RFU rescues a Rover 620ti - Bodywork done!

[twosmoke300]

Good to see . 

[AnnoyingPentium]

Dibs.

[RoverFolkUs]

4 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

Dibs.

With everyone falling head over heels over that cityrover I'm gonna need more than a shitty stick for this 😂

[fatharris]

Dibs.

Congratulations, you are officially No.2 in the queue 🫡

[RoverFolkUs]

2 minutes ago, fatharris said:

Congratulations, you are officially No.2 in the queue 🫡

I think that was an unspoken rule! 😄

[grogee]

Our local secret shiter taxi driver now has a 600. I noticed it yesterday walking into town. (Sorry no pic) 

That's in addition to his existing BLARG fleet which is:

R8 x2 

Maestro Turbo

Allegro Equipe

And some taxis plus his wife's Rennow. 

Some people just can't be helped, eh @RoverFolkUs? 

[motorpunk]

Missing mine, currently parked under a cat piss tarp in ‘merca. Genuine race-winning car! Sort of.

Good luck. These are great cars.

[RoverFolkUs]

Right, *priorities* 

Hoping to at least make a start on this over the next couple of weeks, however:

The clock doesn't. It's a Rover, TADTS! annoyingly it isn't just a clock but is also the radio display so I would very much like it to work, there are too many missing segments for it to be of any use. 

Stripped it to bits, tried the iron trick on the ribbon to no avail. There's a repair service available for £40 which I might go for once it's through an MOT... Or I might try the iron trick again

I want to keep it original so an aftermarket stereo is an option but not one I want to go for

I could of course do nothing, but niggles like this irritate me. 

Also, the telescopic antenna seems to have decided it doesn't want to come out and play anymore - so far I have only been able to tune into Radio 2! It just whirrs away when switching the radio on/off but doesn't actually do anything 

Again, this is something I'd very much like to work so I will be tinkering with it as a matter of priority 😂

That's all for now, watch this space

[RoverFolkUs]

*Disclaimer, no discredits meant at all. I've bought an MOT failure project! I use the word "surprises" very loosely*

Time for an inspection! 

Good and bad news: 

Bad news first - the rust is *extensive*, but localised. There is further nastiness hidden away... Especially behind the rear bumper, more on that in a bit.

Good news - it's in the right hands and will be fixed. 

Things escalated rather quickly as I removed all the wheels and arch linings to inspect and attack any grot points. 

This was the expanding foam side.....

However, it is pretty localised as I soon found solid metal. 

Whoever deemed that as an acceptable repair needs to hang their head in shame. To their credit, the filler work did an incredible job at hiding it which is probably how it went unnoticed for so long. 

I decided I wanted to remove all the arch liners and check the inner arches more thoroughly. Off comes the bumper, I'm glad I did.... 

The nearside rear isn't too bad, there was an arch liner here and somebody has undersealed it in the past. 

Unfortunately the offside rear is in quite a sorry state, the arch liner is missing on this side, so there's quite a bit of rot building up where you'd expect it. 

I haven't even bothered attacking the offside rear lower arch yet, it's been filled with something or other... 

One final surprise was unfortunately uncovered at the nearside front under the wheel arch liner: 

So that's the chassis rail/leg which will need sorting too. 

Anyway, rust aside which I already knew about, I'm pleasantly surprised at how the rest of the car has held up being in very good condition for the age, I couldn't really see much else wrong with it other than what was already known. 

 

I decided to investigate the floppy gear linkage, I was prepared to order the overhaul kit from DMGRS however it looks like someone has already done that and the problem lies elsewhere - 

There was relative movement between the bolt and the inside of the selector shaft, so whilst the linkage was tight, it was moving within the selector shaft, wearing it out. As a result it's slightly ovaled out. 

My solution to this was to insert a split pin in the slot, and then wind the bolt back in. In theory this would take up the slack between the bolt shank and the selector shaft, minimizing their movement between eachother. 

Happily this has worked a treat, the gear selection is now tight as a drum. I was thinking of installing a short shift kit as well, but with the distance between the armrest and the gearstick I don't think there's a great ergonomic benefit to doing that so I think I'll hold off on that idea for the moment and consider it fixed. For free! 

