420GSi Turbo - Interior; dry. Radiator; leaking. Further repairs; curtailed!

[Austin-Rover]

In the 'end of year tat accounts' thread, I made mention of a 420GSi arriving on the scene (quite unexpectedly I might add). So with nothing much else happening this new year's afternoon, I'll make an introduction...

Anoraks will note the fog lamps indicate this is a Turbo, and the Coventry registration means that it was  also a Rover Group Company Vehicles car when new (27th August 1993). I do wonder if anyone ever actually ordered one of these at their Rover dealer, or did all 300 of them have a year with Rover, helping to make the price a bit more down to earth for the first proper owner? ? That aside, the first 'proper' owner was Barry - who lives in Eltham - and he took the car on in July 1994, pootling about with it right up until November 2019. Impressive! (Barry has replaced his 420 with a brand new Astra GTC). He wanted a good home for his Rover after all those years, and through various channels we were put in touch. Now, I wasn't really after another car, but some things you really can't pass up. It did mean moving on my Daewoo Espero (happily, now back on the road with its new owner!). A charitable donation was made for the car, and a day out to London planned, which went without a hitch. The drive home was exciting; you can drive it sedately and exactly how you would expect an old Rover to drive - in full-on 'grandad' mode - and it is a comfortable and relaxed thing. Put your foot on the accelerator though - in any gear, it doesn't matter, the response is the same - you are thrown forward with surprising speed. Crazy stuff!

The next week or so saw the car get some regular use to allow us to figure out just what we'd bought. The plus points are that it's quite possibly the only surviving unmolested 420 Turbo, it's all complete with everything working and it comes with twenty five years worth of bills and paperwork. The downsides are that despite Barry's admirable and generous spending on it over the years, it's not really been 'looked after' (if that makes sense). It's hardly been washed, the inside is a health hazard, and all the muck in the back arches means it'll require a date with the welder in the next year. Still, it has an MoT until August 2020 and is in fine mechanical form.

So, what next?

The first job made itself known quite quickly; It had spent all its life being parked on a steep driveway, pointing up hill. It now lives on a flat driveway in a part of the world that is nearly always raining, thus it's now soaked inside. Actually with the amount of water in the rear seat base and under the carpets, it has been leaking for some considerable time. It has just become more obvious now.

So out came the headlining and in went the dehumidifier!

It's taken a few days to clear the condensation from the roof panel, and thankfully the weather has been dry. I've taken the opportunity to cut some new gaskets for the rear lamp units, so I've eliminated one known water ingress point. Things are dry enough inside the car now to pinpoint the exact points where the water is coming in the next time we get some rain.  Sunroof is an obvious suspect, and also the top of the rear screen due to the corrosion there.

There's also a lot of silicone sealant around the top of the front screen, which is unsightly but must be doing something to help currently.

So the current state of play; I've got some black tape stuck across the top of the rear screen to try and keep the worst of the rain out. The dehumidifier is still doing it's thing, filling up every second day! I await further rain so I can investigate the sunroof some more. Either the seal against the roof panel or the drain tubes, I reckon.

Medium term plans are to clean up the interior and get some mechanical work done such as cam belt, water pump and a general service. Hopefully we can keep the worst of the weather out and be able to enjoy taking it to a few shows when the spring and summer arrive. There's an Astra in bits in the garage at the moment, so there's now some impetus to get that project completed so that the 420 can take its place later this year. In many ways the fact that it has come with such a long MoT takes the pressure off a bit, and I don't feel that I've just added an unusable wreck to the fleet. It'll be nice to show it off in its 'as found' state!

 

 

 

[spartacus]

These are ace, what a great start to the year. Good to see it getting some love and being looked after properly, it deserves it. 10/10

[155V6]

Fantastic!.My ex had a brand new one from work when she had to go on a course ,& I got to drive it.It was a bit different from the 3 litre Granada I had at the time ?

[Heidel_Kakao]

Nice A 2 litre turbo Rover is such a sleeper especially if the 420 badge happened to get replaced by a 414 badge.

How many miles did Barry put on it?

 

[wuvvum]

What a lovely thing.  I almost bought one of these once (in Nightfire) but on the test drive it was overboosting and cutting out, which put me off rather.

