Roverjoyed. ABS woes resolved, MOT? Completed it mate (Rover 800 content)

[RoadworkUK]

With average temperatures soaring*, blue skies and the evil, Rover-dissolving winter grit being just a dark, sinister memory, I decided it was right and proper to wake the 800 from its slumber.

 

After its five month lay-up I was pleased to see that no harm came to it other than it gaining a deep layer of garage dust. I was even more pleased to find that there was no evidence of any fluids having migrated from their appropriate homes.

 

Having remembered to disconnect the battery this time it started right up on the key.

 

Maintenance performed thus far in 2016:

 

I've cleaned it.

 

 

That's it, really. I've now put about 350 miles on it since the re-awakening and everything feels OK, though I suppose some comfort can be found in the fact that the alarm is being really grumpy, the remote fobs aren't being recognised and the immobiliser throws tantrums and I find myself having to enter the Magic Code via the driver's door lock at the least opportune moments possible.

 

Feels like home.

[RoadworkUK]

Hello, Autoshite's resident underachiever chiming in here.

 

Time once again to put the silver dream racer through the annual indignity of MOT inspection. My initial pre-test checks had been to check that the air conditioning was blowing ice cold and that my TDK D90 of Dire Straits "Brothers in arms" was present and correct in the tape deck.

 

Well, it seems to have done the trick.

 

 

Advisory on rear tyres wearing at inner edges. That's it.

 

I'm clearly doing this whole Autoshite thing wrong.

 

To try and make up for it, to get into the spirit of things and to acknowledge the sad truth that I'm extremely unlikely to partake in lunatic long-range blind eBay purchase collection capers, here's a pez station shot.

 

 

I'll also be holding a ROFFLE. There will be 0 tickets and they'll be £2,995 each.

[Lord Sterling]

Well done on the MOT! I think my Sterling is still in test in all.

 

Rovers rovers and more Rovers. I was in that there Baaaarnsley today. After being held up for something like 40 mins waiting in a Peugeot 107 because of some clerical error, I excitedly spotted an R-reg Rover Sterling parked at some haulage firm.Same colour as yours, I happily rocked up to the fence and took pics.

 

Oddly enough, I've done f@ck all with the 820i SE apart from driving it around the block by mine.

[RoadworkUK]

Well done on the MOT! I think my Sterling is still in test in all.

 

Rovers rovers and more Rovers. I was in that there Baaaarnsley today. After being held up for something like 40 mins waiting in a Peugeot 107 because of some clerical error, I excitedly spotted an R-reg Rover Sterling parked at some haulage firm.Same colour as yours, I happily rocked up to the fence and took pics.

 

Oddly enough, I've done f@ck all with the 820i SE apart from driving it around the block by mine.

Probably all it needs!

 

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[billyboy406v6]

Great looking car, whats causing the electrical gremlins, damp or flat batteries ?

[rml2345]

I think it being a Rover 800 is what causes the electrical issues. These are bloody handsome though, particularly the facelift version.

You winner you.

[Felly Magic]

How very dare it pass an MOT, so not Autoshite of it! Seriously though, happy days, even though it's being all Rover with the electrics

[RoadworkUK]

Great looking car, whats causing the electrical gremlins, damp or flat batteries ?

 

Excess of personality, I think. Seriously, it just does it to piss me off.

 

The two key fobs are fckud and have been for a while, they grew unreliable and then just died.

 

The central locking and immo work fine when the car is unlocked at the drivers door, unless it randomly decides not to play ball. Then I have to go through the "emergency" reset procedure with the driver's door lock, four turns to the left, three to the right, two to the left then seven to the right. Like safebreaking.

 

It's most prone to do it when it'll show me up the most, like in a crowded petrol station, when my mates are with me, or if I'm trying in some way to be suave and cool.

 

I don't care. It all adds to the character.

[RoadworkUK]

Some strange bloke the other day tried to use Licorice to bribe me for sex.

 

Well, it takes allsorts.

 

Anyway, effervescent with joy and pride in having a lovely crisp MOT certificate, I decided that the Rover deserved a little maintenance. I duly went to ECP and abused my trade privelages for a heavily discounted oil and filter kit.

 

 

I decided on a 4:1 mix, 1 litre of Semi synthetic combined with 4 litres of "Semy" synth. Intriguing.