Unfortunately it has developed a coolant leak from the blanking ports, I connected the pressure tester and it started leaking as shown: 

I am impressed with the nature of the 2p fix however will try and come up with an alternative solution. 

In terms of oil leaks, it's very dry for a T-series! The main leaks I can identify are from the sump gasket and cam cover gasket. There is some minor sweating around the turbo area which I'm not too worried about. There's also some minor seepage from the power steering lines but not excessive amounts, I'm not too worried about that either at the moment. 

 

The current job list: 

Weld repairs: 

- N/S/R and O/S/R outer arches 

- N/S/R and O/S/R inner arches/behind bumper

- N/S/F chassis leg

Engine work/fluid leaks: 

- Sump and cam cover gaskets

- Rectify coolant blanking plug leaks.

- Replace cambelt kit

Brakes: 

- I can't really fault the handbrake, and the MOT brake roller printout seems to suggest a pass so I'm not sure why it's on the failure? However I'll clean and adjust everything up to give it the best chance. Hopefully no parts needed here

Suspension: 

- Replace the N/S/F lower ball joint which does have rather a lot of play in it as I was told! 

- Maybe replace the front ARB links although in my opinion it's an overzealous advisory

Exhaust: 

As mentioned the centre silencer is starting to fracture. There are some previous weld repairs so I'll try and weld it up for now. I'll replace all the rubber hangers as they seem worn and there's a fair bit of wobble in the system. The reason I'm bodging it is because I might get a stainless system made up and fitted it I keep the car long term

Interior: 

Helpfully there's a white 600 breaking on the Facebook group. I might have managed to track down a replacement sunroof blind, electric aerial, and door switches! 

The radio display/clock LCD I have found a repair service for around £40. To preserve originality I think I will opt for this!

I think that's all for now. Might start getting some welding done tomorrow!

[RoverFolkUs]

Right, change of heart. 

I poked at one of the scabs further up and found more bloody expanding foam. 

Coated the cavity with rust converter 

And off comes the outer arch. I'm glad I've done this because the lip of the inner arch needs addressing and would have only started to come through later down the line. 

Since I've gone to the trouble and expense of getting the complete arch panels I figured it would be silly to chop the bottom ends off and do half a job, even though that would have been enough to achieve an MOT. 

I've grown quite fond of this car already so decided it's worth the extra effort. 

The offside inner arch is even worse, this is the one that was missing the splash guard. Although the lower arch/sill area is nowhere near as bad as the nearside! 

I'm sure you can now see why I thought it would be daft not to rectify that inner arch area! 

If I was being pedantic I would argue none of this is within a prescribed area from an MOT point of view, but it doesn't change the fact it's only going to get worse and needs sorting. 

23 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Might start getting some welding done tomorrow!

I didn't want to be caught lying, so chose the easy option of the exhaust first! 

I can't seem to find the picture I took but added a few welds around the centre silencer which will hopefully seal it up. It looks like a stainless system to me underneath all the grime so that's another plus. 

And a finishing touch was to replace the centre-rear clamp which was hanging on for dear life and gave way after a couple of love taps with the hammer: 

The farty exhaust was a bit of a letdown on this car so I'll be pleased if it's fixed without any parts, and therefore money, needed!

[fatharris]

Very pleased to see this progress!

Might be worth taking the right inner boot trim out and looking between the panels there - I took photos of it a while back and it had clearly been kurusted in the past! EDIT - Ignore me, I can see you've already chopped it out 😅

Apologies of the state of the welding on the centre box - it was a quick job in a pinch to keep both halves together! It was weird, the car felt down on power, then one day an enormous bang occurred and the power came back, so there may be some blockage there - worth keeping in the back of your mind if it feels a bit lackluster when assembled.

Either way, I'm so glad this has gone to a good home, it's a great vehicle that deserved a second chance 🫡

[RoverFolkUs]

16 minutes ago, fatharris said:

Very pleased to see this progress!

