My early 90's 'British' tat...

[2Thumbs]

Been meaning to post this one up for a couple weeks now.

 

Rover 420GSi Executive. Full leather, electric everything. Has the optional Volumetric Alarm fitted from factory.

 

Done 70k with full extensive history and one silver-top owner for the last 6 years who did 10k and cherished it like a baby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By no means perfect, but excellent where it matters. I've sorted the little niggles it's had over the last few weeks I've owned it.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Wowzerz, thats absolutley lovely! I had a 420 once, bought cheap with a broken gearbox, I fitted an MG monty gearbox cos it was all I had available, then sold it to some scousers who used it in a ram raid... how predictable.Yours looks like something else, what a honey.

[Milford Cubicle]

Wow that's nice! I've always fancied a 220/420. I have tried a later Civic-shape 420 and that was nippy enough, bet yours goes well.I really like the Rover 2-litre, it's gruff economical torquey and essentially pretty rugged

[outlaw118]

Bro had an L plate one, 420Gsi, red, black half leather, massive oil leak. (!) Crashed it on the way home from Toomeys in Basildon, having owned the car about 10 minutes. All repaired, was a nice motor, got traded for a 620ti on an N if I recall.....now THAT was a bit of kit....

[2Thumbs]

Yeah T16 lumps are rugged ol' things but they do leak from almost every gasket.There only weak point really is the PG1 gearbox.Thanks for the kind words. I quite like it, it drives lovely. No knocks or taps from the engine or suspension even when stone-cold. Feels like you're doing 20 at NSL speeds.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

That's a stunna. Has it got air as well as leathers?

[2Thumbs]

No A/C unfortunatly, it was an expensive option.As standard the Executive's had the following over normal GSi's:Full leatherLeather steering wheelR950 Stereo (top end)'Prestige' (14" Sterling) alloysRear electric windows.The colour's Nordic Blue and the leather is 'Stone Beige'.

[VWPowered]

wished my tourer had as nice an interior i may of kept it then looks mint that chap, you keep cherishing it

[2Thumbs]

Oh I do. In the first week of ownership I think I washed it 3 times.

 

Partly for the place where I park it though, it gets 'dirty' quite quickly.

 

So far I've replaced all 4 tyres (spare was OK) as they were badly persished due to the car being layed up for a time and genenrally not being used much.

 

Replaced all the door switches as the interior light wouldn't come on, the old ones were all corroded and the drivers side had been broken.

 

Repaired the sunroof glass frame as it had quite a bad amount of rust on the under side. All been stripped and painted with Hammerite satin black

 

Repaired the mount for the gas glovebox piston which is a known weak point on these. A bit of silver-soildering and reinforcment was in order...

 

 

Heater speed control knob had a typical sid 'n' doris repair job on it so was a pain selecting speeds so that's be replaced with an eLay special.

 

Had a full service will all fluids/filters changed nearly two weeks ago. Had a new clutch cable after it decided to snap on Exmoor.

 

I've replaced the dizzy cap and rotar arm.

 

Re-mounted the front bumper as the O/S had somehow come out of its mounting (can see in the first pic) and the arch liner was poking out.

 

Next job is clean the throttle body and stepper motor, and fit a new accelerator cable as the current one seems quite stiff and I expect that will snap soon if I'm not careful.

 

Not bad for 3 weeks tbh.

[Mash]

Very, very nice. That interior is beautiful. Ought to be a lot of nice 200/400s coming onto the market in the near future as their owners who bought them new after retiring in the early to mid-90s will be giving up driving (or popping their clogs!).

[Owain-328i]

Thats lovely, probably in direct competition at the time with the Orion Ghia SI 130ps

 

like the one i used to own;

 

 

miss that car, cracking drive.

[AnthonyG]

Lovely car, glad these R8's are starting to get the attention they deserve, the best Rover / Honda collaboration design by far - miles better than the 800 or the replacement 400.

[Pete-M]

My brother had a new K reg 420 SLi as a company car. He didn't want anyone to know it was a 420 so ordered it with no badges, figured the reps who had 416s probably wouldn't notice the little bonnet bulge.I laughed like a lunatic when it arrived - K420 MTU was the reg.

[r.welfare]

Lovely. I had a 420SLi a couple of years back that I picked up for £50 as it was going to be cut up for Fire Service rescue practice! Bonnet-bulge-tastic. None of the fancy leather and electrics that yours has though. Funnily enough I had to remount the front bumper as well, and it had a rust hole at the top of the A pillar (plugged with P38) as well as a slightly whiny gearbox up to 30mph or so. Looked good in Nightfire Red with beige cloth though, and thankfully it still had it's proper Rover wheeltrims rather than the usual Poundshop jobs, I wouldn't have minded some of those alloys though...Quite a sleeper, unfortunately the donut I sold it to (friend of a friend) once I got a ticket on it blew the HG by letting it overheat in traffic. RIP, J245 VRD. I've got a proper Rover workshop manual kicking about in the garage if you're interested...

