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The Castle Gresley Rover 820


Motown

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Mine wouldn't start as didn't have a spark. I did everything you did.

New coil, cap, leads, spark plugs etc. We fitted a new head and did cambelt, water pump.

Injectors didn't fire because no spark - hence asking.
[mention=17519]NorthernMonkey[/mention] is the man to ask.

I was given and 820si with the M series engine.

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Mine wouldn't start as didn't have a spark. I did everything you did.

New coil, cap, leads, spark plugs etc. We fitted a new head and did cambelt, water pump.

Injectors didn't fire because no spark - hence asking.
[mention=17519]NorthernMonkey[/mention] is the man to ask.


Just to feed a steady 12v to the coil...the spark is effectively generated by a switched earth but the 12v feed on yours was dodgy.
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1 hour ago, phil_lihp said:

I have very little to add other than to say well done and keep us posted, it's great to see cars like this being brought back to life.

Cheers! I agree it’s a shame I couldn’t get the Maestro I would have brought that back to life too 

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1 hour ago, The Moog said:

Just to feed a steady 12v to the coil...the spark is effectively generated by a switched earth but the 12v feed on yours was dodgy.

I don’t understand your post sorry.

I appreciate you are trying to help I need all the help I can get. if you can explain to me more clearly il try whatever it is your suggesting 👍

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Re: current progress, Nice!

At that point, with spark and fuel achived you most likely have a small list of possible causes:

  • Gummed-up injectors
  • Insufficient fuel pressure to open the injectors properly.  Could be crap-filled fuel filter/fuel lines/fuel rail or not enough electric to the fuel pump. If you're only getting a dribble from the fuel system then that's not enough, on a multi fuel injector system it needs like 40-50+ PSI of fuel spraying everywhere to get proper fuel injection (if i remember correctly).
  • Electical issue causing injectors to not fire. When running, one wire on each injector is usually a shared constant 12v+ power and the ecu pulses the ground* wires of each injector to ground to fire them. (in other words, the ecu is connecting and disconnecting the injector grounds rapidly to match the amount of fuel required)

Edit: What Moog means is take a spare bit of wire and connect one end to the 12v battery terminal and the other end to the 12v wire that goes to the coil or injectors. The important bit is you must identify what the 12v coil or injector wire is because if you connect 12v to anything else you'll probably fry something.

I'll be honest, the fact that the car runs on easystart would make me think that the 12v to the coil is relatively good because the car is sparking the plugs when running on the easystart well enough. However it's definitely worth a try because you could be getting what's known as "voltage drop": basically the wires might not be allowing all the power through them, maybe enough to produce a spark but not enough to power the coil and injectors fully.

Soz if that's a bit technical btw. :)

*ground and earth are the same thing as far as these explanations go, basically the negative side of the battery is ground/earth. Not sure if i'm stating the obvious there though.

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Shame about the Maestro but I reckon it might be quite a bit rustier than the 800, although you’re right that parts are probably easier to find. 

£700 is a bit mad though, there was a very similar working MoT’d one that changed hands on here for £400 or thereabouts very recently.  

On the bright side, it leaves you more time for sorting the 800! 

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I don't think I'd be feeding 12v to the coil on this, i can't see what that would achieve.... if the engine is spinning  over OK there must be decent battery voltage. Surely you can tell if its sparking by just pulling an HT lead, sticking a spare spark plug in it and giving it a crank. You'll soon see if there's a decent fat spark or not.

The fact that you've identified there was no juice getting to the  front of the car sounds to me like you're homing in on it now.  I would say give it a crank and leave the ignition on. Then crack one of the fuel unions at the front of the engine and you should get a squirt of fuel coming out. If you do, you can be fairly sure you've got decent fuel pressure at the injector rail. If you do have that, and still theres no sign of it firing up, I'd be looking at the injectors. They might well be stuck after its super long lay up. You could get one of those 'noid lights' that flashes up with the injector pulses and see if they are being told to open and close by the ECU. If they are getting a signal but not squirting anything (i.e. no start and dry plugs)  you could either swap other injectors in if you have some, or get yours out and send 'em off for ultrasonic cleaning, it'll cost £50-£60 to get em done.

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7 hours ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

get yours out and send 'em off for ultrasonic cleaning, it'll cost £50-£60 to get em done.

Or get your own ultrasonic bath! They are excellent for cleaning all kinds of things in the fuelling department, even carburettors (once taken apart, obviously).

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11 minutes ago, omegod said:

Sounds like promising progress, she sounds a bit like my wife a bit grumpy after being woken up from a long sleep :) 

I think decent fuel, fresh filter, new sparkolators and wires and she'll be reet 

The wife or the car...............

