Roverexposure: 825Si — the show must go on

[Lord Sterling]

Stunning vehicle.

 

PS: father in law had a 3 door version maybe a 2.2 or 2.5 i cant remember. Got scrapped in the end as the 'computer under the passenger seat' failed.

The only 3-door 800 there was was a Coupe like in had a couple of years ago, though mine was a 2.7 ltr 827 I guess your father-in-laws would have been a 2.5. Would you remember what year the car was?

[RoadworkUK]

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's as exciting as that.

 

The Rover was overdue an oil change, so I did it one.

 

This was the first oil change I had given the Rover since leaving a job where I had free access to a two-poster lift, so I had to make do with crawling underneath it on a pair of ramps.

 

I remember the sump plug being a bastard to shift last time, and I'm forever in fear of cracking the Alloy sump by being ham-fisted on it, so I bought a breaker bar in the pursuit of a nice, smooth untwisting. Worked like a charm.

 

 

Zero dramas to report. Only amusing thing was this: I took great pains with the chap at J&R to make sure that I got the right oil filter and not something for a first-gen 825 or an 825d or something silly. When I compared it to the one I fitted last year (also a Wix item) the part number was different, and it was about half the depth.

 

Here it is after having been removed, but not withdrawn: Its mammoth dimensions meant I had to use quite some force to bend the plastic splash-guard out of the way. Of course, the replacement, shallower item slotted in between the anti-roll bar, track rod and pushrod with no effort.

 

The KV6 takes 5 litres of 10W40, and 5 litres came out. Nice colour, too.

 

Filled and corrected the level once off the ramp, all good. Shake-down trip afterwards, no problems at all.

 

I'm sorry, I have nothing more dramatic to add.

 

Stay tuned for the next thrilling instalment.

 

 

[worldofceri]

Old car in regular use requires little more than routine maintenance SHOCKER!!

[RoadworkUK]

Yo homies.

 

Just wanted to bring this thread back from the depths of obscurity to enable me to find it a bit more easily so I can have a go at updating it on the hoof, in a portable stylee, using cellular phone technology. For 'tis road trip time.

 

Hopefully in something like an hour's time we're leaping into the Rover and heading towards "The North". We'll then, with any luck, go beyond "The North" and penetrate a wilderness where Volvos roam free. And then, at length, we'll run out of land and have to take a little boat in order to keep on going. Objective: Sanday.

 

I've packed the boot with what is probably an inadequate selection of tools, but this tradition has seen me through in the past. If owt interesting happens, I'll be sure to fill this thread with grisly details.

 

Here's a picture of a very dusty engine bay for kick off.

 

 

Misguidedly, I have established a Twitter "hashtag" for the trip, which I suspect will be roundly ignored. It's #Orkney800, anyway, and I'm @RoadworkUK because I'm dead modern and everyone who's anyone is on soshyal meedja these days.

 

(Not much) Sleep Till Kirkwall.

 

 

[320touring]

If you are near the central belt on Wednesday evening get thyself along to Scotoshite:)

 

Food and cars ftw

[Shep Shepherd]

Enjoy the trip! 

[Lacquer Peel]

If you're stopping in Aviemore I like to ogle Rover 800s so let me know.

 

Get a Pela pump for oil changes, I bloody love mine.

[hairnet]

enjoy

 

did the orkney in 2011

 

3 days to get there

 

7 hours to get home

 

its beautiful

 

them balfour beatty gadges get everywhere

[RoadworkUK]

Left a little later than planned. Assume Cambridgeshire is empty of people, they're all at Cambridge services.

 

It's raining, which is something of a novelty.

 

Wife now at the helm.

 

Not sure she likes it.

 

Poo count: 0

[hairnet]

lincolnshire wont be any better

[rml2345]

Is it wrong that I liked the bits of Lincolnshire I saw? Lincoln itself can do one though.

Good luck, the Land of Volvos awaits!

[Jim Bell]

Remember poos count double if deposited by a female companion.

 

Very rear.

 

#orkney800poocount

[RoadworkUK]

Scotch Corner achieved.

 

P/C 0 (aborted)

[RoadworkUK]

Here's the view from our overnight accomodation. Moments of tranquility interspersed with extreme noise terror.

 

Also, Morrison's brekkie in Berwick. One of the few Mozzers I've visited with a sea view.

 

P/C, 0.4 (approx)

[RoadworkUK]

It was all going so well.

 

Here we are, perched on the edge of Duncansby Head, with Orkney in our very sights (well, it was last night, then the fog descended and Photoshopped the islands away), after a journey totally without incident: We knew it couldn't last.

 

But it seems that no matter how well you look after a KV6, no end of intensive, loving maintenance and careful driving can prevent the driver's seat back splitting.

[hairnet]

Bloater?

[RoadworkUK]

Bloater?

16 stone, 6' 5". More big boned.

[Spottedlaurel]

Good luck with your trip.

 

Must be the fault of reading this thread yesterday, but last night I dreamt about tyre sizes on Rover 800s.

