Mk1 fastback update

[whitelion58]

Thanks for the positive comments on the pic of the fastback a couple of weeks ago. Here are a few of the special order interior. It has responded well to a few sessions of cleaning, dyeing and feeding and is now a uniform colour and texture again. It smells great in the car too, with that new leather smell.



The big scratch on the bolster is much less noticeable in real life, and looked really bad when I got the car. Still working on it.





As you may know the car was once Brads, and he took the seats from a ‘91 ( the only year they were available I believe) saloon and put them in this car, along with the charcoal carpets from a ’99. It is let down by the seat belts, in my view. The brownish original fittings and webbing really do not work against the black leather. Anyone got a complete set of (cheap) black/dark grey belts I can get hold of?

The LPG installation is now complete and it runs really well – the best of the five I have had in fact. No loss in power and it start and ticks over on the stuff from cold, so cannot really want much better than that! The donut tank I fitted sat about 40mm proud of the boot floor, which was a bit annoying. I made up a framework in 2x1 timber to support a plywood floor, so all is now flat again.



While I had the wood tools out I made a simple dog guard that slots in neatly behind the rear seat to keep the two muddy Springers off the leather.

This week I paid a local garage to fit a cambelt, water pump and tensioner. I just could not find a full day to tackle doing it myself at the moment. They also changed the two aux belts and welded a boss into the rear downpipe to take a Lambda sensor used to control the LPG flow. They mentioned that the old pump was getting “a bit grumblyâ€

[Manalishi]

Sorry Tim, can't help but the car looks great.

Surely it is something original, loads of stuff are put in cars that aren't used.

I just found a multiplug and a small light (!) mounted behind my dash that does absolutely nothing. The light went on as I turn the headlights but it is blocked off by a chunk of plastic.

[Richard Moss]

Perhaps it's for the (absent) ABS.

[InTheRover'Over']

It does indeed look like an ABS plug

[whitelion58]

Agree the ABS is most probable, it was bolted onto the inner wing in that general area. There is also a big fat earth lead sprouting out of that bit of loom (can just see it below my hand), which has also caused random quitting of the engine when that was not clamped up tight. Love debugging electrics..

Was hoping someone with a none -ABS mk1 could confirm its presence on their cars?

Tim

[CHR15E]

My fastback has it as well, can't say I'd ever noticed TBH.

[BlueRover]

Was hoping someone with a none -ABS mk1 could confirm its presence on their cars?
Tim

I'll have a look at mine tomorrow when it's light.

[Lord Sterling]

As has been said before Tim, your Red 827Si, particularly the interior, looks fantastic. What I wouldnt give right now to have a mk1 as clean and in good working condition as yours.

the tacho needle would suddenly flick to zero and then bounce back up again

Thats happend to me recently on my dying 825. It happend twice, though it doesnt flick back up itself, I have to tap the speedo to wake it up.

Lord Sterling

[Nuts4my827]

Those seats look awesome. What did you use to feed and clean them BTW???

[BlueRover]

What he said ^^^^^^^^^

Also, do you have the door cards too ?



In response to your earlier question about the orphan connector, my 820i hasn't got ABS and no connector.
Is it possible someone has taken the ABS off ?

[whitelion58]

it would be good to have the door cards - yours look great! Sadly, they did not come with the car..

For the dye and feeding, take a look at this thread:

http://www.rover800.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1879

Cheers
Tim

[Lord Sterling]

......

Wow! Now these would be the ultimate door cards to get.

Lord Sterling

[whitelion58]

Two steps forward, one step back...

Did another 200 miles yesterday with no electrical problems at all, so feeling a little more relaxed..

However - am troubled with really bad vibration. Noticeable at all speeds but especially bad in the 50-80 range, which is where the car spends 90% of its life. Had the wheel balance checked (again) and they are spot on. It has had new lower ball joints, new wheel bearings, new drop links, new lower arms, a Vitty roll bar and new brake discs. Track rod ends and all other joints are spot on. It has also developed a quite loud growly bearing type noise in the same sort of speed range.

Had it on axle stands this morning (again) and gave everything a good wiggle. There is a bit of a clacky noise from the rack, but no detectable play. Both CV joints - which look original with 85k miles - have noticeable play, both up and down and in and out. I compared it to the red saloon, which also has play in the (new) CV joints, but much less.

So, any suggestions? Plan A is slap on a couple of new CV joints - if it fixes the problem then that would be £50 well spent. I can imagine the rack may be causing vibration, perhaps - but what about the growly noise? Really hope its not the diff. The box has just had two Hondamatic flushes and is filled to correct level by the way.

The fun never ends does it

Tim

[BlueRover]

I was going to suggest CV joints. I got a pair from www.buypartsby.co.uk .

[whitelion58]

..am now committed to changing the CV joints, as they are now sat on the garage floor.. Will try and source some locally tomorrow. I am off work this week, but still planning to take the fastback on a tour of the Lakes, starting Wednesday morning.. Certainly buypartsby is always the first stop shop for online bits. Also got the struts off as well, as I have the complete front and rear suspension setup from Vard's long-dead Vit sport waiting to bolt on, so may as well do the front bits now.

Wipers now in final stage of reassembly. For anyone interested, I can confirm that there are at least 3 variations of linkages. The two spindles and the linkage that connect them are (almost) identical between Mk1 and Mk2. However, it seems up to 89 the ball joints were smaller diameter. 90 on they had bigger balls, which has to be a good thing generally .

The linkage that connects the motor to the spindles, and indeed the motor itself is different between Mk1 and Mk2. Mk2 has the snap on ball joints. Mk1 has a clever little mechanism at the motor end that allows the blades to park tucked down by the bonnet, but move up onto the glass for wiping.

So, I now have a brand new Mk2 spindle setup and a replaced link for the remaining bit. Hope it works a bit better, certainly a lot of slop in the old one.

Naturally the scuttle panel, and the tin plate over the brake servo area were both pretty scabby, but completely save-able. Now cleaned up, primed and black satin painted. Just a load of cavity wax to slop on the bulkhead area and reassemble tomorrow when the paint is good and dry.

Cheers
Tim