[Vulgalour]

Apart from putting the bolt back in that had fallen out of the glovebox hinge and replacing the blown sidelight bulb, the only thing of note to report about the Rover is this. 110,000 miles and counting.

[Vulgalour]

Thanks to ETV for moving the thread over here.

Now, the Rover has still been excellent and it's just as well because a couple of days ago this happened: http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/1 ... Yorkshire/

Miraculously, my brother and our friend that was driving walked away. They climbed out of the van unaided. No, we can't explain it either. Long story short, they were hit from behind while making steady progress at about 60mph by another driver doing a police estimated 120mph. The van was a 2001 Escort and they were hit by a 2007 BMW. Psychologically it's taken its toll on them, physically they got away with a couple of scratches and bruises, a sprained ankle and damaged leg tendons. No broken bones. No stitches. I saw the van in person earlier today when my brother and I went to have a look, pick up some personal effects and take some pictures for the solicitor... I have no idea how they're not dead. It defies logic.

Anyway, the reason for me relating this is that it was a bit of a day for it. Because I work nights it was easiest for me to pick them up from the hospital and all was well until I came off the A66 and suddenly the car started making a terrible racket. Pulled over in the safest most visible location I could and found it had spat a spark plug out and bust the spark plug cover I've recently bought. I have no idea how it did this, especially since it hasn't stripped the threads in the head or anything. It wasn't the safest spot and the spark plug was too hot to get back in, it was dark and I couldn't see what I was doing so I limped it to the hospital on three cylinders making a hell of a noise.

Got lost trying to find the entrance to the hospital and got followed by a police car. They seemed fine with my explanation of what had happened and that I was fixing it and even directed me to the hospital entrance. Brother and friend collected, brother helped (I told him not to, he wouldn't be told) to refit the spark plug that was now cool enough to handle and all was well. All has been well since and it shows no signs of spitting the spark plug out again.

A very strange day, all told.

[Numptey]

WOW that was a lucky escape, some people have an explanation for it

[Vulgalour]

MoT is looming (3rd of April), I'm going to get it booked in pretty soon. Made use of the DVLA online MoT check thing which gave me something I didn't have; history.

As a result, I've learned the car passed every MoT with no advisories for the last 4 years. That's great news on the face of things, even with the work I've had to do. The history only goes back to 2007 but there's no mention of rust in any of them so that's also good.

2007
advisory on exhaust leak, trailing arm bushes and damaged door mirror.

2008
advisory for exhaust pipe having holes and play in inner steering rack joint

2009 FAIL
Track rod end and nearside stop lamp inoperative.
Advisory: play in offside track rod and leaking exhaust

2010
exhaust a bit knackered, offside front brake binding

2011 FAIL
Offside stop lamp knackered, major exhaust leak (didn't test emissions)

2012-2015
no advisories

I surmise the following has been done going by the condition of parts on the car:

Trailing arm bushes - ignored for 9 years and somehow always gone through MoTs until they were replaced recently in my ownership
Track rod ends - they looked like recent-ish replacements, but no older than 6-7 years
Rear lights - probably replaced 5 years ago with the 2011 fail
Exhaust - likely done 5 years ago to resolve the exhaust leaks
Brakes - the bind mentioned in 2010 is probably what caused the warped disc it had when I bought it and which has now been done in my ownership

Of course, I am just guessing based on what I've seen on the car and what's noted in the MoT history but it is nice to have some background to the car and to know that overall it's in good order. What I am suspicious of is its last 5 years of MoTs having zero advisories knowing what I know of the car so I expect it went to quite a lenient tester. I'm cautiously optimistic about the chances of a pass this year, all the same, because it's better now than when I picked it up by quite some margin.

[Vulgalour]

Just had the unhappy news that the Rover has FAILED its MoT. This has come as quite a surprise given the work undertaken. Happily, none of the work undertaken is the cause of the fail.

One blown indicator bulb - already fixed
Fibreglass structural repairs - the scary bit
There's an advisory on the hydrocarbons being too high while the Co2 reading is fine. Suggested we put some injector cleaner through it to sort this out.