[hairnet]

16 stone, 6' 5". More big boned.

thats not so bad just tall then

[RoadworkUK]

Anybody following my live-action Orkney-trav'lin thread earlier this year will have noticed that it came to an abrupt halt. Frankly, there was a lot of very bad, very sad stuff happening among the Shite fraternity at the time, and I thought it a bit distasteful to show myself having a lot of fun.

 

As if there was any doubt whatsoever, the Rover made the journey up and back with absolutely no incident whatsoever. The trip was entirely joyous so I thought I'd slap a few pics up.

 

 

 

So we made it onto the MV Pentalina, which was a good start, and it disgorged us onto Orkney mainland as planned. Orkney is quite a big place, and it's a half hour drive from St Margaret's Hope to Stromness, which is where we erected our canvas palace.

 

 

Can't really see it here, but the campsite has water on two sides, with views of the Hoy Sound and Scapa Flow beyond. The weather is more changeable than a Genesis middle eight, too. Being big and low, the Rover proved invaluable as a windbreak for vital coffee brewing duties.

 

 

Of course, it's highly improbable that we'd have got anywhere near Orkney without an anthropomorphic and slightly troubling  soft vinyl Mini Countryman from Datsoncog Collection to act as talisman.

 

 

So much going around and looking at things was done, many views were absorbed and several rays were caught. Orkney mainland is entirely stunning and not short of an excellent distillery and brewery or two. We visited one of each. For some reason, on the way back from the eponymous Orkney Brewery, my wife suddenly demanded that we stop. I have yet to work out why.

 

 

We woke up one morning in a panic that we weren't anything like North enough, so we procured the services of a motorised vessel to take us, the car and its contents to the island of Sanday, which is the second Norherliest of all the Orkney isles. By lucky hap it's also home to some friends of ours. Here's the Rover standing out as a beacon of light and hope in an indescribably glum lineup of cars heading the same direction as us.

 

 

So, what is there on Sanday? Well, nothing, really. Nothing except stiff winds, shipwrecks and unremittingly raw beauty, which is why people come thousands of miles to be there, and many only make a one way trip, deciding that the real world back South can just do one.

 

 

While strolling, we found one of the Rover's 1997 companions that enjoyed the view so much it decided to stay there for ever and ever.

 

 

Alas, after a couple of days, and before the constantly salty air did terrible things to the car, it was time to head back to the mainland and home beyond. The Rover was in good company on the passage from Sanday to Kirkwall:

 

 

It was back in Kirkwall on the Orkney Mainland that we realised just how much better life is away from the madding crowds. Kirkwall isn't a big town — think Frinton On Sea in peak season — but it was like flipping Times Square compared to Sanday. Since we only had a few hours before our ferry home, we grabbed an ice cream and then headed straight for Scapa Flow, where I had long planned to take this photo:

 

 

I always wanted a pic of the Rover with a shipwreck in the background, has a pleasing irony to it. Anyway, my wife tolerated my fart arsing around for a while and then we glumly plodded back to St Margaret's Hope to await the ferry back to mundane daily life.

 

 

On arrival at John O'Groats I really wanted to take that hopelessly cliched image that everybody goes for, but all I could manage was this slightly pathetic effort. Certainly no match for when Simon Childs from Top Gear magazine took a shot of his £50 Hillman Avenger on exactly the same spot in 1994. Amusingly, his car in that shot would actually have been slightly younger than the Rover is now.

 

 

After grabbing some scran from Wetherspoons in Wick, we decided to hit the road and drive as far South as we could before we succumbed to fatigue. We did pretty well, despite some pretty impressive storms in the Cairngorms, we still made it as far as here:

 

 

That was it, really. A civilised breakfast at Berwick Morrisons and then much cruising in velour-lined late-90s obsolete executive style later, we were back in Essex. Approx 1,800 miles had elapsed from beginning to end once all the driving on Orkney was taken into account, and the Rover didn't put a foot wrong.

 

Once home, it didn't rest for very long. Seeing that the air conditioning is so decidedly less broken than that in the Audi, it was our long-distance steed from August to October, and put in a good few journeys from Essex to the dark side of London. The onset of colder weather seemed a sensible moment to squirrel the Rover away for the Winter. I gave it a good wash and scrub up first:

 

 

 

 

I did a little condition survey and am relatively happy that there were no signs of rot other than what I'm aware of — most particularly this bit of the rear wheelarch: TADS.

 

 

That's a bit icky, really, and is the most pressing job for me to tackle next year. I'll have the rear bumper off to see if there's anything more troubling under there. I rather hope not.

 

Fortunately, the road was bone dry when I drove it the twelve minds to my Nan's lovely wide garage, where the Rover will slumber until early next year.

 

 

And that, really, is that. Expect my motoring exploits over the next several months to be even less exciting as I revert from a quite interesting twenty-year old car built in Cowley to one that's almost as old but built in Ingolstadt. 

[Rocket88]

Hope you forgot to disconnect the battery, and left the handbrake on so you've got some chores to do in the spring.............!

[RoadworkUK]

Hope you forgot to disconnect the battery, and left the handbrake on so you've got some chores to do in the spring.............!

 

Ha, I've made both mistakes before and won't make them again.

 

He says.

