setup from a couple of days ago - which thankfully I hadn't reattached to TPA yet.  One very quick and dirty get-me-home bodge was thrown together.



Janky as all hell, but it worked.  Car didn't miss a beat on the way home.

Really frustrating when gremlins like this appear as it runs this smoothly now when actually getting fuel.
Which shows I think that we are actually making progress, even if it maybe didn't feel like it this afternoon.
Shout out to Reeve's Recovery too.  Contrary to the call handler's estimate, they called to say they were in the area and would be with me in less than 30 minutes - right about the point at which we got the car going.  They were really polite though, even though they had basically just wasted their time because Autoaid hadn't passed on my message asking them to call us.
So, hopefully in a few days we will be back up and running - without that blasted fuel pump.  
May use that opportunity to drop the radiator off to be recored, will see how time goes.  Or I may tidy this setup a bit more.  Main thing I need to do is to get an ignition switched wire into somewhere accessible in the engine bay.  An additional component I will be ordering will be an inertia switch to kill power to the pump in the event of an impact.  Any vehicle using an electric fuel pump really should have one fitted.

Tentatively calling this one resolved.
Had a look earlier on today and there was definitely an eccentric on the cam, and it looked to be intact from what I could see.
The arm on the pump looks to be fine.

Bit of wear but nothing I'd expect to cause issues functionally.  No plastic end piece or anything on here on any of the new pumps I saw on sale so I don't think anything is missing.  I do wonder about a spacer on the block as it really would help with heat management, but looking at how the rigid fuel line lines up it doesn't look like there was ever one there.  Plus I can't see one in any of the diagrams I have.
A bit of experimentation continued, and I discovered something.  The pump would expel fluid through the outlet with great enthusiasm - however what it wouldn't do was suck anything in through the intake.  Leaky valve...
Said valves were changed when the pump was rebuilt - that was a pig of a job without a vice to hold the pump body in as removing the old ones eventually required quite a bit of violence.


What did I eventually discover on closer inspection?
A bit of bloody dog hair wedged in the suction side check valve.
I blame my "helper" who was assisting me during the rebuild process.

With said hair removed, the pump reassembled (again), and refitted (again) I'm glad to report that we had a proper flow of fuel at the outlet again.

Everything was connected back up sans any bodgery from yesterday.

and I went out for about half an hour of driving around in circles without any incidents.  Right up to the point where the car which had been running flawlessly cut out without any warning - halfway around a dual carriageway roundabout.
Mercifully I was pointing downhill at the time so was able - amid much honking of horns, wound down windows, hurling of profanities and rude gestures at me - to slowly roll out of harm's way.
And people ask why I want to move.  
Positive wire to the coil has come off.  The connector was quite a loose fit so gave it a nip up with the pliers and it now stays in place properly.  I will probably replace all the connections to the coil in due course as a couple aren't pretty.
The coil etc needs some attention anyway.  Now I know I've got the Pertronix Ignitor setup in the distributor, that changes a couple of things.  For a start it's designed for a coil with a 1.5 ohm primary resistance (which this isn't), and shouldn't be run via a ballast circuit (which this is).  So I'll need to look at sourcing an appropriate coil and removing the ballast from the circuit.  That may well go a good ways to explaining why the spark isn't quite as lively as I'd expect from a system like this.  I also need to gap the pickup properly as it's currently far too close to the magnet.  Just realised I'd meant to do that this afternoon but managed to forget.
Despite that minor hiccup, the car seems to be running fairly well again.  I've tweaked the kickdown cable a bit again so it now will actually drop into 3rd when just bumbling around on idle in residential areas rather than being totally absent until over 40, but still changes at sensible seeming points when actually under load.
Getting there.  
Given the time of year, next up on "broken stuff I really need to sort" is likely to be the heater blower, as being able to demist the windscreen on demand would be nice.  Hopefully that's not just a solid block of rust.
Also hopefully I don't need to dismantle the entire car to get to it...

It's a tricky one as yes, I'd like the space back and don't really know what my plan would be with the bodywork long term.  Equally, I really do enjoy driving it.
Big box of stuff turned up for the P6 this morning.  The vast bulk in terms of volume was a full set of coolant hoses.  Additionally there were a full set of light gaskets, full set of stainless steel screws for all the light lenses as virtually all of the heads on mine were mangled, a thermostat and a pair of wiper blades.
The front indicator/sidelight units were both about as capable of keeping water out as a sieve.  The gaskets having long since turned to plastic was the reason.

They were also about 1/4 the thickness of the new ones.  Sadly the above one has had one of the screw risers snapped off, so I'll need to either replace the assembly or figure out an alternative arrangement with a bolt from behind the assembly or something like that.
The tail lights also weren't water tight as evidenced by the condensation.

These turned out to be completely missing the gaskets - so this should be an improvement.

Also threw on the new wiper blades.

I know these modern repro stainless blades aren't great, but I wanted to have a second set of them on hand so I could have a go at rebuilding the original ones I had with new rubber blades in case I wreck them.  The stamping of the ones I took off is definitely far superior to the replacements.  They do clear the screen acceptably though for now at least, and this isn't a car I'm likely to be using a huge amount in poor conditions anyway.  That's what I have a modern daily for.
I've been looking into the options regarding the radiator.  Off-the-shelf replacements don't appear to be available.  No huge surprise to be honest.
There are a couple of suppliers offering exchange units for around the £300 mark by the time you've factored in two way postage etc.  Alternatively there's a well reviewed company over in Kempston who can recore this one with an uprated core for around the same money.  Which is probably the option I'm leaning towards.  Being less than half an hour from home rather than having to entrust things to the postal system is a big plus, and being able to support local businesses always appeals to me.  They can also carry out a repair to that end tank no problem, whereas those offering exchange parts I imagine may object to that damage.  So that's likely to be the route I take there.
...If it ever stops raining so I can properly get back to it again anyway!  