[DoctorRetro]

Winning! Would love to try a 420 one day, I found the 416 fast enough for me. ?

[rantingYoof]

I sincerely hope that opening post 'wins the day' as it bloody well deserves to.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

[Tam]

As a self confessed Rover licker. This is a thing of dreams for me!! Wins the year for me 

[HillmanImp]

Thats fucking cool. After having the n/a Rover 220 of many Autoshiters I'd love a go in one of these as that thing was far more rapid than it had any right to be. This must be a hoot. 

[Skizzer]

What an excellent car.  

And judging by your story of the chocolate lime Montego, it’s fallen on its feet.

[Dan302]

For all the Rover lickers well worth following this chap on YouTube

He is currently restoring 3 SD1's including a diesel, this 420 GSI tourer (phwoar) and a bubble 200 with a Turbo. Stock up on tea/coffee and some cake and go through his videos!

[bezzabsa]

1 hour ago, Heidel_Kakao said:

Nice A 2 litre turbo Rover is such a sleeper especially if the 420 badge happened to get replaced by a 414 badge.

How many miles did Barry put on it?

 

Last MOT Mileage	97,906 miles
Avg. Annual Mileage	3,800 miles
Mileage Last Year	4,358 miles

[MarvinsMom]

i didn't think that there was any of these left!

which is a sad thing cos they are an ace car.

when i started working one of the senior engineers had a white one as his company car, the rest of the company fleet was made up of p10 primera's which were ok, but i prefered the Rover, cos, well it was a Rover.

with time it got sent back and was replaced by an aldi A4, which wasn't half the car the Rover was.

i didn't much care for that thing.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I don't know if this was one of them , but John Towers' wife, Beth had at least one silver 420 Turbo. I think she changed cars every 3 or 4 months, in common with most car company ' management cars'.

I found it ironic that she loved 400s because she was quite badly injured when she bounced her 416Gti off the tunnel walls on the M45 to M1 slip road in about 1991- that car wasn't a Rover owned car, rather her company car at the firm we both worked at, at the time. Last time I saw her, which was about 4 years ago she had a Supercharged Rangie.

[pauldoubleyou]

Have a question.. is that not a gti turbo? It hasn’t got the black gsi interior.. it’s got the grey gti.

 

It also is listed on dvla as a 420 - not a 420 GSI Turbo.

 

(And has SEI alloys on it)

 

What engines in it? M or T series?

 

I aren’t doubting anything you say about it however a few things are a bit odd about it.

 

 

Had more then a few of these and wished I hadn’t broke / sold them.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Austin-Rover]

5 minutes ago, pauldoubleyou said:

Have a question...

 

Its exactly as it should be. There's two versions of the GSi Turbo, this being the earlier one with the 'lightning' seat fabric with grey leather. It's the T Series engine.

[pauldoubleyou]

Its exactly as it should be. There's two versions of the GSi Turbo, this being the earlier one with the 'lightning' seat fabric with grey leather. It's the T Series engine.

Good stuff. Please don’t think I’m trying to dampen your new buy. It’s a great motor. I was just so interested as there’s so very few of them left.

I’ve had a 220GTI and a 220GTI turbo, I think two GSI Turbos and about four or five conversions. I’ve even had a 220GSI that was incorrectly log booked as a GTI, which was odd. DVLA at the time (probably 2005) weren’t interested in me wanting to change it.

T series is a bloody heavy lump but very reliable I found. They always, always benefit from a new coolant temp sensor and I’ve not found one yet with a genuine cam cover gasket that didn’t leak.

Good luck, I’m not sure if I can but if you need anything give me a shout. I used to help moderate the old Rovertech.net forum in the good old days..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Austin-Rover]

...the later 420 Turbo also lost the front fog lamps. Miserable buggers!

Re; the leaky T Series thing. This is quite bad, and one of the reasons it'll be going to the garage sooner rather than later. I have an 820 with a 'normal' rate of leakage that doesn't make a mess, really.

[Rovorsche]

3 hours ago, 155V6 said:

Fantastic!.My ex had a brand new one from work when she had to go on a course ,& I got to drive it.It was a bit different from the 3 litre Granada I had at the time ?

