eddyramrod Posted January 3, 2018 Author Share Posted January 3, 2018 I'm flattered to be the reason you joined! As you can see from my fleet, I haven't let it put me off Rovers completely, although if something else appeared that could tempt me away from the one I have, well.... I could be temptible! A slant-four Bedford CF leaps to mind....All I can say about your car is, show us some pics please, and Good Luck! I hope you have an easier time than I did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schnappi Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Went armed with a camera to where I'm storing my 1985 Rover 216S. Bit miffed to find the garage has started leaking which hasn't done the boot lid much good! Water must surely have found it's way into the boot so I expect it's a horror story in there. It was a bit Indiana Jones, cobwebs and dead spiders everywhere. The car is a lot worse since I last checked on it (probably 5 years ago). Still looks fixable but certainly not one for the faint hearted.From the rear, the leaking garage has left a puddle on the boot lid. Of course the Rover has responded in the only way it knows - to rust vigorously! Pressing the tops of the rear wings creates nice crusty sounds so the boot gutters are likely shot... Stupid leaky roof, even the compressor tank at the bottom left of the picture is rusting badly!The boot lid is in a sorry state... Good luck finding a replacement for a pre-facelift Mk1 Rover 200! Let's face it - whatever I do it's never going to be a looker so the boot lid is the least of my worries. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if that corner detaches itself when I open the boot. So having seen what the water has done up top, let's have a peek underneath. Not great! I've dealt with worse though. Note the nice shiny new exhaust it was treated to just before it was laid up in 2000 (right waste of money that was LOL!).Here's the offside viewed from the back of the car. These two doors were off a G registration facelift moel - hence the chrome trim. The originals rusted to the consistency of a digestive biscuit back in 1995!Here's the nearside viewed from the rear. The doors are the originals (black trim). The lower half of the door skins (out of view) are both pretty rusty. These doors can probably be saved but would need some repairs to the bottoms and the outer skin would need sections cut out and patches fabricated and butt welded in. It'll look abysmal but with these cars it's a question of anything is better than nothing...Here's the offside viewed from the front. Notice the dead spiders photo bombing the shot! The roof aerial rusted out about twenty years ago so I cut out the rot and patched the roof doing away with the aerial altogether. Unfortunately the repair looks to have started rusting again, possibly even perforated where the roof meets the driver's door. I mean, what car rusts on its roof when stored in a garage?! Look around the rust on the roof, there is dust everywhere - it's dry!!! These cars really are special!Finally, the shot I was dreading - the sills. When I took this I was pretty horrified at first. It's certainly not great but most of the sill is still strong and the rust is on the surface due to the matt stone chip paint being slightly porous. The bottom edge looks dreadful and will definitely need replacing. Hopefully I'll be able to get away with replacing just the lower half of the outer sill. The question is, what state are the floor and inner sill in? Even if they're corroded I can still sort it. Where I'd be out of my depth is if the suspension mounts are heavily corroded. Perfectly happy cutting, fabricating and welding panels (eg. inner / outer sills, floors, etc.) - other stuff is too scary. Couldn't get far enough in front of the car to take a picture of it head on but the front end is in remarkably good condition (not that it counts for much when attached to the mess above!). So there's my car! As you can see, yours was a real stunner by comparison and certainly looked a better starting point for a bodywork restoration. That said, there are areas yours was rusty where mine is still solid and because I can weld it won't cost me more than sheet steel and MIG wire to fix up. For me the problem is a total lack of time. 3 kids and a wife that doesn't get the "old car" thing, an endless list of home DIY jobs and a newer car (1997 Vauxhall Vectra - that needs some welding) are standing in the way. I live in hope that one day I'll get to at least try to resuscitate it!To be honest, I'm in total amazement that any of these cars are still on the road even though I saw one on the A127 a couple of years ago and then there's that ratty grey one that still has an MOT that was pictured earlier in this thread! How do the owners keep these cars from rusting themselves into oblivion? These are, without doubt, one of the most rust prone cars ever built!!! eddyramrod, Angrydicky, Dirk Diggler and 8 others 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angrydicky Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 My old stomping ground there, schnappi - where in Sarf Essex do