RFU rescues a Rover 620ti - Bodywork done!

[Snipes]

I should have spent more timing taking a closer look at this when it was at Brands. I had forgotten how much work you had put into it.

[RoverFolkUs]

It's been a while since my last update but there's been very little to mention recently - tomorrow will be 1 year since it arrived to me in a rather sorry state on a trailer! 

Obligatory jet wash photo from last month

And here with it's new stablemate 

It's recently clicked over 123,000 miles so that's around 5000 miles covered so far in my ownership 

Reliability has been on point, however there are a few jobs I'd like to tackle which will mean its probably going to spend a bit of time off road 

- Oil and coolant leaks - it appears the sump gasket I fitted last year has failed already - as I previously mentioned when fitting it there's an annoying design flaw where there are captive washers within the gasket for the diesel models which aren't needed for the petrol engine - I'm not surprised that over time this has compromised the sealing properties of the gasket. I think I'll just remove it and refit the sump with a decent RTV sealer instead. 

- Coolant is leaking from the radiator (very slowly, I'm having to top-up every 500 miles or so) - there is also a leak from the front metal coolant rail which I replaced previously - caused by the hardened rubber hoses going to the turbo. This is a job I was dreading because I'll have to take it apart and find a solution which was inconvenient as I was using the car quite a bit. Now I have the 45 I'll be able to delve into this and get it sorted. 

- The front anti roll bar links I fitted for last year's MOT have started to perish already - I'll likely source the Honda accord polybush links that are available for about £50 to rectify this once and for all before the next MOT. 

- Engine mounts - I've noticed that the car can be quite "jerky" on and off the throttle - I suspect this may not be helped by the polybush engine mounts it has fitted which I appreciate were fitted in crisis by @fatharris when doing the clutch. I've seen some bushes listed by DMGRS stating they're for the upper tie bar and lower steady bar - I'm tempted to try these but I'm not sure how much difference they'll make if any. I wondered if @fatharris you can recall whether there was any noticeable change when the polybushes were fitted?

- The cold running issue that has plagued this car for a while doesn't seem to have been too bad lately - it almost always seems a bit hesitant for the first 30 seconds when cold but I can get around that by letting it warm up a bit for 5 minutes while demisting the car anyway on these colder mornings. My current suspicion could be something relating to the injectors and/or pre-cat lambda sensor. I've considered sending the injectors off to be tested on a rig - I wouldn't be surprised if they've deteriorated given their age and miles covered. It probably wouldn't be too much hassle to back probe the lambda sensor with a scope and see what it's doing either. 

I'd love to be able to get my hands on a suitable diagnostic tool for this car. I believe there's someone local to me with a dealer T4 tool but I'd much prefer to have a PScan or something so that I can play with it at my own leisure 

There's been no improvement to the occasional fast idle when starting where it will hold the revs at 2k RPM - restarting the engine cures it without fail. I've tried the stepper motor reset to no avail. 

Lastly, I've noticed some water ingress into the boot so I would like to strip everything out to investigate and hopefully rectify this 

[fatharris]

The poly bushes made it feel a bit tighter but I didn't notice any undue harshness.

I still miss this bloody car! One that got under my skin for sure.

I found a lot of the boot moisture was condensation on the inside of the boot lid as Rover in their infinite wisdom didn't do a bootlid lining on these! There's also a well known failing of the lower rear screen seal clips if I recall correctly.

[RoverFolkUs]

24 minutes ago, fatharris said:

The poly bushes made it feel a bit tighter but I didn't notice any undue harshness.

I still miss this bloody car! One that got under my skin for sure.

I found a lot of the boot moisture was condensation on the inside of the boot lid as Rover in their infinite wisdom didn't do a bootlid lining on these! There's also a well known failing of the lower rear screen seal clips if I recall correctly.

Ah cheers, I didn't know that about the seal clips. From what I've seen there's quite a bit coming through on the nearside below the boot hinge in the cubby area - it might also be coming via the aerial which I've disturbed recently