Sounds a good deal better now she's not idling pretty much entirely on one carburettor.
This morning the P6 was booked in to The Garage over in Wolverton to get the wheel alignment looked at.  First trip more than a few hundred yards from the house, of course in the rain.  Of course the wiper blades haven't made it to the top of the to do list yet, so they're still ancient.  Thankfully they do actually still have blades on them, and I was able to clean them up enough that they were functional, albeit emphatically not great.  Sufficient for dealing with three miles of light drizzle though.
We made it there in one piece - albeit having discovered that these tyres have about as much traction off the mark in the wet as industrial grade Teflon.  Wheelspin at 900rpm, no problem!  Yeah, they'll be getting changed soon.  Actually seem to handle braking just fine, but trying to pull away anything other than exceptionally gently they're not a fan of.

Guys there were their usual efficient selves, and took a lot of interest in the car.  Tracking wasn't actually anywhere near as massively out as I'd expected, though it was definitely out.  Having it sorted has definitely vastly improved the straight line stability, previously the car wanted to wander all over the shop when you were trying to drive in a straight line.  We did have one bit of near excitement on the way there, in that the temperature gauge crept up very nearly into the red on the way there before the thermostat opened and it calmed down - sitting here under normal conditions.

So I will be replacing that in case it's sticking.  That's a failure we could do without.
I took the opportunity to stop on the way home to grab a couple of photos to commemorate the car effectively being released back onto the public highway.



After we were home I changed the oil & filter again.  Aside from wanting to flush out any remains of the slime that was in there when the car arrived, having just had the heads off I was always planning to treat the first fill after the heads were off essentially as a flush to ensure there's no debris I've introduced getting stuck anywhere.
The drained oil was still a little cloudy, but nowhere near as bad as what originally came out.

Here's what was drained from the engine the day the car arrived here just for reference.

That's after it had settled out for a while too.  You can see why I was planning on doing a couple of changes one after the other.
No noticeable moisture gathering on the oil filler cap any more it looks like - this used to be literally dripping wet whenever you took it off.  This is after sitting overnight too so did represent a full heat cycle.

Later in the day I had a couple of errands to run, so took this out again.  She's officially burbled her way to a supermarket to pick up groceries now, that feels like a decent landmark for a car that's been off the road for an indeterminate period of time.

Handling was further improved by me actually checking the tyre pressures - which I thought I'd already done, but apparently not.  Especially as they all had north of 40psi in - nearside front was nearly 50!  I imagine this was done while the car was in storage to help avoid them getting flat spotted.  Which sadly hasn't worked, one of the rears is definitely out of round.  I'm really annoyed with myself for not checking that sooner though, no excuse for that.
Things I've got out of today's driving - probably 20 miles or so in all.
[] Possibly sticky thermostat when cold.
[] Reversing lights don't work.
[] Light metallic click from somewhere in the rear end driveline when coming on/off the power.  Hopefully just a UJ needing some grease.
[] Windscreen wiper blades desperately want changing.
[] Rear tyre{s} out of round which becomes very obvious if you try to exceed 50mph.
[] Kickdown cable still needs a tiny tweak - I've gone too far the other way again now and she won't drop into 3rd at all until 42mph even when coasting.  Suspect there's going to continue to be a bit of going round in circles until I get that spot on.
[] Low end acceleration even when being deliberately really gentle is such that you almost invariably find yourself being held up by modern traffic almost the moment you pull out of a junction.
[] The burble is addictive.
[] Heater does work, albeit currently sans blower.
[] I keep looking for a nearside wing mirror that doesn't exist.
Aside from the brief bit of anxiety before the thermostat opened (and it may just be like that - this is the first time she's been out of a 20mph zone really, so I would expect the engine to have warmed up a lot faster than when I'd been testing before) that's not a bad result I reckon.  Not even any maddeningly annoying squeaks or rattles in the cabin which have made themselves known yet.

Getting rid of the small mountain of random parts and suchlike in the boot of the P6 was something I'd been wanting to do since it arrived. 

So I now just have yet another pile to work around in the garage of course!  That wheel is absurdly heavy.

Need to try to track down a battery cover at some point. 
A couple of things I'd been looking for did appear while rummaging through the boxes.  First being this.

A simple but quite important bit of hardware - the heat shield which should sit between the brake master cylinder and the exhaust manifold to help prevent it from getting cooked quite as badly.  This has now been reinstated.

The other was a whole bunch of screws which belonged in the tail lights - the vast majority of these were originally missing, though both of them now have all seven screws correctly fitted.

Only missing one now, the bottom one for the nearside front indicator.  Annoyingly despite having gone through all of my boxes of fasteners I can't find one with the right thread pitch which is long enough.

I had that apart today as well to resolve the issue with the non functional sidelight - which just needed a new bulb.  Though the lenses were both filthy and the whole light unit was full of dead spiders and general grime so I took the lenses inside and gave them a thorough wash.  This predictably made the other one look visibly worse so that got taken apart too and given the same treatment.

Also finally got around to removing the plethora of stickers on the windows.


That was somewhat precipitated by the desire to *clean* the windows so I could actually see through them properly as the windscreen in particular was absolutely filthy.  The rear windscreen still is - sadly it's been quite noticeably pitted on the inside by grinding/welder spatter so is never going to be 100%, though it would be far worse if that was the windscreen.  Rear one being a bit pitted isn't the end of the world.