Might be worth taking the right inner boot trim out and looking between the panels there - I took photos of it a while back and it had clearly been kurusted in the past! EDIT - Ignore me, I can see you've already chopped it out 😅

Apologies of the state of the welding on the centre box - it was a quick job in a pinch to keep both halves together! It was weird, the car felt down on power, then one day an enormous bang occurred and the power came back, so there may be some blockage there - worth keeping in the back of your mind if it feels a bit lackluster when assembled.

Either way, I'm so glad this has gone to a good home, it's a great vehicle that deserved a second chance 🫡

Cheers for the heads up there, I had recalled seeing those grot photos in your thread but hadn't visualised exactly where it was on the car yet so it's good if I've already found it and got rid! 

I was about to lift out the boot carpets and have a nosy around the tail light area where the carefully applied aluminium tape takes residence (😉) and assumed I'd find it there but I'd run out of morale for today so didn't *want* to find anything else! 

Don't be ashamed of the welding on the exhaust, I can see someone has already welded around the front of the centre box and I could see the tacks on the rear of it. The pipe had just fractured on the bit that nobody has welded so I've gone along and added a bit more for now. 

Appreciate the heads up on the possible exhaust restriction though, will certainly bear that in mind. 

I'm glad to be giving it a second chance. It's a solid car otherwise from what I've seen, so if I rectify all of the underlying grot at the rear then I don't expect it to have any rust issues for a long time. I intend to clean all the mud and silt from the arches on all 4 corners and apply a fresh coating of waxoyl once I'm done..I would say the rest of the car really is in excellent health so it would have been a shame for that bit of rot at the rear to kill it off. I'm glad to have caught the N/S/F chassis leg early too as that was happily hidden away under the liner!

[Matty]

Be some motor when it's done. A normal 600 was a really nice car so the full house 620ti is still a big thing even now. 

[warch]

I’m interested to see a few comments disparaging the Rover T Series engine. I thought these were fantastic especially in the Rover Tomcat my mate had in the late 90s.

Quite popular with motorsports users, plus they can be used in rear wheel drive cars using the old Rover/Land Rover gearboxes. I remember reading about a comp safari racer that had one of these fitted and went very well, despite the extra strain of powering a much heavier 4wd car at silly speeds.

I always thought the 600 was quite a classy car too, mainly because I used to work for an Earl and Duchess who had a 623 each (Honda motor). 

[Minimad5]

This thread is full of WIN.

1000% agree on Foam / fibreglass/ sikaflex / bodge repairs can F.R.O . Actually pleasing to see someone take pride in their work. Keep up the good work 😎👍

[RoverFolkUs]

A bit of head scratching on the headlamp MOT fail:

• Nearside Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect + Very Dim (4.1.2 (c))

Scientifically* held a piece of cardboard up to it and the beam pattern is indeed very weak compared to the offside. 

Can't really see much awry with the reflector medium within the lamp compared against the offside 🤷‍♂️

Fear not, chucked in a lowball offer on eBay and they only bloody accepted it within about 2 minutes 😅

It'll be handy to have another one and will save a lot of messing around for now, then maybe I'll pop the old one apart to try and see what's gone wrong and keep it as a spare

[MJK 24]

The Rover 600 is a great machine.  Possibly better than the 75?!

Anyway, it’s great to see the effort going into this thing.  Most people would brand it ‘end of life’ with all that rot but you’re persevering!  To be applauded!

[worldofceri]

On 13/12/2024 at 22:00, RoverFolkUs said:

door switches

If you need the switches on the doors for the interior lights etc that break really easily, I think I still have a couple in a box somewhere from when I had a ‘97 Accord. Let me know if you’d like me to have a look. Yours for nowt if I can find ’em.

[RoverFolkUs]

5 hours ago, worldofceri said:

If you need the switches on the doors for the interior lights etc that break really easily, I think I still have a couple in a box somewhere from when I had a ‘97 Accord. Let me know if you’d like me to have a look. Yours for nowt if I can find ’em.

That would be superb if you can, yes please 

[worldofceri]

16 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

That would be superb if you can, yes please 

I’ll have a root around at the weekend.

[RoverFolkUs]

52 minutes ago, worldofceri said:

I’ll have a root around at the weekend.