A Granada and a 420 you say ?

Very few photos of this but many hours spent grinning like an idiot.

 

[pauldoubleyou]

...the later 420 Turbo also lost the front fog lamps. Miserable buggers!
Re; the leaky T Series thing. This is quite bad, and one of the reasons it'll be going to the garage sooner rather than later. I have an 820 with a 'normal' rate of leakage that doesn't make a mess, really.

They seem to suffer from leaky corner (ns/front) at the headgaskets but it’s simply down to poor design of the oil gallery in that corner. I’ve seen people try and add some copper brake pipe into that corner between the head and block that’s sorted it. The multilayer gaskets do alleviate it a bit.

I always throw the cam gasket in the bin (big huge flat thing) and use hylomar blue. It’s not pretty but does the job.

Cam seals can be fun too. All the above do come with a gasket set though.

Cannot stress a new CTS enough. Especially for poor mpg and lumpy idle.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Isaac Hunt]

Great find.  Sounds as though it will restore quite well.  I had a 420Sli for a while, that moved out well when pushed, the Turbo version must be well rapid.

[clayts450]

Much win - would love to get behind the wheel of a turbot T-series Rover. Will be watching this with much interest.

Really could do with doing the cambelt on my SLi N/A - perhaps we could make a day* of it and do them side by side, as I'm a cambelt change virgin. You could give me some handy tips ! I'll bring cake.

[stuboy]

looking good

[HMC]

Great stuff. The ultimate sleeper. Did they do much marketing with these? At the time I guess it was a “gentleman’s express” in Rover’s (very aspirational) early 90s eyes; but to us now it’s a q car and big contrast to the giffer image that a 400 had.

[Austin-Rover]

The drying out continues; I've run a strip of tape along the top of the rear window and - as a temporary measure - seem to have stopped water entering the cabin there. It's a window-out job ultimately. No leaks apparent from any of the sunroof components. Since the last update, it became apparent that to speed things up, the front seats were going to have to come out, along with the carpet and foam pads underneath. Saturated foam pads are HEAVY! This car'll be even quicker when it's dried out! ?

In other developments, I've started cleaning up the removed interior plastic parts ready for reassembly. Take a look at this grab handle to give you an idea of just how gross the inside of the car is!

[Schaefft]

Grab handles in my Aurora looked similar, a good clean with white vinegar solved the issue though.

 

[dollywobbler]

Liking this thread very much.

 

Edit - Regarding GTi or GSi, I'm far from an expert but seem to recall that with this final facelift, the 420GSi was just a 220GTi with a boot, but the S rather than T meant it was an insurance group lower. I always assumed that was deliberate.

[stuboy]

i turned down a Tomcat for 500 quid cause i just become a father....boooooooo

[rusty998]

Have you removed the metal strip with the rust on it ? It just needs the screws removing and then you can see if the rear window aperture has rust on it,  If you can see black foam the window could well be original,  If the foam is not present and or damaged it might have had a replacement at some point, 

The front screen top seal was always a hard rubber/plastic and would chafe through the paintwork causing rust at the front,  

Also the front screen side trims are clipped on to the bodywork and if the screen has been replaced but the clips on the side trims not then that can cause water ingress, 

Personally I would be checking the front screen at the top because of the obvious rust that is showing first, 

The rear screen has trims that are clipped on with many different types of clip all the way around, the bottom ones go through the bodywork iirc,  they came new with foam seals on them but the seals could well have turned to dust by now, I've spent many an hour in the boot of a 400 whilst it was being hosed with water from the outside, 

Also I would remove all the door cards to check the plastic membranes as they can shrink which will let in water, or might be damaged by someone who worked on the door, I've seen many membranes that have just been punched through or cut ,

That should give you plenty to be getting on with for now, hope my advice is helpful,  

And I'm not in one bit envious of your TURBO Rover,  it's a lovely motor.

 

[ash0121]

Hi mate how's it going i really like the 420 turbo that you have recently purchased. I just wanted to ask would you be interested in selling it? I also have a rover 620 turbo in very good condition just had near £2000 spent on it that i can p/x if you prefer or just cash if you are willing to sell thank you.