It's a tricky one as yes, I'd like the space back and don't really know what my plan would be with the bodywork long term.  Equally, I really do enjoy driving it.
Big box of stuff turned up for the P6 this morning.  The vast bulk in terms of volume was a full set of coolant hoses.  Additionally there were a full set of light gaskets, full set of stainless steel screws for all the light lenses as virtually all of the heads on mine were mangled, a thermostat and a pair of wiper blades.
The front indicator/sidelight units were both about as capable of keeping water out as a sieve.  The gaskets having long since turned to plastic was the reason.

They were also about 1/4 the thickness of the new ones.  Sadly the above one has had one of the screw risers snapped off, so I'll need to either replace the assembly or figure out an alternative arrangement with a bolt from behind the assembly or something like that.
The tail lights also weren't water tight as evidenced by the condensation.

These turned out to be completely missing the gaskets - so this should be an improvement.

Also threw on the new wiper blades.

I know these modern repro stainless blades aren't great, but I wanted to have a second set of them on hand so I could have a go at rebuilding the original ones I had with new rubber blades in case I wreck them.  The stamping of the ones I took off is definitely far superior to the replacements.  They do clear the screen acceptably though for now at least, and this isn't a car I'm likely to be using a huge amount in poor conditions anyway.  That's what I have a modern daily for.
I've been looking into the options regarding the radiator.  Off-the-shelf replacements don't appear to be available.  No huge surprise to be honest.
There are a couple of suppliers offering exchange units for around the £300 mark by the time you've factored in two way postage etc.  Alternatively there's a well reviewed company over in Kempston who can recore this one with an uprated core for around the same money.  Which is probably the option I'm leaning towards.  Being less than half an hour from home rather than having to entrust things to the postal system is a big plus, and being able to support local businesses always appeals to me.  They can also carry out a repair to that end tank no problem, whereas those offering exchange parts I imagine may object to that damage.  So that's likely to be the route I take there.
...If it ever stops raining so I can properly get back to it again anyway!  

Sounds a good deal better now she's not idling pretty much entirely on one carburettor.
This morning the P6 was booked in to The Garage over in Wolverton to get the wheel alignment looked at.  First trip more than a few hundred yards from the house, of course in the rain.  Of course the wiper blades haven't made it to the top of the to do list yet, so they're still ancient.  Thankfully they do actually still have blades on them, and I was able to clean them up enough that they were functional, albeit emphatically not great.  Sufficient for dealing with three miles of light drizzle though.
We made it there in one piece - albeit having discovered that these tyres have about as much traction off the mark in the wet as industrial grade Teflon.  Wheelspin at 900rpm, no problem!  Yeah, they'll be getting changed soon.  Actually seem to handle braking just fine, but trying to pull away anything other than exceptionally gently they're not a fan of.

Guys there were their usual efficient selves, and took a lot of interest in the car.  Tracking wasn't actually anywhere near as massively out as I'd expected, though it was definitely out.  Having it sorted has definitely vastly improved the straight line stability, previously the car wanted to wander all over the shop when you were trying to drive in a straight line.  We did have one bit of near excitement on the way there, in that the temperature gauge crept up very nearly into the red on the way there before the thermostat opened and it calmed down - sitting here under normal conditions.

So I will be replacing that in case it's sticking.  That's a failure we could do without.
I took the opportunity to stop on the way home to grab a couple of photos to commemorate the car effectively being released back onto the public highway.



After we were home I changed the oil & filter again.  Aside from wanting to flush out any remains of the slime that was in there when the car arrived, having just had the heads off I was always planning to treat the first fill after the heads were off essentially as a flush to ensure there's no debris I've introduced getting stuck anywhere.
The drained oil was still a little cloudy, but nowhere near as bad as what originally came out.

Here's what was drained from the engine the day the car arrived here just for reference.

That's after it had settled out for a while too.  You can see why I was planning on doing a couple of changes one after the other.
No noticeable moisture gathering on the oil filler cap any more it looks like - this used to be literally dripping wet whenever you took it off.  This is after sitting overnight too so did represent a full heat cycle.

Later in the day I had a couple of errands to run, so took this out again.  She's officially burbled her way to a supermarket to pick up groceries now, that feels like a decent landmark for a car that's been off the road for an indeterminate period of time.

Handling was further improved by me actually checking the tyre pressures - which I thought I'd already done, but apparently not.  Especially as they all had north of 40psi in - nearside front was nearly 50!  I imagine this was done while the car was in storage to help avoid them getting flat spotted.  Which sadly hasn't worked, one of the rears is definitely out of round.  I'm really annoyed with myself for not checking that sooner though, no excuse for that.
Things I've got out of today's driving - probably 20 miles or so in all.
[] Possibly sticky thermostat when cold.
[] Reversing lights don't work.
[] Light metallic click from somewhere in the rear end driveline when coming on/off the power.  Hopefully just a UJ needing some grease.
[] Windscreen wiper blades desperately want changing.
[] Rear tyre{s} out of round which becomes very obvious if you try to exceed 50mph.
[] Kickdown cable still needs a tiny tweak - I've gone too far the other way again now and she won't drop into 3rd at all until 42mph even when coasting.  Suspect there's going to continue to be a bit of going round in circles until I get that spot on.
[] Low end acceleration even when being deliberately really gentle is such that you almost invariably find yourself being held up by modern traffic almost the moment you pull out of a junction.
[] The burble is addictive.
[] Heater does work, albeit currently sans blower.
[] I keep looking for a nearside wing mirror that doesn't exist.
Aside from the brief bit of anxiety before the thermostat opened (and it may just be like that - this is the first time she's been out of a 20mph zone really, so I would expect the engine to have warmed up a lot faster than when I'd been testing before) that's not a bad result I reckon.  Not even any maddeningly annoying squeaks or rattles in the cabin which have made themselves known yet.