It's either perfect timing or you've jinxed it 😂

Alarm started going off at random this evening and it looks like the OSR switch has gone phut!

Fatharris had told me that a couple of switches had been disconnected in the past, I assume these to be the nearside ones as I checked them the other day and the nearside ones did not operate the interior lights but both offside ones seemed to be working ok the other day!

TLDR: yes please to any switches you may have!

[stuboy]

On 16/12/2024 at 20:10, MJK 24 said:

The Rover 600 is a great machine.  Possibly better than the 75?!

easy tiger,,,, the 75 is great

[Angrydicky]

1 hour ago, RoverFolkUs said:

It's either perfect timing or you've jinxed it 😂

Alarm started going off at random this evening and it looks like the OSR switch has gone phut!

Fatharris had told me that a couple of switches had been disconnected in the past, I assume these to be the nearside ones as I checked them the other day and the nearside ones did not operate the interior lights but both offside ones seemed to be working ok the other day!

TLDR: yes please to any switches you may have!

They are the same part used on the Rover 45/400 if you have any in a scrapyard near you. I snapped one off mine by trapping the seatbelt in the door and managed to get a couple of really nice ones from a tidy 45 in there (in there for mechanical reasons presumably)

[Noel Tidybeard]

2 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

They are the same part used on the Rover 45/400 if you have any in a scrapyard near you. I snapped one off mine by trapping the seatbelt in the door and managed to get a couple of really nice ones from a tidy 45 in there (in there for mechanical reasons presumably)

project nigel paul prolly has evleventy twelve of those stashed

[Barry Cade]

🫣 I worked on these when they were new, in a Rover dealer. I remember doing loads of warranty repairs on the front windows, they always seemed to go off track and fall down inside the doors. Fitting towbars was a pain in the arse too. Plenty brake caliper issues as well. 

Watching with interest!

[RoverFolkUs]

9 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

project nigel paul prolly has evleventy twelve of those stashed

I thought he turfed out all of his Rover parts and deleted the Facebook group?

[RoverFolkUs]

8 hours ago, Barry Cade said:

🫣 I worked on these when they were new, in a Rover dealer. I remember doing loads of warranty repairs on the front windows, they always seemed to go off track and fall down inside the doors. Fitting towbars was a pain in the arse too. Plenty brake caliper issues as well. 

Watching with interest!

1 jinx is enough so I'll be having none of this

[RoverFolkUs]

12 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

They are the same part used on the Rover 45/400 if you have any in a scrapyard near you. I snapped one off mine by trapping the seatbelt in the door and managed to get a couple of really nice ones from a tidy 45 in there (in there for mechanical reasons presumably)

Ah brill, thank you! Unfortunately I don't think there are any of those left either in yards around here as they seem to cube anything more than 15 years old as soon as they come in, but that's a great heads up 

[Noel Tidybeard]

12 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

I thought he turfed out all of his Rover parts and deleted the Facebook group?

still got a load of stuff in his vids

[RoverFolkUs]

Had a chance to do some sleuthing on the coolant leak: 

Like I said, I'm impressed by the ingenuity of the 2p coin fix but it wasn't holding up on that port to the left in the photo. 

I did some research online and found the OE part numbers for the sensor and retainer which would be fitted to a diesel model

And came up with the following:

Austin Rover new old stock!

You can see how this is going to work, the thermo switch comes with a new seal which is inserted into the rad, then the retainer twists and holds it into place

There's a cutout at the back of the retainer for an electrical connector if it was a diesel model which required them

And here they are in situ, demonstrated with and without the retainer. They fitted perfectly.

The old parts now retired from use, but I'll definitely keep these in the car as an emergency solution, just in case of any issues further down the line.

I had run out of time to run it up to temperature so instead I attached the pressure tester, and pumped the system upto around 15psi and left it for a while

Happily leak free! 

Very pleased with this fix. 

Just incase this is useful to anyone in the future:

The part number for the thermoswitches (seals included) are Lemark BHM4368 (factory number = CDU1490)

The part number for the retaining caps are Rover CDU1502

Both switches and seals were around £16 from parts in motion, and the NOS pair of retaining caps were around £10 from an eBay seller who had plenty in stock.