 

 

I picked these bits up on Thursday, and I took an instant dislike to the filter, which seemed awfully small. Anyway the girl serving seemed pleasant so I didn't mention anything in case she was planning to have sex with me.

 

Of course, the filter might as well have been a hedgehog for all the use it would have been. The box mentioned a Honda fitment, so perhaps it would have gone on an 825 from the olden days or something. I assume the ECP parts ordering system just lumps all the 825s together whether you're looking for bits to service a vintage Sterling or a futuristic, cutting edge KV6 like mine.

 

I craned my head under the O/S wheelarch during Friday lunch break and fortunately was able to read the code from the current filter, PW920/11. I threw the part number into Google and was pleased to see that it is listed as fitting not only Rovers, MGs and Land Rovers, but also all manner of agricultural and plant machinery.

 

I found this oddly reassuring.

 

 

Of course, when I strode into ECP and demanded an exchange on Friday it was out of stock, this threatened to plunge all my plans into disarray. Fortunately, an infinitely better and more correct filter was hand delivered to my work for me this morning.

 

Operation "do an oil change" was go.

 

I put it up on the lift.

 

 

This is it up on the lift, see.

 

 

Last time I did the oil I had a bit of a mare getting the sump plug off; to the point that I was really scared about cracking the aluminium sump. This time I used a 15mm carbon steel impact socket and a nice long breaker bar to hopefully twist it off in one, deft, gentle movement.

 

Worked perfectly. I concluded that torquing the sump plug wasn't really necessary. I tightened it to what I though would be "enough" last time, and there hadn't been any leakage, so I'd do the same thing this time.

 

No more oil change pictures, because no single aspect of that job actually merits any further discussion.

 

Anyway, I thought I'd take the opportunity to have a thorough nose around underneath the car and look for any signs of impending doom, or at least things that could use a little light lovin'.

 

 

To be entirely honest, I didn't really find anything. Everything you'd expect to find surface rust on had surface rust on it, but there's absolutely nothing of any concern anywhere else. There are no mysterious fluids being improperly contained, either, and all the starting, stopping and bouncing components are in decent fettle.

 

I quite fancy throwing a load more waxoyl at it at some point.

 

Of course, there is some cosmetic rot.

 

 

This was a bit I had thrown some paint at soon after I took possession of the car, inevitably my repair didn't really pass muster.

 

 

I'll want to catch this bit before it gets any worse, too. This is the 800s favourite place to rust. My MK1 820e went here, too. It's worth remembering, though, that my last 800 was two years younger than this one is now when I sold it for £46 on eBay. This one is proving a lot more resilient.

 

Mind you, I am being rather more doting on this one.

 

 

This is all there is on the other side. Again, I need to hurry up and catch that, I'll probably just grind it back to good metal. KURUST (or something better) and then etch prime and then pay a man to paint it the right colour. A smart repair specialist should be able to sort it out quick sharp.

 

And that's it, really. Not too bad. I'll have to live my ambitions of dealing with serious rust vicariously through other people's threads.

 

 

 

 

[Lord Sterling]

One of the first things I did on my Sterling (after fitting a new exhaust, and getting and MOT) was to get a load of waxoyl chucked at the underside of it.

[RoadworkUK]

 waxoyl

 

It's had a bit; the black stuff in the upskirt photo is where I applied it to the vicinity of the chassis rails / sills and as many cavities as I could find. Amazed how far a can of Waxoyl doesn't go. Needs doing properly some time.

[RoadworkUK]

So what does one do with a Rover 800 that just sits around doing only a handful of miles every year? Well, having been inspired by a great many fine and hilariously themed Banger Rally cars on the eBay Tat Thread, I thought to myself "I fancy a bit of that", so I hatched a plan.

 

The thing is, the aspect of Banger Rallies that turns me off is that other people are involved. This means japes and buffoonery. It invites wackiness and being zany and ker-rayzy. I wanted to avoid this wherever possible, so I decided to stage my own Banger Rally with only myself and my wife participating.

 

Because there have been links established between the consumption of beer and having a good time, we decided that the end destination should be Once Brewed in Northumbria. This is a distance of some three hundred miles from Mistley, Essex, so a good going over of the car was required prior to departure. To whit, I checked the oil and everything.

