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Reginald Nutsack's K-series Kapers - ROVER 623 MOT GUFF


Mr_Bo11ox

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The Honda 1.6 lump in R8's has a small black box of electrickery onside the dizzy which can fail without warning. The AA mad who attended mine knew exactly how to test it.

Dunno if the 2.3's are the same like...

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I think these have a different immobiliser system to the rest of the Rovers, they have a chip in the key and the fob only does the central locking AFAIK.

 

I reckon its one of these ignition modules like Krujoe says or the main fuel pump relay. I will see if between me and the RAC dude we can make a better fist of diagnosing it. I can't hear the pump but the relay is clicking.

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This listing suggests they all use the same module from 1.6 to 2.3.

 

s-l1600.jpg

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rover-200-400-600-coupe-Electronic-Ignition-Module-Unit-GENUINE-UNIPART-GIM5068-/252801980670?hash=item3adc2c18fe:g:~zsAAOSwsTxXkVnB

 

If you need one, a bit of shopping will likely turn up a better price.

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To make matters worse the current Mrs_Nutz asked while we were waiting for the RAC dude ‘are you sure its not just cos you’re parked on a slope’ so now she is inevitably gonna give me a diagnosis on all future car problems.

 

Mrs.F always does that... What's worse is that she's usually right, because common sense.

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Expensive lesson that one. The fuel light wasn't on so i thought i was OK for juice, evidently it's more complicated than that!!! What's more i only paid £80 to upgrade my RAC cover cos i didn't have 'home assistance'. when i thought about it after, i realised they still had my old address on their records, so i could have just said i was staying at my gf's house overnight and called it an ordinary breakdown. Ah well.

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To make matters worse the current Mrs_Nutz asked while we were waiting for the RAC dude ‘are you sure its not just cos you’re parked on a slope’ so now she is inevitably gonna give me a diagnosis on all future car problems.

That's easily dealt with, all you need to do is split up with her and find somebody new who doesn't know about it.

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I've done this. I didn't call the rac but it took me days to figure out. My logic being it drove up there so it can't be fuel .

It's only when I removed the in tank pump and peered in did I realise the pump wasn't really near any fuel .

Even putting a gallon in didn't work I had to put 2 gallons in it before it fired up.

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  • 8 months later...

HOLY THREAD RESURRECTION!

 

Don't get excited, nowt mega happening here but I have actually busted out some spanners today.

 

The MOT is due on the 623 this week after 13,000 hassle-free miles. I reckon it should be fairly painless, but I know the handbrake isnt up to much. My experience of these Rover/Honda rear discs is that they always need some TLC at MOT time, though the TLC is usually just disconnect HB cables, remove pads, wind the piston in and out a couple of times, reassemble, bingo - revived handbrake. Basically just give the caliper some exercise. So I got the Rover under the carport and had a look:

 

qKsJ7d9.jpg

 

Didn't take long to run into the first problem:

 

dg67v0j.jpg

 

Hmm, rear pads are a bit thin!!!! I dont think I'm going to try and get a decent handbrake with those useless razor blades, so it will be a trip to GSF tomorrow for a set of their finest reconstituted eggbox brake pads.

 

Next, I bought a cam cover gasket off eBay a week or two back for all of £8 so I decided to lash that on in the hope that it would stem an annoying oil leak on the back of the engine:

 

cbEfiMl.jpg

 

5Qrzz2s.jpg

 

Pretty straightforward to get the cam cover off. I have never got involved in the cambelt on this as it looks fairly involved and theres not much space. But it looks like it might have suffered a bit with oil splashage:

 

igAO3hK.jpg

 

LHw6QgZ.jpg

 

Eeewww!!!! I wonder if it has a leaky cam seal or something. After 160k I guess its allowed to leak a bit here and there. The cambelt kit is a £100 touch so I'd want to sort whatever it is thats leaking before putting one of those sparkling trinkets on. I think all told I will just put the lid back on and worry about it another day.

