New to classics

Beautiful car, but can be a minefield if you don't know what to look for. Join an owners club first and get some good advice.

Nice car - I've had several up to about 20years ago. I got rid of the last one - a 3500S, because of unleaded petrol. And not what you'd guess, but because of fuel evaporation. They were bad enough with leaded but unusable

- for me - when leaded became the norm. If you don't expect to hit traffic jams on a hot day or drive through heavy town traffic again on a hot day you might be ok, but I wanted it as a daily driver in London.

Other thing that was a problem were the various bushes in the rear suspension which were getting impossible to find - but these may have been re-manufactured by now.

It's an easy car to work on and pretty reliable if well maintained. Even the brakes when you get the hang of changing the rear pads. Gearboxes on the manual can be iffy, though. Look out for noise and jumping out of gear

- particularly reverse. The auto is ok, though. Finally if you do much town driving make sure you get one with power steering.

First thing I'd ask is whether you've decided on a V8 rather than 4 cylinder P6 because you're intending to actually use that extra power. I'm currently using a 2000TC every day and find it very easy to live with. Its acceleration isn't earth shattering, but road holding and balance are so good that you can carry your speed through corners well enough to give modern cars a run for their money. The main thing, is that I can afford to run the thing, whereas a V8 would have to spend most of its time sitting at home - unless it had an LPG (or EFI?) conversion, of course.

I think they're all obtainable now, even as poly bushes. There's not much choice of supplier though, which keeps parts prices high.

There's not really that much difference in out and out performance between the TC and V-8. Indeed the TC is very similar to the V-8 auto if you try hard. Where the V-8 wins is low speed torque. The four cylinder cars are better balanced though, but lose out in out and out grip due to the smaller tyres.

The main difference is auto manual. Auto 2000s are *very* thirsty round town too. All of them are pretty good on the open road with 30 mpg being entirely possible even with a V-8. An EFI conversion to a 3500S would be the ideal, though.

Either that only applies in the wet, or I'm clearly not being adventurous enough! I haven't managed to lose grip with my TC yet...

You don't mention the other major selling point of the V8, which is of course the noise it makes.

That all makes sense. I do intend to experiment with electronic ignition and by replacing the fan with an electronic one to see if I can eke out a few more mpg - it's currently average about 25, on my 12 mile run to and from work.

My thoughts too, especially now that rusty Range Rover EFIs are practically worthless.

In the dry if you're being brutal. I doubt if I would be these days with a decent example of either - but I had them before they were classics.

Funnily, not that noticeable from inside the car. And be careful about fitting a stainless steel system - the one on my 3500S sounded rather like it was blowing all the time rather than a pleasant V-8 burble. Finally sorted it by wrapping special rope round the downpipes - the noise was coming through the walls.

That's probably pretty good with mixed driving conditions and a cold start. I reckoned on about 32 from my 3500S on a long motorway run at legal speeds - but a 5 speed box would improve this and is a fairly easy fit. My previous 3500 auto with the HC engine managed 38 mpg on one trip to Aberdeen when the 50mph limit was in force - and I stuck to it.

Problem is the transmission ain't that strong so you have to be careful about peak torque.

Hi again all. Thanks for the comments and advice,loks like I'll have to join the p6 group and maybe buy a motor from a member,hopefully a trustworthy one. I'll let you know how I get on Cheers again Spike

I never owned a 2000 Auto but I drove one of them once. Decidedly sluggish from a standing start - you have to be very careful about nipping out of a side turning into gaps in main road traffic - but once you get to 25mph and above it is a nice car to drive. The 2000 manual is quite nippy from a standing start considering the weight of the car, so all of the lost power must go into the torque converter.

The 3500 auto box is smoother than the one in the 2000. The owner of the

2000 auto I drove eventually upgraded the auto box, and it was a great improvement. Still sluggish from a standstill though!

Jim

Yes - the phrase 'can't get out of their own road' definitely applied. Not quite sure why the difference was so marked - other similar engined cars with an auto weren't quite so pedestrian away from rest in contrast to their manual versions - like the Marina 1800 or Corsair 2000.

Strange as the various versions of the B-W 35 weren't that different in the end result. Early 2000 ones had a rear pump so could be tow started. The gear cluster had to be enlarged to handle the extra torque of the V-8 so that disappeared then.

But the main problem of all P6 auto installations was the throttle mechanism and its relationship to the gearbox control cable. Any wear on this prevented the gearbox kicking down so the dedicated bodger simply tightened the cable to restore kickdown instead of fixing that wear - resulting in the relationship being lost and rough gearchanges. Every single car I've come across was like this - and there were many.

Other slightly more complicated one was the valves controlled by this cable inside the box were spring loaded onto a cam and could jam so that they either stuck open or didn't fully return to the rest position. Again resulting in rough changes at too high road speeds.

The beauty of the 35 is it's eminently DIYable for a careful home mechanic. The factory W/S manual includes full overhaul procedure and no special tools are needed. The setting gauge for the rear brake band can be substituted by a 1/4 twist drill shank.

Are you for real? Its a rover, therefore its not nor never will be a classic

*plonk*

Chris Bolus ( snipped-for-privacy@RILEYELFb0lus.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Looks like we've got a troll infestation, from the look of some of the cross-posted s**te that's popping in.

Is it half-term again so soon?

Nope, half-term's just gone. These are the shites that have destroyed groups like alt.autos.mini.

Grow up