 

 

If somebody was to serve me a cup of tea that colour I'd be delighted. I checked the other levels and all seemed to be in order so I declared the Rover good to go. What I now needed was a theme.

 

This is the car at the beginning of preparations.

 

 

For a theme I decided to go retro. After seeing what people have managed to achieve with Nitromors and other pro-rust agents to achieve a rat-rod look, I figured that I'd go for a look that recalled the past, too. I set my mind back to 1997 and worked on developing an aesthetic that's rarely seen on Britain's roads today.

 

I decided to try and recreate what a Rover 800 looked like when it left the factory in 1997. This is the car after the big theme build:

 

 

I was hoping that all the modifications I've made, clean windows, gloss to the paint, correctly inflated tyres etc would be reversible if the car made it through the Banger Rally in one piece.

 

So, I sponsored myself £5, which on successfully completing the rally would be donated to the RNLI. Next morning at 6:15 sharp we readied ourselves for departure.

 

There was an immediate FTP on my very driveway, where the Rover's famously fickle immobilizer decided to immobilize me for good. In these situations you have to enter the emergency code via the driver's lock, three turns anticlockwise, four clockwise, two anticlockwise, seven clockwise and, if the stars align and you roll a six, the car unlocks and the ignition works.

 

I stood there, like a dick, continuously entering the code time and again, under the glare of my wife, for at least half an hour, all the while with her bleating "Shall we just take the Peugeot?". NO, WOMAN. Then, probably because it was bored, the Rover suddenly granted me access and momentum. We seized the chance and set off immediately.

 

 

First stop was the local Tesco pez station because, also like a dick, I had neglected to fill the car during my prep for the Rally.

 

With reserves on board we set off in a convoy of one via the A14, then the A1(M) on our quest for The North. There was little incident on the way up; from the frequent flashes of main-beam I and toots of horn I experienced from other motorists as I cut them up or overtook them on the inside, the theme of our Banger Rally car was widely appreciated.

 

To pace our journey a little we stopped part way through in a place called Matfen Hall where, by sheer coincidence one of my Uni mates was getting married, and continued our journey to Once Brewed 48 hrs later.

 

Here we are on our triumphant arrival.

 

 

Yes, we made it. Unfortunately some of the theme elements had gone missing from the car by the time we reached our destination. The gloss on the wheels had withered and the tyres were a bit muddy. But hopefully the underlying concept is still visibly evident.

 

We paced ourselves still further with an overnight stop in Durham, where we did some shopping, and then hit the road back to The South.

 

 

Pausing only at Cambridge Services to eat some kind of processed chicken arrangement and look at magazines without buying them, we arrived in darkness once more in Mistley after 644 drama-free miles. I collected my sponsorship money and sent it in to the RNLI as pledged.

 

 

I now need to work on removing the theme from the car as it looks a bit ridiculous parked outside the house. We live opposite the school and I don't want the local yummies thinking I'm some kind of eccentric.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lord Sterling]

Sweet hit there Chris stEARLing (see what I did there)

 

You have also just beaten cms206 for driving a KV6 powered 800 a long way. Andy did it in my KV6 Sterling from Glaasgae to Brummyham, a distance of around 300 miles.

 

Keep up the good work chap!

[beko1987]

Ha fantastic, I loved your rally prep too

[RoadworkUK]

This just in! I've performed my gifferesque fill-to-fill fuel consumption reckoning - no fancy-pants fuel computer in this conveyance.

 

 

375.4 miles on 52.2 litres, works out at 32.7mpg between fills.

 

I'm calling that most acceptable based on an 85mph (indicated) cruise for three hundred then seventy-five miles of up hill, down dale The North style driving shenanigans.

 

Additionally to all this, I went back in time through this thread to remind myself of terrible rumblings about it having a defunct radiator...... which it no longer appears to have.

 

Rover, heal thyself. Good girl.

 

Back in the garage she goes. See you next year!

[barrett]

Spend more time here please. Always entertaining, and I even quite like the car.

[RoadworkUK]

My Grandfather, AKA Poppa, one of the finest humans ever to have lived, was not averse to driving his 825si around with "Ride of the Valkries" dialled up to eleven on his Phillips R960 sound system.

 

Indeed, I have fond memories of him demonstrating his new car (in 1998) by gently driving around at taxiing speeds, windows down and his favourite cassette on - a stereo recording of a Rolls Royce Merlin starting, taxiing and accelerating for take-off.