Getting rid of the small mountain of random parts and suchlike in the boot of the P6 was something I'd been wanting to do since it arrived. 

So I now just have yet another pile to work around in the garage of course!  That wheel is absurdly heavy.

Need to try to track down a battery cover at some point. 
A couple of things I'd been looking for did appear while rummaging through the boxes.  First being this.

A simple but quite important bit of hardware - the heat shield which should sit between the brake master cylinder and the exhaust manifold to help prevent it from getting cooked quite as badly.  This has now been reinstated.

The other was a whole bunch of screws which belonged in the tail lights - the vast majority of these were originally missing, though both of them now have all seven screws correctly fitted.

Only missing one now, the bottom one for the nearside front indicator.  Annoyingly despite having gone through all of my boxes of fasteners I can't find one with the right thread pitch which is long enough.

I had that apart today as well to resolve the issue with the non functional sidelight - which just needed a new bulb.  Though the lenses were both filthy and the whole light unit was full of dead spiders and general grime so I took the lenses inside and gave them a thorough wash.  This predictably made the other one look visibly worse so that got taken apart too and given the same treatment.

Also finally got around to removing the plethora of stickers on the windows.


That was somewhat precipitated by the desire to *clean* the windows so I could actually see through them properly as the windscreen in particular was absolutely filthy.  The rear windscreen still is - sadly it's been quite noticeably pitted on the inside by grinding/welder spatter so is never going to be 100%, though it would be far worse if that was the windscreen.  Rear one being a bit pitted isn't the end of the world.

Ah, this again.  

Managed to end up with two cars with their MOT due within a couple of weeks.  Not the best planning on my part.  
I need not have worried.

Advisory for some rust on the offside sill, which is fair.

It looks worse than it is.  I think there's one nick in the stone chip that the water has got in through and has lifted it.  No actual rot there yet as far as I can tell having poked it, but it will be stripped back, cleaned and re-painted, hopefully get that sorted for a while.
I've also made the front end look at least 50% less shabby.
Before:

After:

That delaminated and rust stained number plate had been bugging me since the day I bought the car.  The rear one will involve taking the tailgate interior trim off to secure properly so that will wait till tomorrow.  Said trim also rattles so I want to pull it anyway.
Other small and utterly pointless job which will make it look massively disproportionately better will be cleaning up and re-painting the light guards, though I don't think they look as rough in photos as they do in person.
Original plate of course didn't get binned.

From that angle my garage almost doesn't look like a *total* disaster!
The Rover's new washer pump arrived today and was fitted.  Not exactly a difficult or exciting job.

Which has restored a reliable washing function every time the knob is pressed.

Actually gives a really decent mist across the screen, far better than on a bunch of far newer cars I've driven.  Also for Dollywobbler's reference, yes the P6 has really good wiper overlap.  

Have also go hopefully everything I need to make one good mechanical fuel pump out of one and 3/4 bad ones now.  Let's see how that goes.

Step 1.  Finish putting things back together.

Then the oil & filter got changed.  Which was timed well as I got it done right as a rain shower started.
Reconnected this little linkage which attaches the throttle linkage to the carbs.  Getting the little spring clip back on was fiddly.  Glad I didn't persist in trying to do that while I was tired yesterday.  I'd probably have pinged it off into oblivion never to be seen again.

Coolant was refilled.  Using OAT coolant as that's what came out.  I'd rather see this using old school glycol coolant, and will probably switch back to that when I change the coolant properly.  It's quite murky so definitely wants flushed out at some point soon, this job had only drained about half the radiator, so I was just refilling like for like for now.
Changing the spark plugs didn't happen.  Simply because the ones I'd picked up were the wrong size.  So I just cleaned up the ones I'd got.
Then reconnected the HT leads, having had the forethought to mark number 1 before I took things apart.  Rotor rotation is clockwise.
Before I actually connected the coil I did crank the engine over just to make sure we didn't have any noises coming from anywhere and actually had even sounding compression - which we did.  No big obvious skip when it was turning over.
Fast forward a couple of minutes...
This isn't actually the first start - there's a couple of minutes run time already on there.  I didn't have anywhere where you'd have been able to see anything I could have wedged my phone, and I didn't want to miss something important because I was concentrating on recording video.
We did have a couple of coolant leaks initially, one from the lower heater hose and one from the top radiator hose.  These are quite old hoses so I needed to ensure the hose clamps were lined up where they used to be.  A new set of hoses is on the to do list.  
What we also had was a hell of a lot of smoke from the exhaust manifolds.  I knew I'd spilled some oil, coolant etc on there while the heads were being removed and the block cleaned etc.  However I was quite surprised by the sheer volume of smoke that was generated while it burned off.
Proof the car has moved under its own power again!

Which allowed me to retrieve the things I'd dropped while working on the car.  One washer from a carb base, a thousand old exhaust manifold gaskets, and the bolt from the dipstick support.  Not bad.
We did a quick bumble round the block.  So, so much smoother as you'd expect.  Though seemed very hesitant on a light throttle after a minute or two.
Ah.