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Might be insultingly obvious (or irrelevant) but have you tried the inertia fuel cut-off? The one on my 820e was a right PITA and would activate with the slightest provokation; notably on the roundabout at Frinton-On-Sea level crossing. If it's like mine, it's behind a carpet panel on the centre console (passenger side) and a quick pulling and pushing of the button will sort it out.

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On 12/16/2020 at 4:21 AM, BlankFrank said:

Re: current progress, Nice!

At that point, with spark and fuel achived you most likely have a small list of possible causes:

  • Gummed-up injectors
  • Insufficient fuel pressure to open the injectors properly.  Could be crap-filled fuel filter/fuel lines/fuel rail or not enough electric to the fuel pump. If you're only getting a dribble from the fuel system then that's not enough, on a multi fuel injector system it needs like 40-50+ PSI of fuel spraying everywhere to get proper fuel injection (if i remember correctly).
  • Electical issue causing injectors to not fire. When running, one wire on each injector is usually a shared constant 12v+ power and the ecu pulses the ground* wires of each injector to ground to fire them. (in other words, the ecu is connecting and disconnecting the injector grounds rapidly to match the amount of fuel required)

Edit: What Moog means is take a spare bit of wire and connect one end to the 12v battery terminal and the other end to the 12v wire that goes to the coil or injectors. The important bit is you must identify what the 12v coil or injector wire is because if you connect 12v to anything else you'll probably fry something.

I'll be honest, the fact that the car runs on easystart would make me think that the 12v to the coil is relatively good because the car is sparking the plugs when running on the easystart well enough. However it's definitely worth a try because you could be getting what's known as "voltage drop": basically the wires might not be allowing all the power through them, maybe enough to produce a spark but not enough to power the coil and injectors fully.

Soz if that's a bit technical btw. :)

*ground and earth are the same thing as far as these explanations go, basically the negative side of the battery is ground/earth. Not sure if i'm stating the obvious there though.

Thanks for the suggestions i will try them all this weekend when work commences on the car 👍

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23 minutes ago, omegod said:

new sparkolators 

Sounds like someone has found the best YouTube channel out there 😉

@Motown I'm still chuffed that a shiter has taken this car on. Any progress is good progress- it's great to see the car out of captivity after so long, and after the future looked so bleak for it.

Here's one which has lived local to me for many years. His garden is full of 800s too, one with a TWR kit apparently. 

 

 

8435767473_7b82e6a622_c.jpg

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15 minutes ago, RoadworkUK said:

Might be insultingly obvious (or irrelevant) but have you tried the inertia fuel cut-off? The one on my 820e was a right PITA and would activate with the slightest provokation; notably on the roundabout at Frinton-On-Sea level crossing. If it's like mine, it's behind a carpet panel on the centre console (passenger side) and a quick pulling and pushing of the button will sort it out.

Yeah i tried that as i know how easy they are to trigger however the Inertia switch was fine thanks for the suggestion though!

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32 minutes ago, omegod said:

Sounds like promising progress, she sounds a bit like my wife a bit grumpy after being woken up from a long sleep :) 

I think decent fuel, fresh filter, new sparkolators and wires and she'll be reet 

You sound incredibly lucky my wife is grumpy all the time.... Ive only seen her smile twice once while stroking a donkey and the other when i bought her a 25. Pictures enclosed 😆

96865200_10158516071728910_1925758933461368832_n.thumb.jpg.706a0620e975f16fe325ac9bbe9baaef.jpg13731009_1639401933041027_5116602077146810664_o.thumb.jpg.612edd6c60e233ad32edb55c9963257e.jpg

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31 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

 

@Motown I'm still chuffed that a shiter has taken this car on. Any progress is good progress- it's great to see the car out of captivity after so long, and after the future looked so bleak for it.

Here's one which has lived local to me for many years. His garden is full of 800s too, one with a TWR kit apparently. 

 

 

8435767473_7b82e6a622_c.jpg

Thank you kind sir! il keep everyone posted i am really appreciating all the suggestions.  

Do you know if the chap is willing to part with any?  TWR kit you say ive only ever seen two in the flesh. The cost of the kit was £1,675.00 painted and fitted i guess that's probably why not many kits were sold rare then even rarer now...

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I think a fair few of will have been delighted to see this released from it's prison, a lot of us mumbled about doing something but nowt occurred.  I'm often scouring scrappy's and know of one that I am convinced will have an early 800 lurking in the bushes so if there are any daft bit's needed shout up and I'll keep my eye out 

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1 minute ago, omegod said:

I think a fair few of will have been delighted to see this released from it's prison, a lot of us mumbled about doing something but nowt occurred.  I'm often scouring scrappy's and know of one that I am convinced will have an early 800 lurking in the bushes so if there are any daft bit's needed shout up and I'll keep my eye out 

Aye i have seen many posts some spanning back years of people posting photos and debating whether it should be saved or not. To be fair every car in that dealership was saveable apart from the Cavalier that's well and truly fucked but that's just my opinion.

