Kenneth_Mc_Testes' ROVER 45 V6 JATCO JUS KICKED IN Y0

[Mr_Bo11ox]

This car is my daily now!!!! I am going to drive it something like 400 miles tomorrow, fingers crossed

[Insideimsmiling]

Relax it's a Rover!

[Guest Lord Sward]

WCPGW?

[Jim Bell]

Looks like a fine place to spend the day trundling.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

YO DJ PUMP THIS PARTY

 

After the Gooner left the fleet on Sunday, I insured this Rover and did a big drive in it yesterday (420 miles in a day!!!):

 

 

First problem was that the radio had lost its code and although I'm sure I have put the code in before, I couldnt find it. So I spent £10 with these boys at 7am on a bank holiday monday:

 

http://www.mgrovercodes.com/rover/45/radio-code/?gclid=CKrIt8XIvcwCFdIV0wodG_4Jaw

 

After 20 mins they emailed the code through, I put it in and we had CHOONZ again (well, Radio 4)

 

I was going up to Northumberland to visit my granny whose 91st birthday was happening That meant a drive up the M6 then off at Penrith and across Hartside Pass A686 which is one of the greatest driving roads of all time.

 

On the A686 between Alston and Whitfield.

 

This was a good chance to evaluate the Rover properly for snags. I'd already found several:

 

• passenger side seatbelt will not pull out (just locks up all the time). This is a pain in the arse because Mrs_Bo11ox will not travel without her belt on so on Sunday we'd had to drive round with her sat in the back like flippin Driving Miss Daisy which is ridiculous. I fathomed out that if you pull the belt out while decelerating it pulls out OK but it will need changing for the MOT. Anyone got a breaker?
• Drivers window doesnt wind down
• Heater fan only works on speed 3 (got a new resistor pack to fix that)
• passenger exterior door handle broken (got a new one in the right colour to fix that)
• ABS pulsing at low speed. I checked the reluctor rings on the front and they are present and seemingly unbroken but they are very rusty and it sems plausible that they are not generating a clear signal. Think I should probably change them.
• Blow from the exhaust middle box - on insoection this has been welded before so I need a new box. Ordered a new one off eBay for £30
• Horrible cheap buzzy radio speakers that sound SHAT, don't know where Rover bought their speakers but they are always atrocious!!!! The radio itself is a Blaupunkt effort and seems quite decent with separate tweeters beside the door mirrors.
• Sunroof does not retract (pops up OK though)

 

Apart from the exhaust and the ABS these are all minor Rover standard issues and do not detract from how it drives, which is actually very well! It stormed up the M6 at 70-80 mph in driving rain and felt very stable and capable, no unexpected vibration and decent ride quality. The suspension is a lot different to the Laguna, it certainly doesnt have the finesse of that car's remarkable ability to smooth out minor imperfections of the road surface, so in the motorway its greatly inferior to the Gooner but on bigger bumps its far better at soaking them up and the handling and grip is very good, much better than you would expect from the car's looks! You can tank it round twisty bits at surprisingly high speeds and the steering is pretty sharp with good feedback.

 

 

I just love the wild moorland of this part of the world. I grew up round here and drove and cycled round all these roads back in the day and although like everywhere property values always squeeze out large numbers of 'normals' replacng them with commuters and moneyed 'townies', this place is less affected than most of the UK so it still feels reasonably 'real'. Its even beautiful when the weather is bad (which it is most days).

 

Driving the Rover round here was a delight. Its such an unusual mix - the interior is a bit cheap and chatty and the exterior looks pretty uninteresting (plus mins has lots of annoying dings and dents). I always thought the 400 range was the lamest of that generation of Rovers, just a half-arsed Honda makeover. But this thing must not have much Honda left in it I guess. The 2.0 all-aluminuim quad-cam V6 seems like something from a much more expensive and sophisticated car and the Jatco box is smooth and responsive, the whole power unit is a very classy thing that lifts up the rest of the car. I know the front end structure of the 45 is a lot different from the 400 - MGR did a lot of development work on it and changed a lot of expensive stuff despite the two cars outwardly looking the same. Its an interesting recipe with blue-chip shite credentials - right up my street.

 

 

 

The weather picked up remarkably in about 20 minutes from chucking it down to bright sunshine so at Whitfield I decided to go over one other favourtie raods - 'The Steel' from Whitfield to Beltingham/Ridley. This is a little, slow, singletrack lane with cattlegrids and very steep hills & tight corners.