 

When the Spitfire Pilot opened the throttle, Poppa would floor the Rover. It made quite an impression - not just on me but probably on everybody else in Frinton-on-Sea.

 

Anyway. Perhaps as a consequence of this, throughout my tenure of the Rover thus far, both rear speakers have been buggered.

 

 

Replacement of these was well overdue, and my finger was poised to "Buy It Now" on a pair of generic JBL replacements for £18. But then I remembered that I was a tight-ass MoFo, and there could be a way that involved the expenditure of £0, my favourite amount.

 

My lounge Hi-Fi involves a pair of Mission 773e floor-standing speakers. A few years back I bought second, scruffy pair 2nd hand to break for spares as two of the speaker cones had cracked under the pressure.

 

 

The carcasses of these still serve as plant-pot holders on my patio, and all the electrical bits went into my "box of whatever" upstairs. When I remembered that the two remaining spare drivers happened to be 4-inch jobs, the same size and impedence as those in the Rover, a plan formulated itself.

 

 

In order to re-gain sounds on the road, the plan was now to fit that little lot in place of the original and rather apologetic paper-coned travesties, though I suppose I should be glad that they were proper co-axial 2-way jobs and not those hopeless dual-cone efforts you get on, well, lesser cars.

 

 

Sadly, it seems that by '97 Rover were past caring about matters of acoustic excellence in its cars. My old MkI 820e Fastback had a separate woofer and tweeter on each side at the back, with the woofers firing into an enclosure all of their own that was separate from the boot space. This nine-year newer car has none of that, just a hole cut into the side trim for the speaker and a lead - made out of what looks suspiciously like bell wire, to send the signal. Well engineered it isn't.

 

On the plus side, I was unlikely to make it look any worse.

 

 

Bloody thing really didn't want to come apart, though. There's seven screws on each side that need removing in a very specific order. You remove the carpet first - which includes unbolting the CD changer on the R/H side, then three screws for the carpeted trim panel, then another screw underneath so you can bend the whole lot far enough to unclip one bit and access another screw, and so on.

 

 

And then, of course, there's another screw hidden behind the little filler-cushion that goes between the door and the seatbacks, and that's a bastard to shift, clipping into two structural hooks both pointing in opposite directions. Later I found that re-fitting involved stretching it and squeezing it simultaneously. While swearing.

 

 

As the Mission 773es are a bi-wirable loudspeaker they use a proper crossover network to make sure the bass and treble signals are dealt with appropriately, a significantly more sophisticated setup than most co-axial car speakers which just use a capacitor to soak up whatever high frequencies the woofer won't make sense of.

 

 

It looks like this, and in order to have both treble and bass in the back of my motor, I'll need to use it and tuck it away somewhere. So, I bridged the inputs to a single signal feed and then had to do the same with the outputs. As the 773e is a 2 1/2 way loudspeaker the bass duties are shared between two woofers per speaker, so to combine the the LF outputs so that each crossover would only 'see' one woofer.

 

 

Ended up with a small rats nest of wiring, but managed to tuck it away reasonably tidily and in such a way that it won't rattle too badly.

 

 

Good news is that there was sufficient real estate on the shelf each side for my modifications to hide away neatly and go unnoticed unless concours rules one day change to allow judges to strip cars down and look for original speakers.

 

 

Nobody would ever know. Reassembly is the reverse of demolition, give or take a few annoying bits where it's much harder to use brute force in the 'putting things back together' direction than in a 'pulling things apart' capacity.

 

 

In this particular case, the proof of the pudding is in the listening, so I installed a couple of CDs which, I felt, reflected the kind of music that a  Rover 800 sound system was designed to play in in the first place. "Stronger than pride" by Sade and then "Brothers in arms" by Dire Straits.

 

The difference was profound. Clear, crisp treble, a midrange and some actual bass. If anything, it highlighted the shortcomings of the Phillips R960 head unit, the 8 watts per channel or whatever it sneezes out is probably the least amount of power these speakers have ever seen. Also the front speakers are still a bit fucked so the sound is best faded towards the back.

 

And that's it, really. Job jobbed. The man on the wall was evidently very impressed.

 

[RoadworkUK]

My local Sue Ryder chazza shop came up trumps the other day with a nice little period accessory for £4.