you reside? I was born in Rochford and lived in Southend most of my life! Used to own a Maestro that rotted around the ariel too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bren Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 I remember that at the time they had a perceived "premium" quality when in fact the build quality made an sd1 look teutonic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vulgalour Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Welcome along! I wonder how much of it you could tidy up a weekend at a time with just some elbow grease and fresh paint? At the very least it might slow the voracious march of the rust bugs, if not stop them, until you can get some hot mig action going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nisfan Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 It's quite surprising that the R8 seems quite a bit more resistant to rust than these earlier ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DodgyBastard Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 DSC_9794 by srblythe, on Flickr DSC_9797 by srblythe, on Flickr DSC_1322 by srblythe, on Flickr DSC_0978 by srblythe, on Flickr DSC_0116 by srblythe, on Flickr R8/Concerto in same conditions left to the elements DSC_0358 by srblythe, on Flickr DSC_0341 by srblythe, on Flickr DSC_0105 by srblythe, on Flickr Mr Laurence, Lacquer Peel, somewhatfoolish and 8 others 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben_O Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 Fark Talbot 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talbot Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 Hells bells that is some astonishing corrosion. That Montego in the background looks fairly dissolved around the edges too... similar age, similar issues? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schnappi Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 My old stomping ground there, schnappi - where in Sarf Essex do you reside? I was born in Rochford and lived in Southend most of my life! Used to own a Maestro that rotted around the ariel too! I'm Chelmsford born and raised. Work in Basildon. I remember that at the time they had a perceived "premium" quality when in fact the build quality made an sd1 look teutonic. I had the base model but I remember that it drove very nicely and the cabin was a nice place to be. Nice comfortable dark blue velour seats, a dark blue deep pile carpet - a proper carpet not the grey scotchbrite carpets you get nowadays. Thick rubber factory mats. Upholstered door cards, etc.. That said, they rust is like nothing else you've ever seen and the S series engine had some strange design flaws like no gasket between the camshaft carrier and the head. It also had really poor gaskets between the rocker covers and the camshaft carrier. It is impossible to stop it from leaking oil. It also had a very peculiar carb (SU HIF44E) setup with lots of overcomplication. An overrun fuel cut off ORFCO valve, and a stepper motor driven enrichment and idle valve. All this was driven by some flaky Lucas ECU. All of these (then) advanced features were problematic as the ORFCO was prone to sticking and the vacuum switch that controlled the auto choke was troublesome. Even the stepper motor was fitted with O-rings that perished if you ran unleaded petrol. So all in all it wasn't Rover's finest hour. The corrosion was definitely the biggest issue though. Welcome along! I wonder how much of it you could tidy up a weekend at a time with just some elbow grease and fresh paint? At the very least it might slow the voracious march of the rust bugs, if not stop them, until you can get some hot mig action going. If I had whole weekends to myself I'd probably get it done fairly quickly. A wife and three small children mean I get very little (if any) time to myself these days. To be honest, even though I often long for the days when I would spend all weekend in the garage I doubt I'll look back 10 or 20 years from now and go "I wish I'd spent less time with the kids and more time with that useless old Rover". Hopefully one day I'll have enough time to try and resurrect it. Who knows, maybe my children will take an interest when they're a bit older and it could be something we work on together? Hells bells that is some astonishing corrosion. That Montego in the background looks fairly dissolved around the edges too... similar age, similar issues? The Montego didn't suffer anywhere near as much. The SD3 has / had to be seen to be believed. I remember changing the clutch on mine back in the day and a few months later it had gone again. The reason was because the bulkhead had rusted so badly the clutch cable outer had pulled through the bulkhead so the clutch was not fully disengaged. It rusted literally *everywhere* and badly (holes, frilly edges, etc.). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parky Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 Know Chelmsford and Basildon well (I live right next to Lakeside). Used to work in Basildon as well (IFDS). Should you ever need a hand one weekend for cleaning and general pissing about with a knackered Rover, theres a few of us on here who might be happy to give you a hand! Shep Shepherd 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Tidybeard Posted March 13, 2018 Share Posted March 13, 2018 i had an s-series in my montebgo bASe which was oil tight and as it was an ERIC system the was no ORFCO to go wrong- sweet motor that was, had 134,000 on the clock and sounded like it was 13,400 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Tidybeard Posted March 13, 2018 Share Posted March 13, 2018 sd3 and sierror are the only cars i've seen with rust on the door just below the window! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shep Shepherd Posted March 13, 2018 Share Posted March 13, 2018 My mother passed her driving test in 1989 in an SD3 identical to the late lamented Hyacinth. eddyramrod 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SierraMikeHotel Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 Went armed with a camera to where I'm storing my 1985 Rover 216S. Bit miffed to find the garage has started leaking which hasn't done the boot lid much good! Water must surely have found it's way into the boot so I expect it's a horror story in there. It was a bit Indiana Jones, cobwebs and dead spiders everywhere. The car is a lot worse since I last checked on it (probably 5 years ago). Still looks fixable but certainly not one for the faint hearted....To be honest, I'm in total amazement that any of these cars are still on the road even though I saw one on the A127 a couple of years ago and then there's that ratty grey one that still has an MOT that was pictured earlier in this thread! How do the owners keep these cars from rusting themselves into oblivion? These are, without doubt, one of the most rust prone cars ever built!!! Bloody hell. It looks a bit like that when I visit my P6, only less bad. The garage is very damp but the car looks just like it did when I put it away in 2001 - no doubt there's plenty of rust underneath though. Truly appalling build quality to have it all over the car like that. Now I know why they seemed to just disappear overnight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bren Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 I'm new on here but joined because of this thread. A real pity to see this project grind to a halt. I own a 1985 Rover 216S (Hyacinth Bucket light metallic blue colour). It's been garaged the last 18 years and when put away it was a runner with MOT still on it. It was by far the rustiest car I've ever seen. During the time I was driving it, both sills were replaced, both rear arches, large sections of all four floor pans, large areas of the bulkhead, smaller sections of the boot floor. I replaced both offside doors. The nearside doors have rotten skins. I even had to patch up a 4 inch square hole in the roof where the aerial was. It even had rust starting in the middle of the roof! All the spot welded panel joins under the door seals (roof, A post and C post) were rusty. The area around the boot lid seal rusted... It rusted everywhere! That said, even though it's like a patchwork blanket I still have hopes of driving it again one day. It doesn't seem to have deteriorated much (from a bodywork perspective) since I put it away. It will never be anywhere approaching a decent looking car as too much has been cut out and welded but as an extremely rare care with sentimental value I can't part with it and I live in hope that I'll get a chance to drive it again. Perhaps when it's 40 and MOT & tax exempt I'll be able to plead my case with the wife! Anyway, I just hope that when that day comes I'm not faced with the situation you've come up against with your car. I'm fairly handy with a MIG welder and am used to welding cars but when it comes to suspension mounts etc., it starts getting scary. The worrying thing is that your car looked like a much better starting point than mine! I'm now quite worried about what horrors may lie in store! I'm actually shocked there are any of these still on the road!And to think I have had meltdown over a couple of bleed nipples.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lisbon_road Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 I wonder why these rusted so bad when the car before, Triumph Acclaim and the Rovers after seemed at least reasonably ok? We all have stories: I remember getting in one where the painted areas of the door visible inside the car were completely rotten. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DodgyBastard Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 G68OFD ROVER 213 SE Auto by Mark, on Flickr Look what's just appeared in the scrapyard... The guy I gave it to must have lost enthusiasm (can't really blame him it was fucked) and scrapped it. Dirk Diggler 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirk Diggler Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 This very clean looking 216 was advertised today for 1650; is a recent enough import from the UK to Ireland too, certainly post 2009 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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