Project Creatively Titled Rover 400 Thread

[Ghosty]

One in the boot, one on the back seat.

[Ghosty]

Working clock a welcome sight.

[clayts450]

Working clock a welcome sight.

 

Jealous.

[Jim Bell]

I didnt know they made a seven door one of these.

[Ghosty]

Jealous.

Oh I can imagine! When I got in the car for the first time and saw it works I was both surprised and pleased. I know they're hard to find working. It's a really nice clock too, well placed.

[clayts450]

I was researching how easy it would be to replace on the 45. It was a dead easy job on the Streetwise, took all of 10 minutes to fit after finding a better Lucas (not Pektron) one on eBay for a few quid.

 

On the 45 it's a centre-console-out job. For a clock...

 

Pass.

[Guest Hooli]

Merthyr Tydfil

 

I used to have mates around there *shudder* it's an awful place.

[Ghosty]

Update: Llandrinod Wells. 210 miles done and just refilled the car with petrol, it was a little under half full.

 

36mpg

[Ghosty]

Have another pez shot.

[bramz7]

Blimey, good going for that sort of economy. My old manual 216 was averaging about 29/30. 

[Junkman]

I was researching how easy it would be to replace on the 45. It was a dead easy job on the Streetwise, took all of 10 minutes to fit after finding a better Lucas (not Pektron) one on eBay for a few quid.

 

On the 45 it's a centre-console-out job. For a clock...

 

Pass.

 

Try a 405 for size.

And 405 clocks are always broken. Except on the one I have, of course.

But the day will come. Inevitably.

[Junkman]

Update: Llandrinod Wells. 210 miles done and just refilled the car with petrol, it was a little under half full.

 

36mpg

 

I failed to bring the R16 under that figure so far and I'm not exactly hanging around.

Is that half a century's progress?

[RobT]

torque converter lockup works etc.

 

What revs are you doing at 70 Ghosty? Just wondering if the lockup in my 416 is working, as 70 is a knats above 3,500rpm and sounds rather painful...

[vulgalour]

CAR SIBLING

[Junkman]

What revs are you doing at 70 Ghosty? Just wondering if the lockup in my 416 is working, as 70 is a knats above 3,500rpm and sounds rather painful...

 

Your's isn't working.

In fact, I doubt it's shifting to fourth.

[RobT]

I've tried manually shifting from 4th to 3rd and it does change down, so must be the lockup.

 

I won't worry about it as I've only got the car temporarily. My Dad uses it for giffer duties so barely gets it above 40!

[Ghosty]

After I left the Tesco petrol station two staff came from the main store and seemingly shut off the pumps. Not sure if accidentally left on and I was lucky or just midnight.

 

I am now in Wrexham, that was fun.

[Ghosty]

Fin.

[wuvvum]

What revs are you doing at 70 Ghosty? Just wondering if the lockup in my 416 is working, as 70 is a knats above 3,500rpm and sounds rather painful...

If the autos are as undergeared as the manuals then >3,500rpm at 70 sounds about right.

[davehedgehog31]

If the autos are as undergeared as the manuals then >3,500rpm at 70 sounds about right.

Yeah, that ties up with mine. 

[garbaldy]

I didnt know they made a seven door one of these.

I think you ment six ?

 

Nice car you've snagged, these drive pretty well and I especially liked the dizzler one thats in the nice forest green colour, it clocked 55k trouble free miles with minimal cost.

[Ghosty]

IMG_0940 by max_burton, on Flickr

 

Slightly less concise writeup to follow when I'm home from work.

[Ghosty]

It begins - a tenner posted for a new repro lens is fine by me.

[wuvvum]

u need 2 change ur sig m8

[chaseracer]

I am now in Wrexham, that was fun.

 

No.

[Ghosty]

No.

 

 The fun bit was driving the entire length of Wales. Proper NSL A-roads.

[Ghosty]

Alright, write-up time. 

 

The journey down was completely uneventful - only two trains and a mile's walk at each end. Found the car no problems, and Bramz' girlfriend gave me a V5 to sign, and I gave her some cash. Bramz was at work unfortunately. 

 

So what do I have?

 

Well, it's a tidy, low mileage R8, and really, the pictures make look a lot worse than it is. The only rust is on the doors - the rears I'm replacing so are by the by, and the fronts are solid save for a bleb in the grey part of the passenger door. The grey bit needs spraying on the new doors so I'll have that one sorted at the same time. 

 

Despite the sunroof ostensibly being mastic'd shut to prevent a previous giffer opening it then not closing it, this had dried out - Bramz told me he'd jetwashed the car and bits had come off. 

I pushed the button and it opened, so that's that for now. It's a little slow but whatever. I'll clean the sealant off when I get chance.

Central locking works on all four doors! However the car seems to have had a lockset or something at some point as the door keys don't start it, and the original (and intact!!) folding Rover keys don't lock it. I noted it's had at least one replacement window at some point so this may be relevant.

As a matter of fact none of the keys lock it, so locking the car is done by opening the door behind the driver's, locking the driver's door then closing that one.

