Project 1994 Rover 414SLi - Fin.

[vulgalour]

The Princess is waiting her turn.  Tbh, I don't want to work on her at the moment, I'm enjoying focusing on the Rover for a bit.

[Noel Tidybeard]

Funny you should mention that, I had the same thought last night and even found I had some suitable tape so I'm giving that a go later today.

i like the cut of your jib young feller-me-lad

[brownnova]

Spent some time burping it in the conventional manner

That you managed to pick it up and pat it on the back deserves much credit!!

[purplebargeken]

^^ hehehehehe.

[vulgalour]

A little more Rover fettling was done today, not a huge amount because I wasn't blessed with much free time.  This morning Bradford Auto Spares got a call so I could order a pre-facelift bonnet release mechanism from them for £25 delivered, then it was off to the unit to get on with some other jobs there.  While waiting for paint to cure I decided not to be deservedly idle but to fettle again.

 

Decided to remove the rear panel off the boot, this is attached with 5 nuts from the back, two screws from the front and a further two screws through the number plate.  The original dealer plate this car still sports is actually fitted off centre, which does annoy me, and one of the screws had to have the head drilled off.  Other than that it was easy to remove the lot and get it cleaned up.

20150730-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Inspected the boot lid and found it nicely free of any rust at all, just your typical dirt and moss.

20150730-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The number plate light lenses need to come off to be cleaned, they're quite dirty inside.  I was in no mood to do that today so it can wait for another time.  The moss on the return lip came off easily enough.

20150730-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

There were two reasons for removing this panel.  The first was to get it realigned properly because it didn't line up with the lights.  That was quite important for the second bit, which was to give the thin red tape a go.  I'm satisfied about this, it splits the big block of black up just enough.  A nice twin exhaust pipe box or even a trim on the existing pipe once it's been shortened would make the back end just how I want it.

20150730-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20150730-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I still had some time and I probably should have just chilled out a bit.  Instead, I carefully wet sanded the lacquer peel back on the top of driver's door.  I had found a can of Rover Flame Red in my stash which I didn't realise I still had and this came in handy for where the paint was very thin.

20150730-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Fresh coat of lacquer on top and when I next get chance I'll flat and polish that back to make it an invisible repair.  The door handle will be done off the car, as will the bit of lacquer peel just under it.  It's a fairly quick job really, and quite nice to eliminate one of the uglier bits I see every day on the car.

20150730-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

With everything done that I had time for I moved the car out of the way and heard a horrible noise.  Turns out I reversed over the drill.  Still works so we've just bandaged it up and continue to use it.

20150730-08 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

[Honey Badger]

Impressive work with this so far Vulg, your cracking on at a fair old rate.

 

The red pinstripe looks good on the rear end, it's looking very early 90s GTi with all the black and red.

[vulgalour]

Hnnnggg

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Renault-Espace-mk1-Gtx-alloys-4x-100-15-inch-in-really-good-condition-/161779166673?hash=item25aaca2dd1

[KruJoe]

Ooh, R25 rimz. Interesting. 

Spigot rings ahoy!

[vulgalour]

Tis a moot point, I'm all out of pennies and probably will be until after the auction.  I've spent way too much just lately.

[Noel Tidybeard]

hurrah the red stripe worketh

[purplebargeken]

Cracking work there Vulg. Nice touch cleaning up the rear panel.

 

Liking the red stripe on the lights, less so on the rear panel. Just my personal and means nothing in the real world

[vulgalour]

Acquired a set of three common not-Rover alloys for £1 recently, just trying to organise collection. Tried a donor wheel with the same important dimensions so I know they'll fit no bother, just no idea if they'll look any good so keeping it to myself for now.

 

Today, it was determined I'd get started on sorting out the clutch. Mike foolishly offered to help and my brother appeared too so we had a good pool of knowledge and tools and whatnot to get it done. Shouldn't be too much of a bother really, access to the gearbox and everything looked fairly good and I had all the parts I should need so we cracked on with it, optimistic we'd be all done before the sun went down. I mean really, how hard can it be?

 

Before we get into that, I had been doing some work on the front wing Joe supplied. I wasn't going to take it as I thought the one on the car was much the same, but after spending a bit of time with the dolly kit and flapwheel I think it's worth doing up and swapping onto the car. Both wings have this sort of warty rust bubbles.

20150801-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Liberal application of the flapwheel makes short work of it. The steel is in reasonable condition. There are other methods to clean up rust but I'm going with one that has always worked for me and lasted for a long time. Clean everything back where you find the rust until you've got shiny metal. Some areas are trickier than others. You'll need to go a bit further than this, but this is how it starts. Be sure to chase the rust spiders back because otherwise they'll just emerge again when you repaint.

