We made it!

Nice car but awful steering wheel.

RPM-meter with 5000 as redline? You haven't bought a diesel have you? Throw in some piper cams, raise redline to 6500, bolt on a free flowing exhaust and a new air filter. Oil change as precaution and you are ready to rumble with about 30% extra power!

Very very nice, Mr Gibbs! You seem to have found a Rover which the rust fairy has overlooked. Interior seems quite OK too.

Well done!

Tom De Moor

One tip is to get one of those ratchet luggage straps. The anti-roll bar has to be sprung back into it's mounting in the lower arm and requires a deal of force. A ratchet strap round it and the chassis leg makes it a doddle.

You'll be lucky - perfect ones are difficult to find. And many 're-cons' are noisy too. The expensive fix is all new later internals - but it's still not a brilliant box.

That's because it's been converted using the wrong box. There are three axle ratios used across the range with manual boxes and the boxes themselves are physically interchangeable. *But* the speedo drive is matched to the axle ratio. It consists of an external part easily removed

- and an internal gear which means partial stripping of the box to change...

There's also a 4th axle ratio used on the auto Vitesse and EFIs. And no speedo drive exists for the manual box which would be correct with these. Although the gearing would be too tall anyway. So if converting a Vitesse or EFI to manual you need to change the rear axle too. Fortunately the required one (3.08) is also the most common - and the now surplus 2.85 will fetch decent money from the TR8 conversion boys.

New available from Rimmer. But that will warp too...

See earlier post

They all have. It's a weird system (if the later type) with no motor but only a control unit in the drivers door, which looks identical to the motors apart from having four wires to it rather than the two for the motors. This sends out a timed pulse to the motors. I've got a spare if this is the problem - but check it's getting power and an earth first, obviously. You can try just powering up the two wire operating circuit momentarily - one polarity makes them open, the other close. But only flick the power on for about a second or so.

The snag with this system is that it can only be operated from the driver's door. If you want remote operation etc it requires modification. Mine is now heavily modified to get round other design problems. I'm writing an article about it for the club mag.

The steering can be a problem as it depends on the make of rack fitted. The most common is the Cam Gears which is also the lightest and has the least feel. A smaller steering wheel will help matters. ;-)

Eggselent.

Noted!

Damn. The change is very sloppy, but I got used to it after about 20 mins. Much like a Pug 205!!

I was talking to the owner about it and he says it was converted using a Vitesse box, so it now has an early (carb'd) auto axle with that box.

When you say speedo drive - do you mean the speedo drive in the box, or the speedo drive in the actual speedo head? I'm so confused :)

What I really need is a knackered car which has the complete, decent drivetrain available so I can just swap it all over so it matches :) Probably an unlikely find though!

Another option I was thinking of was to modify the transducer thingy. I've got a mate that's a bit of an electronics whizz - do you reckon it'd be possible to get it accurate that way?

Not in blue though. Need to have a proper look when I get the car back to see what I can do with it.

Yes, thanks for that! I think a spare regulator may have been included. Again, I need to get the car back and check it out.

Interesting. It's something I'd definately like to get sorted so that'll give me something to do one saturday!

Yeah, the steering has very little feel, and the wheel is huge. My first thought was to get a nice Mountney wheel for it at some point, which as you say, will hopefully improve things a bit. Also the bit of shiney metal in the middle of the wheel reflects the sunlight into your eyes, which is useful(!)

Yep, once some other jobs are done it'll be getting a nice Mountney one!

It's only putting out a lazy 155bhp. Although it seems to use that quite well.

It's got the freer flowing exhaust, and I'll only need the one cam!! Lots of money though, something which I dont have at the moment. Having just looked at the website it's £372 + VAT for the fast road carb kit, which supposedly gives an extra 24bhp with a 1500-6000rpm power band. Sounds good, but probably also means getting the carbs retuned. Probably easier just to look for an EFI kit and get an instand 35bhp increase!!

Yeah interior is good - couple of things to sort but nothing major. Certainly nice and comfortable on the motorway and then the A-road blat I did in it yesterday!

Thanks :)

Heh, even I quite like them for some reason :-)

Dannnng. Well played on the SD1 surviving the journey though! Went to look at a VXT the other day ;-) But it was a bit overpriced, and no hardtop (which I'd quite like), and to be honest was quite tatty. I know they don't wear that well, but compared to others I've seen.

Well done - a third car bought on eBay in the past couple of weeks.

heh and people say my bm is restricted badly at 193bhp hehe i should stop being a cheapskate and unlock the extra poke but i'm to lazy :-P

nice car though but why doesn't anything work on a rover? on my MK1 MR2 the only prob it had was rust everything else worked but i guess thats jap crap for you :)

Gearbox was a bit whiney though, just like the SD1!!!

you serious on the VX220 thing then? how much you looking at? i like them but i could never decide if i could put up with it everyday. i got wasted by one in my old MR2 turbo there just so damn quick! still the MR2 was far more comfortable anyway which i'd rather have plus a higher top speed which is pretty pointless these days as my licence found out :)

worked didn't it anyway just makes people think you got a supercharger :)

The sloppy bit should be easily fixed. Without removing the box. Almost certainly wear in the remote control bushes.

Then it should be ok - both use the 3.08 ratio.

The heads are the same - only the gearbox drive changes. If the speedo is steady reading the only possible explanation is the wrong drive in the box. If it's all over the place that's commonly a dry joint in the sender.

It should be possible. However, it is possible to change the internal drive gear without removing the box - the rear cover can come off in situ.

Spray water over the inside and weight it down to a smooth surface. It will straighten out. But will warp all over again in the sun. ;-)

That's good news then. More parts to add to the list!

Right ok. Speedo is perfectly steady.

OK, will set some time aside at some point to see what I can do!

Heh, not exactly ideal with the summer coming!

Thanks for the advice Dave, you're proving to be very useful indeed :)

Nice when they do that isn't it.

Good luck.

Change the gearbox oil, and if needed try adding Wynn's gearbox additive.

Worked for me in the old Estelle. Made it loverly and quiet, and didn't do any damage.

What was the result of the MOT?

Oil has been changed to Slick 50 or summat. Will probably change it myself soon, and will try some of the additive

Didn't have time to do it today, so just gotta wait patiently :(

Good luck. The Rangie MOT is being done on the 21st, gives me a week to sort stuff if it fails.

Aye, you should get the M52 inlet manifold on there, but you could at least remove the restrictor from the intake - it's a few minutes job to undo the airbox and hoy it out. Gives you a few more high-end ponies and makes it sound much better at wide throttle. Do it man, do it.

Right, all done. Failed on front tyres and front dampers. Pretty solid underneath apparently, a couple of spots of rust coming through but nothing structural.

Just gotta work out what new dampers I want and order them, Dad's sorting the tyres out and she'll be ready to go!! Woo hoo!

In news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net, Carl Gibbs wittered on forthwith;

I used Koni adjustables on my SD1s. Work well, just *do not* put stiffer springs on.