[Station]

I've owned two Rover 213's (F reg, one in -gold- and one in metallic dark blue).

 

 

Best cars I've ever owned, I'm tempted to just get rid of my whole lot and get one of those. Build quality was incredible.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Build quality was incredible.

You dont hear that very often about those cars! I guess it probably was fairly decent if you ignore the totally non-existent rust protection.

[andrew e]

A very nice car indeed!

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Full leatherLeather steering wheelR950 Stereo (top end)'Prestige' (14" Sterling) alloysRear electric windows.

That is pure decadence fit for a Western Infidel, or a thrusting executive.We had these at Unipart around 1994/5. Mine was a black J plate 218D 5 door with the unblown 1.9 PSA diseasel, beige cloth and wood fillets. A bit slow getting up to speed (the 2.0D Countryman Montygoe was a weapon in comparison) but it was such a solidly built car and it never went wrong.Rover really hit the mark with these and we all thought it was the beginning of Rovers upturn. Then BMW came along and fcuked it.

[2Thumbs]

I've got a proper Rover workshop manual kicking about in the garage if you're interested...

That'd be awesome. Let me know what you want for it and I'll PM you my address or whatever.

 

The CAT (I think) decided to die on Saturday. So now I have no power and a rattle under load that over-bares everything with its volume and annoyance. Thank fook for £50 eBay specials though, I just can't really afford it for another week or so.

 

Couple more pics I've taken with my DSLR.

 

 

[pogweasel]

That last pic is class!I'll bet £5 that Reg Ritmo makes some kind of 'what are the chances' cooment....

[Mr_Bo11ox]

My mate had a 2.0 coupe one of those, that never ran right. He spent ages trying to get to the bottom of it, eventually he established that it was the CAT so he smashed the innards out of it with a long extension bar and a big hammer. Result - it ran perfectly after that! SEE YOU LATER POLAR BEARSWhats a DSLR? Yeah i know its a camera, what does it mean though.

[Albert Ross]

Photoshop can have it's uses though eh! I know it's a set up, normally you see these Rovers in the Disabled spaces. Proof it's a fake! Bloody good one though.

[2Thumbs]

My mate had a 2.0 coupe one of those, that never ran right. He spent ages trying to get to the bottom of it, eventually he established that it was the CAT so he smashed the innards out of it with a long extension bar and a big hammer. Result - it ran perfectly after that! SEE YOU LATER POLAR BEARS

That's what I'm considering doing, or cutting the two flanges off the current one and welding a piece of 2.5" Diameter pipe between the two. Then get a new cat at some point nearer MOT time.

Whats a DSLR? Yeah i know its a camera, what does it mean though.

Abreviation for Digital Single Lens Reflex. Uses proprietary lenses and a manual mechanism to take the picture which results in better image quality and the ability to do some wacky experimenting.

[Guest]

Do you actually (legally) NEED a cat on a car that age, or is it simply a theoretical means of achieving the MoT emission limits? I reckon you could probably do away with it permanently, keeping whatever sensors are required not to upset the EFI, without too much adverse effect on what comes out the tailpipe.

[Guest]

It all comes down to what the emissions are really, there's no way of them knowing it has a cat without dismantling things.

[r.welfare]

If it's post September 1992 it needs a cat, I think. If the cat "body" is still part of the pipe (I like Mr B's mate's method!) and the emissions don't exceed the MOT requirement I can't see a problem, but any MOT tester worth his salt might cock an eyebrow at a straight pipe sitting where the cat should reside in the exhaust system, if you catch my drift 2Thumbs, I've sent you a PM re. the workshop manual.

[Pillock]

Anything fitted with a catalyst from new will be put through the catalyst test, as the testing system knows which models do and don't have one. However, if it had a cat but is pre- 9/92 then you have the option of telling the tester to override the settings and do a non-cat test. I think they're only obliged to do this if the cat is actually removed, if it's just borked they might object.You don't NEED a cat at all, if your car can pass the emissions test. However it's very tricky to pass cat-based tests without one. My g40 polo was Sept 1991, originally had a cat but I had a decat pipe fitted (pukka Vw Motorsport item!). The tester spent ages retesting the emissions till it passed since they were borderline, was a bit peeved when I told him it was decatted and he'd been busting a nugget getting it to pass the cat test. Did though eventually.

[2Thumbs]

The car sits on a '93 plate so it certainly does require a cat for the MOT.Stuck it on the ramp at the independant I go to for big work earlier. As I suspected, the internals have come away from the casing and are flying around all over the place.So tomorrow I'll be armed with tools, axel stands, jack and lots of PlusGas in the attempt of wacking the shit out of the badlad.

[r.welfare]

Manual is in the post, 2Thumbs

[2Thumbs]

Cheers buddy.I'll keep it in the car. Will be good for self defense from road raged drivers from what I hear.