The electric windows are slow but work, and everything else electrical works. The aerial looks awful so I need to get a replacement at some point, but like everything else it works so it's fine for now.

 

When you start it for the first time on any given day it idles very high, around 2000rpm, but after that it's fine, however it has a bit of a misfire and is clearly running rich because it bloody stinks of fuel (there's no cat either, which is nice as the cat chokes 7bhp off it and it's easier to get through an MOT). Oh well, that's easy to sort.

Considering the rich running, it's doing bloouy well on fuel too.

 

Gearbox is nice and smooth, better than the Prelude's was when I got that (that thing was terrible and almost missed shifts). It's slightly shunty going from 1st to 2nd though so I'll be giving it an ATF change, piece of piss.

 

The car came with very little history, but it has an original dealer plate and sticker (nice!), service stamps to 34k, and a £500 bill for a big service including the rear trailing arm bushes done in 2015. To have that already done, especially on a car this cheap is CA$HBACK.

 

It also smells a bit musty inside so I'll be chucking some Neutradol in there.

 

The horn is pathetic so I'll be going twin air horns again

 

There's not a lot else to say really, it's a good running R8, cheap as chips and ready to go.

 

From Basingstoke it was over to Merthyr Tydfil, where a nice chap on the R8 Enthusiasts' Group Facebook page had offered me a rear door. I PM'd him and he only wanted £25 for it. It was even White Diamond, albeit from a facelift car, so will need a partial respray, but that's alright. A white door is lucky enough, white/duotone would be impossible.

Once I got there it turned out he'd broken a slightly barry R8 (the trim and mirrors were rattlecanned black, and the rear windows have dark tint film on them), and was moving house so needed to get rid of what he could - he had a full set of four White Diamond doors, door cards, and a passenger mirror. He'd offered me £60 for all four doors, but as I only have a 400 saloon I'd no way to take them, so I declined and stuck to the one door at £25. On my way to his place after having looked at the car I pondered taking more than one door.

Didn't take the door cards as I've a slate interior which wasn't offered on later cars, but I took the rear doors (missing the central locking motors as they'd been taken to put on a Metro, but I have two in my doors anyway) and a passenger mirror (the one on the car is held in place with duckt tape and prayers). I asked him what he wanted for all that, and he went, eh, just give me £30. 

Not going to argue with that at all, he was a thoroughly nice chap.

From there it was a short stop for dinner, then Welsh A-roads right up to Wrexham, which was a hell of a lot of fun. By that point it was getting late and into familiar territory, so M53/M56/M60/M67/home, and that was that.

 

I'd been driving the Rover for 10 hours with breaks, and I have to say even at the slightly droney motorway speeds, it isn't a tiring car to drive at all.

 

I've missed having an R8, and I'm really looking forward to cleaning this one up. 

Tomorrow I'm inspecting the engine and seeing what service items it might need - I've a couple of things on the shelf, and the rest of it should be easily available from ECP for fuck all, and changeable in an afternoon.

[vulgalour]

Idle issue sounds like sticky Idle Control Valve (ICV) or a minor vacuum leak somewhere.  Both are easy fixes since the former should just need cleaning and the latter will likely be a cheap gasket or hose that's past the first flush of youth. I found just cleaning out the weather stripping with a toothbrush and soapy water helped to get the windows to speed up, seemingly because there was less friction on the glass.  Some days they are a bit slow, I've never really figured out why as it seems random, so if you find out what's slowing yours down I'd be interested to learn.

 

Usual R8 water ingress issues might be a cause of mustiness.  Rear light seals, boot seal, rear inner wing vents (behind the interior side trims in the lower corners), and the rear body quarter light glass bonding can fail too.  All these bits can let moisture in without being a serious leak.  Check the wheel well too, some are prone to the rear of the wheel well pinholing.  Sunroof drains may also be blocked, I think you can do these with a net curtain wire if you need a cheap broggling tool.  Another point for water ingress is the roof aerial mount, sometimes the gasket shrinks and lets a bit into the cabin and can look like a sunroof leak.

 

Another job worth doing which you probably already know about is undoing the bolt at the bottom of the trailing edge of the front wing and then sticking a hose into the top of the wing at the A pillar to flush all the compost out.  Needs doing every few years ideally, most cars haven't ever had this done and the dirt backs up and causes issues.  Fitment on the front door upper frames is worth checking too, if there's condensation on the rubber seals then the frame isn't sitting quite right and needs bending back into shape properly which is easy enough to do providing you put the window down first.

 

Sounds a good buy at any rate, and the extra panels in the right colour was a bit of a score.  The grey is, I think, Tempest Grey on these, same as on the Maestro.

[Ghosty]

It most likely is the ICV, either that or the PCV is clogged, again very very easy to do.

The sunroof was unintentionally left open at one point so I'd say that's the most likely culprit.

Top of the driver's door seal is a bit noisy sometimes too.

Yes the grey is indeed Tempest

[Ghosty]

FUCK FUCK THREADED SPARK PLUG BORE SEND HELP