20150801-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

There's a small hole in the return lip. I will probably give this a quick blob of welding to fix it properly. However, Rover fitted a rubber U channel trim to the lip that would hide this well. I'm not sure if the trim is supposed to prevent or cause rust.

20150801-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Some areas cleaned back to shiny metal and discoloured blackness where the rust was.

20150801-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

After everything was cleaned up, including the dent I dressed out on the top of the wing, it was all treated with Jenolite brand rust converter and left until tomorrow when I hope to have time to clean this up and get some fresh paint on.

20150801-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20150801-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

A couple of days ago I made a start cleaning the engine bay but didn't have much patience for the job so let it be at this. Tidier, but not as good as I want it to be yet.

20150801-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

So, onto the clutch job then. First up was to remove the battery and air filter again. Then the starter motor came off which in hindsight probably wasn't necessary.

20150801-08 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Gearbox is pretty oily and grimy, it looks like it has had a spill or come back through the vent or something in the past and never been cleaned up. It's all fairly old oil.

20150801-09 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

With the car up on stands, Mike and I set to removing things like the front partial undertray and disconnecting the gear selector rods and all that stuff. It should have been a simple matter to disconnect the lower arms. The inner bolts (two each side) were almost impossible to shift but did eventually relent. The castle nuts on the lower balljoints, however, were a different matter entirely. Now, it is possible we didn't need to disturb these and could have done the job leaving them in place. Unfortunately by the time we realised this we had also discovered both nuts, split pins and bolt threads were just collections of rust and attempts to remove any of these items just made matters worse. We wasted a lot of time on this part of the job.

20150801-10 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Unfortunately we had to resort to cutting through the threads and removing the arms. Since you can't just get the ball joint and have it pressed into old arms, a new pair had to be ordered which won't arrive until Monday now. Really disappointing but at least there's the reassurance of nice new parts going on.

20150801-12 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

While the passenger side hub came off nice and easily when we got to removing the driveshafts, the driver's side needed a little help. The wheel nuts this side were also done up so tight the rattle gun struggled to shift them.

20150801-11 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

One driveshaft out and another derp moment - it was one of those days - when we realised neither of us had remembered to drain the gearbox oil. There's supposed to be two litres in there, at best 1.5 litres came out and it had a distinctly burnt smell and look to it.

20150801-13 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

With the driveshafts out we found the passenger side one was nibbled and leaking and the driver's side one was deformed so we'll have to get a pair of those ordered, it was by now too late in the day to place an order for them so it has to be done tomorrow. Yet more expense that I hadn't expected. Removing the gearbox was a chore too, finding all the bolts wasn't too bad but then getting access to some of them was annoying, like this one. You couldn't put the ratchet directly on the socket because it was too close to the casing and you couldn't use a spanner or similar because the bolts had been overtightened, just like pretty much every bolt we'd encountered.

20150801-14 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Eventually we got the old clutch out. There was quite a bit of meat still left on it and it all looked fairly new apart from the release bearing which looked quite old and was a different manufacturer to the rest of the clutch. The friction plate had also been installed the wrong way around. This may explain the issues I was having. There was also signs of hot spots. I had been expecting a paper thin clutch with shiny rivets, not this.

20150801-15 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

We were quite puzzled by this to be fair, it looks like someone had taken the time to change the clutch in the car but had done it wrong which in turn had led to the symptoms of a dead clutch. While my brother and I cleaned as much of the oil as we could off the gearbox - I like to clean things when I get them off the car, helps me see where I've been and makes things look nicer - Mike quietly got on and reinstalled the clutch.

20150801-16 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

 

Then we called it quits. We'd spent way too long on this, mainly because we were fighting bolts that were on so tight they were bending the breaker bar and we were all pretty fed up with it. Tomorrow I'll be going in with Mike to get the gearbox back on and do any other small jobs I can find (and there's still plenty of those) just to make sure the car's time inside the unit isn't wasted. I'll go in again on Monday to fit the new parts, providing they arrive and are correct.

[KruJoe]

Mr_B thought he had a bo11oxed clutch too didn't he? (In the 214 he sold to John, now with Tam). He pulled out a half-used clutch plate, much like yourselves. His issue was inside the gearbox though; hopefully you can fix this by fitting a new set properly. Yours did feel like it was nearly on its last legs when I had a quick go in it.

 

Did I tell you that there's a mod you can do to the clutch cable on these to give them a better feel?

[vulgalour]

If you did, I forgot it.  Please regale me anew.