Initially I figured this was my leak from the top coolant hose having returned, but quickly realised this was actually petrol pouring out of the bowl vent from the offside carb.  Yep, that would explain the lumpy running.  This is why it's really important to ensure the drain tubes on those ports are properly fitted as it meant this harmlessly drained down onto the ground rather than dumping it over the top of the engine.   
Gently tapping the fuel inlet to the carb in a highly technical manner with a screwdriver handle has restored it's continence for now, but I figure they're both probably going to really want a proper inspection and clean.  In fairness that carb has been sitting upside down in the boot for the last couple of weeks so it's well within its rights to be a bit grumpy.
Idle speed is quite high, but running a lot smoother now.
 
I'll be doing a little more testing etc over the next couple of days.
After a few heat cycles we will go back and recheck the head bolt torque as things settle.
First trip to an actual destination more than a mile away will be to get the tracking sorted.  Currently there is a ridiculous amount of toe out, and that needs seen to!

Busy day.  I now hurt in places I didn't know I had.
Starting point.  Well... actually a few days ago, but I forgot to get a photo before I started.

Got the heads built up with the new valves.

Briefly interrupted...well actually interrupted for the best part of half an hour, when I couldn't find one of the valve keepers.  Which I had carefully bagged up with each valve's hardware.  Of course it turned out to be sitting right in front of me didn't it?

Sneaky little bastard.
Checked the torque values in the manual before starting to put anything in the car.

Head number 1 fitted to the engine and torqued down.

Head number 2 fitted and torqued down.

Rocker shafts refitted.

Exhaust manifolds reconnected with new gaskets.  Yes, the rearmost bolt on the right hand bank was precisely as much of a pain in the tail to put back in as it was to get out.


Nearside was actually a bit of a faff as the exhaust had sagged a bit while it had been disconnected and holding its own weight for the last couple of weeks, so I had to use a jack to help lift it up to get the first bolts in.  If I had a helper I could have probably got them to help lift it, but working by myself I had to improvise a bit.
Then got out the old oil gun and gave all of the cam followers and camshaft itself a thorough dousing in fresh oil as it's all been open to the elements for the last couple of weeks.


Then the valley cover/intake manifold gasket was refitted and the inlet manifold went back on.

...At which point, after I'd refitted most of the coolant lines, I realised I'd forgotten something kind of important.  These clamps which hold down the ends of the valley cover, which are meant to go on before the manifold.


You *can* get them in with the manifold already in place, but really shouldn't.  It's really awkward, especially the front one which is wedged right under one of the coolant lines.
Oil can came out again to give all the valves and rocker shafts etc a good oiling.

A lot of swearing ensued reassembling the Rube Goldberg nonsense of a throttle linkage/kickdown cable nonsense.

Then started throwing the last few bits on.  It's starting to look like an engine again.

Things to follow tomorrow:
[] Fathom out exactly how the spring clip that holds the throttle linkage together is meant to go back together.
[] Change engine oil & filter.
[] Refill coolant.
[] Change spark plugs.
[] Refit HT leads.
[] Retrieve the dipstick support bracket from where I dropped it under the car just before wrapping up this afternoon and refit it.
Then cross my fingers that it will actually run again after all of this...ideally on all eight cylinders!
Feels like a reasonable amount of work to get done in an afternoon though.  
Definitely will be adding an electric ratchet to my toolbox soon though, that would have saved me a fair amount of time and definitely arm pain.  Especially for things like the exhaust manifolds which were slightly too tight to spin up by hand but have quite long threads on this engine.  Just a time saver it would be nice to have.
Hopefully we'll be up and running tomorrow.  Hopefully!

Had a call early on this afternoon to say the P6's heads were ready for collection.

That looks a bit better.

Certainly a heck of a lot better than I was ever going to manage by hand.  £54 each after the VAT, which was a lot less than I had expected.  Seem to remember it cost me more than that last time I had a head skimmed, and that was 20 odd years ago.
They'll definitely be getting the job when I get the head pulled from the Renault then.
Hopefully will be able to start getting the P6 put back together tomorrow.

Started stripping down the right hand head today - though literally got five minutes in when a flash of lightning and almost simultaneous crack of thunder aborted play.
Pretty much the same story as the left hand side, bit dirtier though and with the same evidence of it being sitting for a fair while with some moisture present.


Had a bit of a battle getting one of the bolts holding the alternator bracket onto the front of this head to crack loose, but got there in the end.  Hopefully get that head off tomorrow.
A full set of valves has been ordered - there goes another £200.  I really need to find a cheap hobby one day.
My target (assuming no horrors are found when I pull the second head) is to have the car back together by the end of the coming week.  Which if the valves arrive Tuesday or Wednesday should be doable I reckon.  I'll start getting the heads and block cleaned up while waiting for them to arrive.
Going to be fed up of lapping valves by the time I'm done, that's for sure.
With the possible exception of oil (will need to check what's in stock) I think once the valves arrive I should have everything here I need to finish the job now.  
Biggest surprise so far was finding that last time I used it that I did actually put the torque wrench back away on the shelf if lives on...nearly died of shock at finding that.
A coolant hose set will definitely be going on the wish list shortly as several are pretty tired, but that's going to have to wait a month or two or I'm going to end up living in the car I think.

In we go to have a shot at getting the dead instrumentation working.  The manual I've got doesn't give any information in to how to remove the binnacle...however the handbook does!  Imagine that on a car these days...
Hmm...Why do I get the impression that we have, or at least have had something of a water ingress issue in the car?

Those two flat head screws there out and an identical two at the other side out and the faceplate comes off.

