Rover 820 Vitesse Sport Lux Gold

[scoobyh123]

I got a brand new ali radiator for about £130 I think about a year ago. I'll look out the details if it helps.

For some reason Mark, radiators have gone up a hell of a lot in the past year. I was shocked, this time last year i could have picked up a manual radiator for well under £100 (heard of a few for about £60-70) but this year not a hope!

In particular, Rover 800 parts seem to have gone up in price as well.

[n1tr0_9]

I'm getting really upset by this thread. You've done more to yours in 2 minutes than I've done to mine in three years...
However, I did/do have to drive mine home at the end of the day.

I got a brand new ali radiator for about £130 I think about a year ago. I'll look out the details if it helps.

Yes please do. I can find radiators for normally aspirated but not for turbos.

Yeah I’ve done quite a lot considering I’ve only had the car a week and three days. But taking it apart is easy, I still got to put it back together!

[n1tr0_9]

Full speed ahead on this bad boy. I couldn't find any turbo radiators just normally aspirated ones. So I took the rad to a specialist who reckons that he can fit a new core.

Then got busy with the wire brush on a drill and started cleaning up all the rusty coolant pipes and hoses and power steering cooler.

This is where I had a bit of a result. I had assumed this was for the bin as it appeared heavily corroded. However after a serious going over with the wire wheel it was actually remarkably solid. Both mounting bolts had sheared off, so I drilled them out and will refit with normal nuts an bolts. Then I degreased it and covered it Hydrate 80 rust neutraliser and hung it in a tree to dry.

Wire brushing with drill



Hanging out



Next up was a bracket with ruined captive thread. Cut the old one off, welded a new one on.





Then bottom water pipe thing. This one sits down real low at the front of the engine bay and takes a real hammering. Dumb place to put it if you ask me, but I guess its managed to last 20 years so probably beyond expected life of the car. It should have a bracket brazed on to the lower part of it that bolts to the front cross member, but this had snapped off. It was very crusty and I had hoped to get a new one but they are no longer available.

I began cleaning it up, but the crustiness soon started to turn into holes. Balls.

No other option but to cut out the damaged section and repair it.

I used 1 mm zinc coated steel, which I bent around an axle stand that I clamped in a vice, then covered both the pipe and the patch in zinc primer and welded it in. Pretty good result! Very happy. From actually deciding to cut it, to having finished the welding took just 15 minutes. I surprised myself.











Then it came time to paint the power steering cooler and lower water pipe. These don't have to look pretty as they are hidden when fitted. I opted for Jotun Jotamastic 87. This is marine epoxy, hard as nails and can go direct on metal so long as it is degreased. Painted both of then and then left them to cure.







I also painted the upper water pipe that runs from the thermostat housing, across the cylinder head to a further network of pipes. This one you will see when fitted, so I rubbed it down, rust treated it and then gave it a couple of neat coats of black engine enamel.

[scoobyh123]

Then I hung it in a tree to dry.

Couldn't help but laugh when i read that James!

You're doing a cracking job there, keep up the good work and the updates!

[Fastback]

Link for radiator

https://www.carcooling.co.uk/index.php? ... rsion=true

I paid £143 all in, I think it will be about £150 now.




I recall there was some issue about bungs, can't remember excatly but easily sorted by retailer.

Hope that helps. Keep up the good work and embarrassing me.

[Fastback]

How do you get the big pictures in the main body of text?

[scoobyh123]

How do you get the big pictures in the main body of text?

You mean like this Mark?



Instead of clicking the "Thumbnail for forums", click/copy the "Hotlink for Forums".

If you get stuck James, i think i have a pair of bungs, wherever i've put them! My new rad came with them fitted in case mine was the later type without the thermo-switches for the fans in the radiator.

[Fastback]

I just keep being embarrassed....

[n1tr0_9]

I just keep being embarrassed....

I use Imgur to host the photos, and then I just copy and paste the links to the photos in the text when I write the message.

[dollysprint]

I got a brand new ali radiator for about £130 I think about a year ago. I'll look out the details if it helps.