[KruJoe]

It's getting late, I'm struggling to remember the details. Something about putting a squashy plastic spacer at the gearbox end of the cable... I read about it on a one-make Rover forum with a dark grey background.

[Bear]

Always impressed with the effort you put into these.

 

That little bleed bolt being overlooked is probably a major contributor to a lot of boiled K-series. MGFs and Freelanders do have design issues with their implementations, but Rover R6, R8 etc - they were good installs and really didn't fail anything like as often until the cars got to the age where other work had been undertaken on the cooling system.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

How come those bottom arms were such a problem then? Could you get the nuts undone but not separate the tapers??

[the judge]

Rover k clutches. All bolts went with a huge keerrrrrrack after using every bit of strength. In all fairness,the bolts never sheared and were always good quality. You hear that vw? Not allen bolts made of cheese

[twosmoke300]

Hear hear , did a clutch on a mates a4 tdi and all the Allen bolts holding the clutch on rounded . That's using a newish snap on bit too .

In my experience rover do use good quality fasteners but use loctite a lot which really slows the job down .

Prob no help now vulg but you didn't ( as you thought ) need to split the ball joints or pull the o/s shaft out of the hub on those .

[vulgalour]

Boll:  The castle nuts, split pins and threaded section of the bolts were all just a collection of crumbly rust.  The mistake we made was poking them.  Lesson learned for next time.

 

Update in a tick, today has been a better day than yesterday.

[vulgalour]

Unlike yesterday, today was a good day to work on the Rover.  Gearbox went back on with minimal hassle and most things plumbed in easily.  The clutch pedal now has some spring to it where before it offered nothing at all.  Perhaps that has resolved the issue and I've escaped any sort of gearbox malady.  Gearbox oil and antifreeze were also acquired for when we get to that point.  Gearbox looks far better and was much nicer to move around without its crust of oil.

20150802-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The only bit left to connect is this stupid little rubber clip for the speedo cable.  Anyone got any tips on this one for us?  It doesn't seem to want to go back where it came from.

20150802-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

My brother found the sticker machine.

20150802-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20150802-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20150802-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Flange I'll tolerate, but not boot badges.  Still, he chased out and welded up that little hole on the wing.  I'll get this dressed back and tidied for paint.

20150802-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

He also welded up the bonnet holes, which was nice of him.

20150802-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

They dressed back really well.  White grille is only there temporary, we kept picking it up and moving it so thought it best to just stick it to the front of the car so it didn't get broken.

20150802-08 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20150802-09 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

We had enough time to get two goes over with the stopper filler before home time.  It needs more work, but not a vast quantity.  If it weren't such a visible panel I wouldn't bother making it more presentable than it is because there'd be no need.

20150802-10 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

 

Then the important task of temporarily fitting the new wheels had to happen.  These are the three alloys with tyres and centre caps that cost me £1.  I took the old centre cap badges off, which gives a clue as to what they're from.

20150802-11 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

A quick clean up and a rear door badge applied with a bit of masking tape shows what I want to do with them.  They work surprisingly well.

20150802-12 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I'm after two more (so I have a spare) and I need to decide what colour I want them because the silver isn't cutting it for me.

20150802-13 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

 

So that's that.  Not a bad day really.  Tomorrow the last few parts arrive to get the car back on the ground and driving again which I'm looking forward to.

[KruJoe]

Intersting. Coarsa SXI or something... why didn't I think of those? They're surprisingly smooth and modern looking for you, but I think they'll work. In silver.

As mentioned in John's thread, I think I may be able to sort you out with the badges.

[Ghosty]

Corsa B Sport wheels!

 

I'm surprised - I was gearing up to see those generic '90s triple soft spoke wheels. 

They could look pretty good...

[vulgalour]

I wouldn't have gone for them because I thought they were the wrong style but at the price it would have been daft not to.  I'm very pleased with them, especially since they're a straight swap.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

They actually look really good - never would have considered these.

 

Exact same fit then?

 

Only problem is all vauxhalls r shit. I hope the griffin influence doesn't inflict lots of Luton wrongness on the poor rover

[Lacquer Peel]

Nice*.

[vulgalour]

TADTS:  same PCD, slightly larger centre bore on the Vauxhall but that's not a worry and offset is similar enough that they clear everything and stick out just a little more than the steels.  Couldn't really ask for better on the fitment front.

[vulgalour]

Huh, found another three matching alloys on eBay, 99p starting bid and collection from Hull so I've stuck a bid on those and we'll see what happens.

[captain_70s]

Very alloys.

Such 90s.

Much 3-spoke.

Wow.

[purplebargeken]

The alloys look excellent, almost OE. Very nice indeed