Which is actually all you need to remove to deal with any issue with panel lighting as the lamps are all replaceable from the front rather than having to faff about removing the whole panel for that.
Four more screws (the inner Philips head ones) release the panel, and once some cable connections and the speedometer drive are disconnected it lifts out.  The speedometer drive comes in from the side to a bevel drive arrangement which actually makes it really easy to get to...which baffled me somewhat as that's usually the single biggest headache when removing/installing an instrument cluster.  I certainly learned new swear words trying to reattach it to the speedometer in the P4.

Our suspect.

Which sure enough when tested on the bench turned out to be dead as a doornail.  The heater was open circuit so not just a case of cleaning the points.  This is all that's inside one of these.

Just like a thermal flasher unit...which is basically all it is. 
The innards of this one were stripped out and an L7810 10V regulator was attached to the inside of the lid to take its place.


I could have just used flying leads to hook it up and either attached it to the back of the panel or to the bulkhead, but I preferred keeping the original case at least.  Plus this should hopefully be a fit and forget solution.
With everything connected back up and the sender shorted to ground the temperature gauge (very slowly) started to climb just as we had hoped it would.  So the gauge itself and the wiring to the sender is fine.

Under the bonnet I set about reattaching the kickdown cable to the throttle linkage.  I don't have a roll pin the correct size to hand, so a bolt and lock nut has been used for now.

The missing bolts from the brake master cylinder mounting plate were located in the boot and reinstated where they belonged.

Had a crawl around underneath the car and couldn't find anything obviously loose or missing, and made sure that things like the wheel nuts were actually tight.
There are definite signs of (relatively) recent money being spent on this car.  Aside from the paint which looks to date from 2019, the front brake calipers have clearly been rebuilt (or replaced) in the not too distant past.

This brake fluid clearly hasn't been sitting in here for decades either.

Likewise the starter motor looks pretty recent.  Not new, but it's clearly been replaced in living memory.

Rear brakes aren't exactly pretty - but there's evidence that they have at least been doing *something* - which given the car hasn't been properly driven in forever isn't the worst start.

The boot on the Di-Dion tube looks to be in decent shape and there's not oil peeing everywhere...though admittedly that may also be because there is no oil *in* it...Haven't got as far as checking that yet.

Again, the condition of that hose clamp to me suggests that's been worked on pretty recently. 
I think the rear suspension likely will need some attention though given that the car seems to sit lower on the driver's side than the passenger's side by a good inch or so.
The braking system passed my patented "stand on the pedal with as much strength as I can muster and hold it for 20 seconds" test without any drama.  So with this all in mind I decided to take advantage of the lull in activity around here between the school kick out madness and rush hour starting and went for a slow, careful bumble around our block.  This literally amounts to a roughly 300 metre square all on 20mph roads. 
Even locked in 1st, there's no real way to get any meaningful revs involved in a setting like this, so I really didn't expect cylinder number 5 to spring back to life - and sure enough it didn't.  However after a few circuits I didn't really detect any issues.  Brakes are a little spongy, but it pulls up smartly enough and in a straight line.  Gearbox seems to shift as expected, smoothly and without slipping, and despite the lack of a cylinder it definitely seems to pull well.  No clonks, bangs or rattles from the suspension and it seems to waft quite nicely.  Not a bad place to be starting from really.
This allowed me to cover a couple of miles, and to get some halfway decent heat into the engine at least.  However it also allowed me to see where the temperature stabilised - right about here was the answer while bumbling around our estate.

Hot oil pressure?  Meh, we have some.  Which given these engines and the fantastic accuracy these gauges are reputed to have I'll take as meaning "good enough."  The warning light goes out instantly when the engine starts even when at temperature so I'm not worrying about that.

I'll want to make a few more checks on things before doing a slightly quicker test - but that's also something I feel I can only really do at set times as the traffic is so damned busy around here most of the time.  There's a petrol station 0.8 miles away on a route that doesn't involve having to deal with dual carriageways or anything like that, and I'd like to make that a target so I can slosh a decent amount of fresh fuel in the tank.
Also on the subject of fuel, a replacement for this (or a rebuild kit) will be getting ordered this evening as this could also have been a major contributor to why our oil was so badly fuel contaminated.

The diaphragm is highly unlikely to be ethanol resistant unless it's been recently replaced anyway, so it's a job that would want doing anyway.
I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that we're most likely going to need to pull the left hand head off to investigate what's going on with number five, and have ordered a head gasket set to that end.  I'd been holding off that initially while I tried to confirm which engine we had fitted.  I'm now 99% sure that this is an SD1 Vitesse unit based on what bits of the number we can make out.
The fact we can clearly read the compression ratio as 9.75:1 helps a lot as that narrows things down a lot.  The only engines I can see which have both that compression ratio and a number starting "?0A" with the right number of digits.  I'm open to correction there from folks who know these engines better than I do, but that's the result my own deductive logic has brought me to.

Been a busy day and evening so haven't had quite as much tinkering time today, nor any time till just now (2302) to start writing things up.  So forgive it if this is a bit rushed.  Sure autocorrect will get involved too, given I'm doing this on a phone, while tired.
Things have been very stop-go through the day as well because I've only been able to really do anything in short bursts when it's this hot.  
So this morning an exciting delivery turned up.  Right in the middle of the school rush because I was an idiot and didn't think to warn @worldofceri about that.  Sorry!

Which I was then able to get into a position to get a proper look at for the first time.




Not maybe the least foreboding thing to find as the sole content of the glove box!

At least electrics don't really scare me...much.


 Hmm...we might need a new fuel filter.