 

 

Stopped on the steepest bit here for a photo!!! Luckily the handbrake is OK and I put it in Park too. Its so isolated here, I love it. I just stopped and looked at the landscape for about 15 mins. Saw a few oystercatchers fannying about in the mud too.

 

 

What a pleasure! Driving a new honk of Rovershite through one of my favourite spots in the world. On my own!

 

Anyway I carried on eventually through the roman wall to Granny_Bo11ox's gaff, where I spent an enjoyable few hours eating cake and talking about this and that.

 

Then on via the B6318 Military Road (another favourite) to North Shields to give Sister_Bo11ox a visit and drop off some presents for 2 yr-old Nephew_Bo11ox including a big wooden toy bus and a Vintage Bus DVD which I wish I had myself.

 

I was enjoying the drive so much I unexpectedly arrived at Billy Mill Roundabout:

 

Brimmed the tank in South Shields and calculated a fuel consumption of 33.4mpg, not bad as I know the 2.0KV6 is not the thriftiest. The drive home in the evening was pretty dull, long stretches of 50mph limits on the A1 and M1 as normal but I whiled it away listeing to audiobooks of Roald Dahl stories. I had forgotten just what a wonderfule tale 'Danny the Champion of the World' is, and beautifully read by Timothy West. Got home at 11.30 pm and went straight to bed. I can't wait to crack on with the de-snagging -  think this car is a keeper!

[TRW]

Mr_Gonad, I've a passenger seat belt in my breaker 45 you can have for the cost of postage.

Give me a day or two to check it functions properly and its yours.

[r.welfare]

Billy Mill Roundabout! Always good to get a "Roger's Profanisaurus" quote in. I thought I was just being hamfisted with that seatbelt.

[dieselnutjob]

calculated a fuel consumption of 33.4mpg, 

 

That seems brilliant for a V6 petrol auto.  in fact it's probably less pence/mile than my diesel auto. The 607 is a bigger heavier car but it's also a lot slower.

[Jim Bell]

Ah man. You came past my house and didn't stop off to pat your old 25 gti on its boot.

It will have a sad.

[carlo]

What a lovely write up.  Agree with you it's much nicer having a drive on your own, can't enjoy a journey half as much with someone prattling on next to me.

[HH-R]

Class. Billy mill looking remarkably quiet in that photo and a nice blue sky...I call PhotoShop.

[forddeliveryboy]

Check to make sure the belt assembly hasn't moved on its mounting bolt or been replaced not properly level - they can do what yours is if so. Great read.

[stripped fred]

Great write up there Mr Bollox. One of the best I think I've read. Have you thought of doing it for a living? I bet there aren't too many 45's with this engine and auto box left. It's a nice looking car too.

[Isaac Hunt]

YO DJ PUMP THIS PARTY

 

I can't wait to crack on with the de-snagging -  think this car is a keeper!

Excellent shakedown run, soon in to V6 Cambelt "do we or don't we"

[Mr_Bo11ox]

know what you mean, I can't find any record of it having been done! This would be my biggest cambelt challenge so far....!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Had a mega session on this yesterday. Fitted a new door handle (in a slightly different shade of blue for max shite points), fixed the drivers window (the mechanism had just come unbolted from the door) and chucked on a new centre box, curing all the exhaust blows at a stroke. Driving down to Oxford tonight - can't wait!!! I love driving it.

[Guest Lord Sward]

There were 2 shades of Wedgewood blue as you've just found out.

[Isaac Hunt]

Driving down to Oxford tonight - can't wait!!! I love driving it.

K-Series, Nice and cool in the evening. I had occasion to 'half M25 it' yesterday afternoon in the mega heat with a K Series. Heater to hot in the traffic jam, blower on 4, windows open, not taking chances it was me who did the headgasket. On the hard shoulder were the usual suspects, air cooled VW, the odd Renner and Foxhall and spotted on the other side shoulder an IDENTICAL K-Series engined motor as mine. Temp remained stable, although it got a bit warm in the cabin.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Tried to fold in the drivers mirror on this yesterday. The bastard just snapped clean off!!!!

 

Obv been broken before and glued back on. FFS

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Yo sward!!!! Did you say you had a couple of ABS rings for one of these heaps? I need to replace mine I think.