 

 

It's an Autolok immobilizer. No doubt proven only to give determined thieves a belly laugh, but a charming trinket nontheless. I thought it could add style points when the Rover eventually comes to DOMINATE any local concours competitions at such a time as I retire and can sit miserably on an uncomfortable folding chair at classic car events, staring stone-facedly at anybody who says "look, a Honda V6".

 

I was about to eagerly hand over my £4 when I accidentally noted the fittings list on the back, where the Rover 800 was listed as requiring an S32 fitment, rather than the S20 offered by this particular vendor.

 

So I went next door and spent my £4 on an almond croissant and some licorice teabags instead.

[RoadworkUK]

Funny how time flies. A little while back I realised that I had been at my 'new' job for just over a year. Further pondering reminded me that, during that time, the Rover hadn't visited an MOT man. Or had an oil change.

 

An emergency MOT plan was hatched, I did a cursory inspection of obvious MOT fail points, albeit not looking under the car, and set off for the test centre where I would be leaving it for a few days. One thing I noticed was that Elsie and George, the two bonnet-mounted Owls that cry pressurised tears of screenwash onto the windscreen on demand, were behaving feebly.

 

Nevertheless, some moisture was at least issuing, so I happily trundled Colchesterwards. En route, the Rover ticked over 80,000 - something I had made a mental note to record the happening of and then inevitably forgotten. This is as close as I got:

 

 

 

I parked up outside the test centre and did my utmost to explain the arcane method of starting it if the central locking / immobiliser throws a strop.

 

On my return, some days later, I was faced by an MOT Fail sheet. Most prominently listed: Insufficient force from screen washers, or words to that effect.

 

On top of that, there was a list of other major deficiencies that I won't list because I'm lying. I only wrote the headline thus to generate a bit of clickbait-style interest. Nice MOT man had stabbed Elsie and George in the eyes with some wire and made them miserable again. Washers now substantially less feeble.

 

In fact, the fail sheet was accompanied by a pass cert with no advisories. The air/con had been re-gassed as I requested, and I cruised home in a quite intolerably smug mood.

 

 

I can now spend very little money on some oil and a filter, safe in the knowledge that it's a prudent investment.

[Lord Sterling]

Yeah man. I need to do something about my KV6 Sterling. Scrapping it just because has passed my mind but I can't be arsed to do anything with it. Besides, everyone I sink in its sumptuous leather seats, check the layout of the dash and remember the silky smooth KV6 2.5 engine, I reach a conclusion of what's the point? I'll rob myself of a potentially nice car. So it stays parked where it is collecting spider webs and creating a mossy outline where it's parked.

[BorniteIdentity]

Just read this thread start to finish.  Fantastic.

[RoadworkUK]

Just read this thread start to finish.  Fantastic.

 

Coming from the master of the bASe, that's quite a complement.

[BorniteIdentity]

Coming from the master of the bASe, that's quite a complement.

 

It's just really nice to see someone taking care of something that was, clearly, once someone's pride and joy - but would be absolutely on its arse if it wasn't for you.

 

It's also lovely to see you've got your good lady on board as well.  My wife won't come within 10 meters of the bASe. (Seriously) !

[RoadworkUK]

I have to admit, I my first dabblings with the Rover were with a view to looking after it properly on Grandad's behalf, after he had to give up driving. When he passed away a few years later, I realised that it had got under my skin.

 

Now, far from for mere reasons of nostalgia and sentiment, I genuinely love the car. I've given Nicola instructions that I be buried in it.

[DeeJay]

Did you stress the fact that you must be dead first.

[cpjitservices]

This looks a fine example and well done on the belt change. I guess thats an upside to having chain driven.

 

Hows it running nowadays ?

 

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.

[RoadworkUK]

Did you stress the fact that you must be dead first.

 

I think she's reserved that particular decision.

[RoadworkUK]

Hows it running nowadays ?

 

 

Quite ridiculously well. Loads of power, but really silly gearing. Five speeds but rather than "1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th", the ratios feel like "half, third, three and a half, sixth, eighth".

[J4mes]

Just read this thread start to finish. Fantastic.

Yep me too, great read. Will tune in for next instalment.

[The Moog]

I now want bonnet owls.

 

Wanders off to eBay.....