Why can't more cars provide this under the bonnet?

Boot full of stuff...which I've really not gone through yet.

Need to get a cover on at least the positive terminal of that battery, that - especially with that wheel being next to it - is giving me serious anxiety from a fire safety perspective.
Okay...so issues, which we knew there would be!  
Let's start with the obvious one, which is that it's not running on all eight.  Currently we have the rare beast that is the V7 Rover.  I had hoped that we just had a fouled up plug, but no.  Sadly we do appear to have a lame cylinder, we appear to have a major lack of compression on number five.  Haven't had a chance to do much real investigation yet, but we do appear to have the same movement on the valves as on the others on that bank, so don't *think* it's a cam issue.  Optimistic diagnosis?  Crud on a valve seat maybe?  Don't know.  Will need further investigation.
The oil was badly, badly contaminated with ancient fuel (unsurprising given the car's been off the road for a long while, especially given we've discovered a dead miss on one cylinder).  Seriously, it reeked like old paint stripper.  So before I did anything else I wanted to get that changed.  
What came out was...well...was this.

No chunks nor any glitter I could detect, but yeeeaah...we may need to turn our attention towards the heads - especially with missing compression on one cylinder.  Though it doesn't *seem* to be pressurising the cooling system, and the level was spot on...hmm.  Further investigation needed.
A reported fault was a lack of oil pressure light, pressure gauge or temperature gauge.
I noticed that we were also missing indicators.  This to me made me suspicious that we may be missing a power supply...time to investigate fuses.

Behind the passenger side glove box in case you wondered.
Turned out that the fuse in the "Ignition control" circuit was blown.  Markings in the fusebox call for a 25A fuse, a 20A one was fitted.  With that refitted still no joy...until I noticed that the pressure gauge was creeping towards full scale.  Sure enough, the leads to the pressure light and sender's were switched.  Correction of that resulted in a working light.

...And gauge.

Noticed this had also revived the choke light when I pulled the control out.

Odd that they didn't deem that important enough for a legend.  Just a plain amber light.
Brake light does work on the level sensor, but the handbrake switch appears to be stuck. 

So we do now have a full compliment of warning lights.

I find the similarity between the legends in the indicator tell tales on this dash and that on the Mk I National pleasing.  The main beam light does work, it's just ridiculously dim.

The ammeter does move, though I don't really trust it's accuracy, but it moves.  Fuel and temperature gauges?  No idea yet.  I've chucked two gallons in the tank to try to dilute whatever sludge is in there, but no idea if that would even register really given it's a 15 gallon tank.  As for temperature I've not run the engine long enough for that to register, though I'll check the gauge tomorrow by the old ground the sender test.
Radio doesn't work, but at least looks far tidier now it's been shoved back into the dash properly and the cubby hole above it been reassembled.

Answers on a postcard as to what these do?

Noticed a detail immediately familiar to me...


Same bonnet release pull as on the P4.
Quite a few nice little details.  The rear quarter light mechanism is quite pleasing.


Really is a nice looking car.


That's about as far as I've got so far.  
Well aside from the obligatory dash at night photo once it got dark anyway.


Had never seen this panel at night before, turns out it's edge lit through a light pipe effect from the base.

Watch this space for further updates in the next couple of days.

Ah, this again.  

Managed to end up with two cars with their MOT due within a couple of weeks.  Not the best planning on my part.  
I need not have worried.

Advisory for some rust on the offside sill, which is fair.

It looks worse than it is.  I think there's one nick in the stone chip that the water has got in through and has lifted it.  No actual rot there yet as far as I can tell having poked it, but it will be stripped back, cleaned and re-painted, hopefully get that sorted for a while.
I've also made the front end look at least 50% less shabby.
Before:

After:

That delaminated and rust stained number plate had been bugging me since the day I bought the car.  The rear one will involve taking the tailgate interior trim off to secure properly so that will wait till tomorrow.  Said trim also rattles so I want to pull it anyway.
Other small and utterly pointless job which will make it look massively disproportionately better will be cleaning up and re-painting the light guards, though I don't think they look as rough in photos as they do in person.
Original plate of course didn't get binned.

From that angle my garage almost doesn't look like a *total* disaster!
The Rover's new washer pump arrived today and was fitted.  Not exactly a difficult or exciting job.

Which has restored a reliable washing function every time the knob is pressed.

Actually gives a really decent mist across the screen, far better than on a bunch of far newer cars I've driven.  Also for Dollywobbler's reference, yes the P6 has really good wiper overlap.  

Have also go hopefully everything I need to make one good mechanical fuel pump out of one and 3/4 bad ones now.  Let's see how that goes.

Tail light surrounds now match.

Have been to the post office today to see whether we could get the tax changed to historic, but as I had pretty much expected it looks like I'll need to contact the DVLA directly regarding that. The only date which their computer brings up is the 1999 import date, and there's no option available to them to change the tax class.  Sure that will be a barrel of laughs to sort.  Will need to wait until a day where I'm feeling particularly patient.
The Trabant as of yesterday has now officially ticked over 1000 miles since arriving here in December.  
Edit: Front mud flaps have now also been fitted as I got tired of them getting in the way in the garage.

Did find some crunchy bits in the underside of the offside sill which will definitely want remedial work before next winter.  Looks like a very old patch which has reached the end of its useful life.  Nothing that's imminently terrifying, but I suspect if my MOT tester had prodded the area I'd have been left with a hole to fix.  Plus one drain hole is definitely bigger than the one on the other side of the car.  On the plus side it's about as easy a repair as you could wish for so I'm really not bothered by having found it.  Par for the course on a vehicle of this age which doesn't look like it's ever had anything beyond a couple of running repairs before, and will be properly sorted in due course.