[Isaac Hunt]

If your down in Oxford, check out Smiths of Bloxham, proper old skool yard, normally a few R45's in there

[Guest Lord Sward]

Yo sward!!!! Did you say you had a couple of ABS rings for one of these heaps? I need to replace mine I think.

 

 

Yeah.  And you bloody drive past me last week.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Still smokin round in this old knacker, needless to say I'm lovin' it

 

Sorted out most of the snags on it now, got a mirror off eBay for £9 delivered!!! It was the wrong colour but the coloured bit just clips off so I swapped that over. Also sorted the ABS rings yesterday, both front ones were broken:

 

 

 

 

Some donkey had tried to effect some sort of pointless repair by putting a few blobs on this broken ring with the mig. But the rings themselves are made of flippin monkey metal and don't weld too well. You can break em with your hands!

 

 

cleaned it all up and tapped the new rings on, took about 2 hours to do both sides. Forgot to take any more pics after this!!!

 

 

Anyway thats solved the problem, no more clicking and clattering from the ABS and it pulls up smoothly with no kicking back, perfect. Its almost fault-free now, heater fan fixed with a new resistor, drivers window winder mechanism fixed (had just fallen apart inside the door), new centre box on, etc etc.

 

One thing with this car is that you are always filling it up with petrol, it only costs £48 to fill it up from empty and in normal use i seem to be getting about 30mpg so thats about 290-300 miles from a tank!!! The Volvo could get 450 miles no problem and the red Gooner did a lot more than that too.

 

This week if we get a few nice evenings I think i am going to try and go over it with the mop to brighten it up a bit. I thiink it's had a silver coach stripe down the sides at some point, someone has cleaned it off rather brutally so hopefully i can polish off its remains and I might try putting a new one on - would that be a Rover addition or something from a keen previous old boy owner? Anyone know?

[Isaac Hunt]

Excellent progress Bol. I fixed a partially detached ABS ring on an X-Type Jag with some Araldite. Cleaned all surfaces bright and shiny and stuck it down, good as gold.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CortinaDave]

Great buy. I'm really taken with my £250 facelift ZS. Such a nice handling, nippy and fairly frugal motor, for absolutely no money. It's pretty quick too despite only being the 1.6.

 

This with the v6 in will be quite a toy I'd have thought!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Just organised to have this brought down to the house so I can start getting it back on the road. Exciting times! It's been sat about doing nowt for over a year, I hope I don't have to bust out the welder on it. Anyway it's getting delivered on Thursday (£60 for 70 miles - megabarg!!!)

[Ian_Fearn]

FFS effort should be invested in the SHERPA!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Sherp has got to wait till the weather picks up a little more as it won't fit in my garage!

[Shep Shepherd]

Looking forward to further updates ^^

[Mr_Bo11ox]

So this landed at my house on Thursday night!!!!

 

Its just been sat doing nowt for over a year so lets have a look.

 

 

 

 

Hmm, a bit mossy but it seemed to start up and drive about OK with a jump lead on it.

 

Saturday morning I chucked £60 at a new battery:

 

 

That got it starting right up on the button, lovely job. One of the annoying side-effects of having all these cars sat about is the number of batteries that get ruined, its very wasteful.

 

Next job - some TWAT had put silly anodised aluminium barry valve caps on. I wanted to pump the tyres up but the flippin things were seized solid!!!I couldnt shift them at all. SO:

 

 

 

Gave them a tickle with the grinder, broke them into pieces and replaced em with some placca jobs nicked off the Sherpa!!

 

Chucked some new wiper blades on, checked the lights and washers etc then gave it a wash:

 

 

 

Now that looks more like a car that deserves an MOT right? To be fair, its in surprisingly good nick this thing despite a year's neglect. Its nearly 20 years old but theres no real rot to speak of anywhere that I can find, inner wheelarches and that all seem mint. I might even roll the barrel right out this summer and attempt to do a proper waxoyl job on it, injecting the sills and arches and that

 

Finally, insured it then took it for a blast up and down the road to clean the discs off properly. INow I have dropped it off for an MOT whcih is happening tomorrow. Fingers crossed!!! Mrs_Nuts needs her car tues weds and thurs so if it fails I will be cycling 25 miles round trip to work each of those days which does not appeal.