For some reason Mark, radiators have gone up a hell of a lot in the past year. I was shocked, this time last year i could have picked up a manual radiator for well under £100 (heard of a few for about £60-70) but this year not a hope!

In particular, Rover 800 parts seem to have gone up in price as well.

Agreed Dave, service parts (rads,brakes, exhausts etc) have all shot up over the last 18-24 months, the £20 days for a new exhaust off ebay seem to have long gone now. On the plus side that is usually a sign the car has become a recognised classic that owners will spend money on rather than a banger with parts hard to shift for retailers.
I just made enquiries into having coolant tanks remade to original spec, the cost was eye-watering!

Dave

[scoobyh123]

I think a lot of it is the parts supply is now pretty much exhausted for the 800 range in general Dave, even Euroflo who were making exhausts for them have stopped making them and the last 827 back box they made (or at least was sold) is on my Sterling.

A few years back when i made up a new fuel filler for my Coupé using a marine stainless deck-filler and marine fuel hose, i had to get the filler modified for the breather.
While they were doing that i emailed a rough sketch of the coolant tank with a similar idea in mind. I can't remember how much they quoted as a ball-park figure but even back then i could have bought at least one more 800 for spares instead!

That's one of the reasons i like the Volvo expansion tank conversion, brand new genuine Volvo ones are only £30, pattern ones £20 and they're readily available. The Rover cap fits (which is handy as a lot of the Volvo ones are rated at 1.5bar, 150kPa, 22.5psi although 1.1bar/16.5psi same as Rover are available) so it looks less out of place and it doesn't split, crack or anything else nasty like the OE tanks.

[austinpowers]

Wow this is awesome!! How did i miss this.

Hows the 827SI?, i was going through countryclassics old cars last night and saw your SI that they sold.

[n1tr0_9]

Wow this is awesome!! How did i miss this.

Hows the 827SI?, i was going through countryclassics old cars last night and saw your SI that they sold.

It’s still in the field shelter feeling unloved. It needs a respect but I’m reluctant to do that as it’s a lot of money and the car will still be worth naff all. So that project has stalled. I was gonna sell it but I’d probably get nothing for it, as it is half beige, half green!

[n1tr0_9]

Continued the derust and paint session. I also degreased a whole load of the engine covers etc. They were well caked in engine oil. I put them in a big plastic tub and set to work with the Gunk. Good stuff that.





This is the small metal water pipe on the turbo housing. It had partially rusted through and the previous owner had made a temporary repair using fibreglass resin. I removed it intending to blob a bit of weld on, but then as I started cleaning it up I found more pin holes and quickly recognised it was scrap.





Time to check through my bodging materials and a quick call to my friend Theo. He gave me a braided line from a garret t28 turbo. I unscrewed the banjo end, cut part of it off and welded a conventional swaged end onto it. Painted it silver to make it less obviously bodged.







Painted up a few more bits and pieces, did more scrubbing and cleaning etc. Then loaded the car with everything ready for the evenings this week.

[scoobyh123]

More good work there James, definitely shaming a lot of us now!

Don't know if you've heard of this before but it works well on ferrous metal :

https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/thr ... ing.12686/

There is a thread on the forum about it but the first post contains a link to that thread so i just cut out the middle thread!

I've used it on many things, fuel filler necks, rear trailing arms (it frees the tracking adjusters a treat!), front hub carriers (good for getting bearings out easily) and all manner of other things.

Not only does it degrease but it derusts as well, in fact i've known it put back metal that should be there as if it had never rusted in the first place! It is literally a reversal of the rusting process by electrolysis and it won't harm any plating that happens to be on the item either.

Bad news is you can't use it on aluminium and if you use it on any critical components, they should be degassed by putting them in the oven for about an hour after at 180C or thereabouts to prevent hydrogen embrittlement - i don't quite understand that part as i'm not a metallurgist but basically the electrolytic reaction causes hydrogen gas to be absorbed by the steel making it brittle.
It can be fixed by baking it to remove the hydrogen, job done!