I'd noticed that the tail lights on the P6 were full of a lot of condensation again over the last couple of weeks.  I'm not entirely sure if it's just got in since I changed the seals or if there was still moisture in when that was done.  So I took them apart again, blew everything out with the air line, left them apart in the sun for a couple of hours before putting them back together.

Lenses need a really good clean, but that's a job for further down the to do list.
On the Trabant the patchy, rusty headlight surrounds have been tidied up.
This was bugging me as I could see the rusty bit from the driver's seat so I needed to do something about it.

I do need to do something about that hole in the wing, that sorted and a bit of paint on the front panel would make the car look a lot less scruffy at a quick glance.
I had a shot at changing the gearbox oil, however the drain plug is stupidly tight and defied all my attempts at shifting it.  There is enough oil in there as I checked the level plug first and oil came out, it is definitely due a change though as what came out looked awful.  Did wonder about using the Pela and draining it through the filler but there doesn't look to be a clear shot to get far enough down into the box to do that.  I'll need to get the car up on axle stands so I can get the big driver bar and some decent leverage onto it.  Hopefully the plug just comes out rather than it taking the threads out with it.  The oil definitely needs to be changed though, so it needs to come out one way or another.

Ah, this again.  

Managed to end up with two cars with their MOT due within a couple of weeks.  Not the best planning on my part.  
I need not have worried.

Advisory for some rust on the offside sill, which is fair.

It looks worse than it is.  I think there's one nick in the stone chip that the water has got in through and has lifted it.  No actual rot there yet as far as I can tell having poked it, but it will be stripped back, cleaned and re-painted, hopefully get that sorted for a while.
I've also made the front end look at least 50% less shabby.
Before:

After:

That delaminated and rust stained number plate had been bugging me since the day I bought the car.  The rear one will involve taking the tailgate interior trim off to secure properly so that will wait till tomorrow.  Said trim also rattles so I want to pull it anyway.
Other small and utterly pointless job which will make it look massively disproportionately better will be cleaning up and re-painting the light guards, though I don't think they look as rough in photos as they do in person.
Original plate of course didn't get binned.

From that angle my garage almost doesn't look like a *total* disaster!
The Rover's new washer pump arrived today and was fitted.  Not exactly a difficult or exciting job.

Which has restored a reliable washing function every time the knob is pressed.

Actually gives a really decent mist across the screen, far better than on a bunch of far newer cars I've driven.  Also for Dollywobbler's reference, yes the P6 has really good wiper overlap.  

Have also go hopefully everything I need to make one good mechanical fuel pump out of one and 3/4 bad ones now.  Let's see how that goes.

Ah, this again.  

Managed to end up with two cars with their MOT due within a couple of weeks.  Not the best planning on my part.  
I need not have worried.

Advisory for some rust on the offside sill, which is fair.

It looks worse than it is.  I think there's one nick in the stone chip that the water has got in through and has lifted it.  No actual rot there yet as far as I can tell having poked it, but it will be stripped back, cleaned and re-painted, hopefully get that sorted for a while.
I've also made the front end look at least 50% less shabby.
Before:

After:

That delaminated and rust stained number plate had been bugging me since the day I bought the car.  The rear one will involve taking the tailgate interior trim off to secure properly so that will wait till tomorrow.  Said trim also rattles so I want to pull it anyway.
Other small and utterly pointless job which will make it look massively disproportionately better will be cleaning up and re-painting the light guards, though I don't think they look as rough in photos as they do in person.
Original plate of course didn't get binned.

From that angle my garage almost doesn't look like a *total* disaster!
The Rover's new washer pump arrived today and was fitted.  Not exactly a difficult or exciting job.

Which has restored a reliable washing function every time the knob is pressed.

Actually gives a really decent mist across the screen, far better than on a bunch of far newer cars I've driven.  Also for Dollywobbler's reference, yes the P6 has really good wiper overlap.  

Have also go hopefully everything I need to make one good mechanical fuel pump out of one and 3/4 bad ones now.  Let's see how that goes.

Ah, this again.  

Managed to end up with two cars with their MOT due within a couple of weeks.  Not the best planning on my part.  
I need not have worried.

Advisory for some rust on the offside sill, which is fair.

It looks worse than it is.  I think there's one nick in the stone chip that the water has got in through and has lifted it.  No actual rot there yet as far as I can tell having poked it, but it will be stripped back, cleaned and re-painted, hopefully get that sorted for a while.
I've also made the front end look at least 50% less shabby.
Before:

After:

That delaminated and rust stained number plate had been bugging me since the day I bought the car.  The rear one will involve taking the tailgate interior trim off to secure properly so that will wait till tomorrow.  Said trim also rattles so I want to pull it anyway.
Other small and utterly pointless job which will make it look massively disproportionately better will be cleaning up and re-painting the light guards, though I don't think they look as rough in photos as they do in person.
Original plate of course didn't get binned.

From that angle my garage almost doesn't look like a *total* disaster!
The Rover's new washer pump arrived today and was fitted.  Not exactly a difficult or exciting job.

Which has restored a reliable washing function every time the knob is pressed.

Actually gives a really decent mist across the screen, far better than on a bunch of far newer cars I've driven.  Also for Dollywobbler's reference, yes the P6 has really good wiper overlap.  

Have also go hopefully everything I need to make one good mechanical fuel pump out of one and 3/4 bad ones now.  Let's see how that goes.