That's very good of you one thing i do need is the little plastic trim/clip that fits between the wood trimming on the front and the dash. Sadly i cant provide you with a part number as my microfiche no longer works but i will try and find a picture. I could also do with a beige parcel shelf for one of my other 800s.

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46 minutes ago, Motown said:

Thank you kind sir! il keep everyone posted i am really appreciating all the suggestions.  

Do you know if the chap is willing to part with any?  TWR kit you say ive only ever seen two in the flesh. The cost of the kit was £1,675.00 painted and fitted i guess that's probably why not many kits were sold rare then even rarer now...

He's a proper character. I guess he's got the others as spares for his red 800 - I'd imagine they're pretty screwed after sitting out in the elements for so long. I don't know him to speak to, but will ask a mutual friend if he's likely to sell some parts. 

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7 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

He's a proper character. I guess he's got the others as spares for his red 800 - I'd imagine they're pretty screwed after sitting out in the elements for so long. I don't know him to speak to, but will ask a mutual friend if he's likely to sell some parts. 

I would be interested in either saving another 800 providing it runs or obtaining some mk1 (xx) parts. If enquires are to be made please ensure its done in a proper and friendly manner.  I had a mate once who enquired about a Senator which was rotting on a driveway in Rotherham a few years ago. He just walked down the drive poked his head in the car and when the owner came out the house replied with IS THIS FOR SALE? Lets just say the owner had a big hammer but very short legs and luckily my mate got away unscathed.

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12 minutes ago, stuboy said:

need more pics..

@Lord Sterling took the photos in 2013 it appears. The red 800 is still used as a daily by the fella. I don't want to say too much as I'm aware the photos were papped over the bloke's garden wall, with his house in the background. Here's a closer shot of the TWR kit. 

@Motown,  I'll send you a pm. 

20201217_224044.jpg

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Further progress made on the car detailed below. Spoiler alert its f**king running Woooooo!!!!! :) 

So this weekend i had a brief chat with a friend who agreed to come over and give me a hand with the 820 (Like me he also owns an 827) Between us we managed to drain the oil which was quite sludgy and resembled badly mixed bisto gravy but there was nothing within the oil itself so already by this stage we were confident the bearings would be ok.

We removed the timing cover and everything appeared to be were it should be but we did notice what could be the cars original belt (this will be changed at some point in the near future)

131427198_395671718353062_2061505187727953982_n.thumb.jpg.9ca805078a65986c2838df162f9ecd2b.jpg

 

After draining the oil and flushing the car we filled it with some fresh oil and fitted new filters literally on the first crank the car fired up but failed to hold idle and cut out after about a minute or two. It was then my friend noticed the throttle was sticking so after abit of tinkering and lubeing of the throttle we tried again and it amazingly it held idle!!! :D

There was a certain level of anxiety as initially the engine was very ticky and at times wheezy we were trying to work out whether it was the engine itself or the manifold/exhaust downpipe blowing because the noise was emitting from the front of the car and when you revved the throttle the noise disappeared. The anxiety quickly went away though as we noticed the longer we left the car running the better it became.

The first video was filmed almost immediately after the car first fired up and as you can hear the engine is noticeably noisy but by the second video its starting to settle down.

 

Not long after the engine is starting to settle down

 

The car is currently running off an 827 fuel pump but i do have an 820 pump on the way so while the rear seats were out of the car i took the opportunity to clean them up and remove all the mould and dirt. The results were pretty good to say the interior has sat festering in the elements for about twenty years.

131529744_388078562260408_6913165341833575221_n.thumb.jpg.3cbac8c46b3fb273a0497c5be0fb308d.jpg

 

 

And finally i have managed to get all the parts the car needs out of storage today. I stacked them up in the kitchen ready to be fitted into the car the wife has gone ballistic but i have assured her they will be shifted with a few days. I have everything with the exception of a windscreen so if anyone can help please contacted me. 

More updates to come soon, All the best 👍 

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Just now, Fumbler said:

This car is coming along very nicely! When it's done, present it to the dealer owner and see if that changes his mind on the Maestro, if it's still there...

 

I am planning to drive it back to Castle Gresley when its complete for a few photos however i doubt this will change the mind of the owner of the dealership. I sent them pictures of all the Rovers i have restored recently and it achieved absolutely nothing! 🙄

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5 minutes ago, Motown said:

 

I am planning to drive it back to Castle Gresley when its complete for a few photos however i doubt this will change the mind of the owner of the dealership. I sent them pictures of all the Rovers i have restored recently and it achieved absolutely nothing! 🙄

Some people are real hell-bent on "I know the car's value" etc. Apparently got the 1.6 in it too. Posh Clubman perchance?

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