 

I also bought some cheap ATF off the bay:

 

s-l1600.jpg

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PEMCO-iMATIC-450-ATF-JWS-Gear-oils-transmission-fluids-4L-JASO-M315-Type-1A/302418579780

 

The gearbox works great in the 623, the only criticism I could make is that when you engage drive, the 'thump' is of a magnitude that I think could be better. I'm sure it must have been smoother when it was new. I read up on lots of yankee forums (there must be millions of honda autoboxes over there racking up colossal mileages) and most of thems said you must use the correct Honda DW1 fluid, but I found a couple of specialist ATF's for 'imports' that were supposedly OK as a replacement for the honda stuff. The honda fluid is like £50 for a 4ltr can, too much for me, but by cross-checking various american, european and Japanese specs I decided that a fluid that met the suposed JASO-1A spec would do the biz. After a fashion I found the above shizz on the bay for £20 which was more like it!!! Its probably made out of sesame oil and cherryade but whatever. I am gonna do the repeated drain/refill technique and see if it gets any smoother.

 

ANyway I am gonna try and get this thing in for a ticket on Tuesday. If it passes without too much expense I have decided i am gonna SPLA$H T€H BIG DOLL4R and reward it with a full set of new tyres for it as I am still running the pre-2000 Michelin partworns I bought earlier in the thread!!!

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Cool stuff. I hope you used some sealant on that new gasket. I fitted one to my S-MX and THEN folk told me you should always use sealant (some special Honda sealant no less). Naturally, I hadn't, and naturally the thing still pisses oil everywhere. Which would be fine, but hamfisted me has buggered up one of the studs, so it now turns with the nut. HELPFUL. I just keep pouring oil into it.

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Had a few hours on this last night:

 

rafHiJr.jpg

 

Got a new set of brake pads off GSF, while I was there I saw this on the shelf so grabbed it:

 

wP9tBwK.jpg

 

Its a Sealey one, but I stupidly looked it up on eBay when i got home and saw you could buy it for £15 (half what GSF charged me!!!) Ah well.

 

Anyway its nice having the proper tools and it helped me to chuck the new pads in alright so I shouldn't grumble. I also found a seized-up slider on one side, had to take off the caliper carrier and free that off in the vice. Put it all back together and tightened up the cable. With that lot done the pedal was firmer, and we had a proper handbrake that could for the first time hold the Rover still on my slopey driveway!!!! Revelation.

 

Also pleased to notice that the welding job on the rear arches is holding up OK, no rot has crept back in yet!!!

 

W11wVVC.jpg

 

So, feeling optimistic, today i chucked it in for an MOT:

 

WfUqxN0.png

 

*Sigh*

 

I was quite hopeful as the Rover is driving great, but it wasn't to be....! SO I ordered a new upper arm off the bay while sat on the frank zappa at work today (£25) and I will have to get a new balljoint boot for the other side. They've knocked it back for a rough wheelbearing too but theres no droning or funny noises so I think that might be misleading, I will have to have a look at the weekend. Yo!

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Congrats on getting such great value out of these unloved old heaps.

 

post-132-0-97004100-1512544202_thumb.png

 

Seriously though. What the Friar Tuck is that bust brake bulb all about? Deliberately fitted just to check the MOT boys are doing a proper job?

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  • 2 weeks later...

done a bit on this in the last few days...

 

EXbyN7s.jpg

 

First job was a new wishbone, cost £25 off eBay and was a piece of cake to fit

 

B4ZHWLd.jpg

 

 

 

Lovely job!!!

 

Next we needed a new rubber cover on the balljoint on the other side:

 

FbXOCLo.jpg

 

Got this off eBay too, £3 for two. No doubt it will have been made by the Hoo Flung Dung Spicy Wasp Rubber Vulcanising And Baby Food Manufacturing Concern and will have turned to mush in 3 months but I'll worry about that then.

 

What else? ONe front brake was low on effort, I dismantled it for a look and the caliper seemed clean and unrusted, but it was MEGA hard to push the piston back in more than about 1mm. I decided that the hose must be failing inside so back on the bay for a replacement (after clocking that they cost an eye-watering £52 from ECP!!!!)

 

zyK3Qky.jpg

 

ON it went....

 

The other fail point was a rough-feeling front wheel bearing. I couldnt find anything wrong with it though, so I deployed an 'IGNORE' strategy on that one.

 

Back to the MOT shop:

 

Pzz7mpj.png

 

BOOM!!!! Sigh of relief as I was 5 days out of MOT by then.

 

So the MOT cost:

£20 for rear pads

£25 for wishbone

£13 for brake hose

£40 for the test itself

 

£98 total, not bad really. The MPG on this car is not the best (28ish) but total cost so far, including purchase and initial fix-up is about £500 plus fuel, which after 12,000miles I make about 24p/mile (leaving out tax and insurance) which seems OK. I really could do with a new set of tyres though which is gonna hit that hard!!!!

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