 

Actually, I was about to walk away, having disconnected the battery, when I suddenly had an urge to open the sunroof and check for horrible pooled water. So I reconnected the battery and slid my posh electric panel backwards — and found not only arid dryness but also no hint of rust. My previous 800 crumbled quite nicely around the roofhole.

[D Spares & Tyres]

A very readable thread.

 

'like'

[RobT]

^^+1, excellent stuff.

[Rocket88]

Ha, I've made both mistakes before and won't make them again.

 

He says.

 

Actually, I was about to walk away, having disconnected the battery, when I suddenly had an urge to open the sunroof and check for horrible pooled water. So I reconnected the battery and slid my posh electric panel backwards — and found not only arid dryness but also no hint of rust. My previous 800 crumbled quite nicely around the roofhole.

 

That probably means that the sunroof draining tubes are working...................but the water is now busily munching your sills from the inside out...........sunroofs are the work of Satan, and contribute about 97.458% to the sale of duct tape...............

[RoadworkUK]

Er, hello everybody.

My name's Chris. I've been a paid up citizen of this corner of the internet for a long time, but I don't really say much about my cars, and there's a very good reason for that.... very rarely does anything happen in my vehicular sphere that's worth wasting society's time with.

Today, though, an extraordinary event transpired. So, fix yourself a settling drink, pull up a comfy chair and prepare yourself for a tale that'll have you convulsing with excitement. For I, today, took my car for a drive.

My Rover 825Si Fastback (in glittering Zircon Silver, and benefiting from a manual gearbox), doesn't live at my own address. There's space for three cars at mine, and the Rover, being that it's the non-essential, fun, " frivolous and unnecessary extravagance" of the fleet, lives at my Nan's house. In fact, being that it once belonged to my grandfather, it's actually always lived at my Nan's house, or at least since it was 18 months old. Anyway, in recent years, it's lived at my place in the summer, and then been tucked up safe and sound in its warm garage as soon as the first signs of winter rear their head. So, in October 2019, it was squirreled away in Frinton On Sea, and that's where it remained.

Until this morning.

I went to my Nan's house, opened the (electric) garage door and gasped at the 800 before me. I did it with an extra air of theatricality because it was such a big moment.

I then felt suddenly deflated when I noticed that the front offside tyre was rather less plump than it ought be, so I hopped into my other car (which is only six months newer, but infinitely more boring) and called on my parents, who live just around the corner, whence I secured a nice big bottle of compressed air before repairing to the Rover.

So, with 30 PSI in all four Falkens, I had a cursory look at fluids... mainly concerning the view under the car, because that's where they'd all be if they weren't where they were supposed to be. Fortunately the carpet (yes, the Rover gets to snuggle its toes in Wilton when it's in hibernation) was free of any unwelcome stains, which I took as indication that all was well.

I reconnected the battery, which I had taken home a month ago for a few charge cycles. I was a bit dubious as to how it would perform — it's one of those with a red/green indicator spot thing, which always seems to show red. It's got plenty of volts to it, but how many cold-cranking amps would it have? Well, we'd soon know. In fact, here's the whole story, played out in glorious Technicolour.

Dramatic, eh? Suspense filled and no mistake. So, with it purring like a flipping metaphorical kitten, I gingerly rolled it out of the garage and allowed it to sit there, ticking over to build oil pressure, before taking it out for the thrash of a lifetime. Or something. I then had the idea of doing a little video walkaround.....

 

...which was abruptly cut short by the sudden appearance of my Nan, so that's all you get.

Anyway. I turned the radio on, and then immediately off again after realising that everything on FM is rubbish, then went for a drive. I drove it all the way onto Frinton Road, past the Esso garage and left at the level-crossing roundabout, up Elm Tree Avenue and then right onto the backroad to Walton. I then proceded through Walton-on-the-Naze, and then back onto Frinton sea front, back over the level crossing and up the road to mum and dads, where I drank a cup of socially distant coffee.

Then I got back into the Rover and drove it back to Nan's, opened the (electric) garage door, carefully reversed back in, switched the engine off, disconnected and removed the battery and, after closing everything up, went home to Mistley.

So there you go. After nine months or so, I've been out and driven my car, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Soon enough I'll probably do it again.

Thanks for reading.

[Split_Pin]

Good to see this is still with you and in rude health!

[Amishtat]

Met you at Trig's meet up alarmingly close to a year ago, next time you take her out bring her round to mine in rural Essex and let me have a perv over her! 

[Spottedlaurel]

Good to hear it's still going well Chris.

Being able to simply own and drive these old things is just as valid as spending 93 years sourcing obscure parts, cutting out and replacing rust, etc etc.....

By coincidence just yesterday I was thinking about a trip to Frinton, maybe when I have some holiday when I should have been going away. The rest of the family will love it.

[RoadworkUK]

8 hours ago, Amishtat said:

Met you at Trig's meet up alarmingly close to a year ago, next time you take her out bring her round to mine in rural Essex and let me have a perv over her! 

Yeah, I followed you for a stretch, from Brantham to the Holbrook shortcut. When I get it back in regular circulation, I'll swing by your place at a weekend.