The description I've had of the problem - not from the tester, but from Mike who picked the car up - is that there is a 'fist-sized' (which with Mike can mean anything from 2" to 8" across) hole on the inner sill and/or floor at the trailing edge on the driver's side that has been very recently fibreglassed. So recently, in fact, that the tester thought I'd done it so I guess it must have been done just before I bought the car.

I'm quite anxious about this repair in all honesty. It's exactly what led into the weldathon on the Princess and at the moment I'm in no fit state to be doing welding work. I also haven't the means to pay someone else to do the work for me at present. I just have to hope I'm well enough to get under the car by the end of the week and get this job done within the retest period. What's surprised me is that this really wasn't evident when we looked at the car when it's been up in the air.

I am glad it's been found, it means I stand a chance of sorting it out before it becomes a bigger problem but it does make me wonder about the previous testing stations its been to and makes me suspicious of that string of clean MoTs it had over the last few years. I'm staying positive though, the tester didn't have anything bad to say about the rest of the car so overall it must be in pretty good shape.

[Vulgalour]

Mike gave me a lift over to the unit and helped me get down on the floor to have a look at this rust. I'm now recovering from all this excitement by sitting still and trying to breathe more easily. I hate being ill, did I mention?

First impression is that I think the tester was a bit over zealous with his inspection of the damage, in places it looks like an implement has been jabbed quite hard into the metal which wasn't particularly necessary so I'm not pleased about that. However, it is obvious there is a rust problem that needs resolving. Yellow chalk is prescribing a massive area too, which hardly seems necessary, this looks like perforation to the lower outer sill to sill rail junction, quite a minor repair all told, and shouldn't result in requiring a whole sill replacement. It runs from the trailing edge to about half way along the back door, everything forward of that appears solid but I will clean off the underseal and inspect to be certain when it comes to repairing this sill.





I want crack on with getting this sorted right now but I can't. Just getting on the floor to take two photographs and getting back up again had me feeling incredibly unwell and was, in hindsight, probably a very bad idea for my phsyical wellbeing. Good for my mental state, I don't need to worry about this now as it's well within my skillset and doesn't look like it's going to be a weldathon.

[Vulgalour]

Been out of action since the 12th with a bronchial infection, really put brakes on everything for me until today when I was able to get over to the unit and start cleaning up that rust for the MoT. Fiddly, and slow going because I'm still not 100%, but it only needs a good sized square patch on the outer sill and a small one on the inner sill to make this sound again. No point pulling the entire sill off at this point as the rust hasn't crept very far and there's lots of good healthy steel to weld on to.



I left this with some weld through primer on because I was starting to get short of breath and had to call it quits. I'm hoping I'm better enough tomorrow to get the patches and paint on to call this bit done.

The new problem is that the immobiliser won't disarm now. I think the problem is related to the fob as it won't even operate the central locking, I just don't know exactly what's amiss with it. Checked the battery, alternator, fuses, earth and all that stuff and everything checks out, it keeps bringing us back to a faulty fob.

[Vulgalour]

Let's have the good news first which is that I repaired the rust that the car failed the MoT on. Didn't take too long but it was pretty horrible as I couldn't get any of this at a comfortable height to work on and it looks pretty ugly as a result. The key thing is that it's welded all the way around, there are no holes and there is no rust. I even bothered to fold the sill rail lip to mimic factory so there's no sharp edge there too. The inner sill patch was done from the outer sill side because I physically couldn't do it any other way. I'd quite like never to have to do this job again. The photographs make it look even worse than I think it is too. Oh well, you only see this if you're underneath the car, it's impossible to see with the car on its wheels.






The bad news is that the key fob is definitely dead. That means the car is currently immobilised and I can't remobilise it to take it for the MoT. You can't resynch the fob because it is dead. I have been unable to find a work around to bypass the immobiliser for certain and haven't the electrical nous to figure it out myself. Quite annoyed about that really because it is now the only thing stopping it going for the retest.

Silver lining is that I get to bomb around in my brother's Applause in the meantime which is a very fun little car that I'm quite attached to already.

[Mr Teddy Bear]

Check the owners manual to see if you can enter the code using the key in the drivers door lock? Or perhaps that is only the earlier cars with an immobiliser but no fob?

Anyway get better soon and keep the pictures coming!

[Vulgalour]

I'm nearly well again, happily, only one bout of breathlessness today and the cough is nearly gone. EKA code is the thing to look for, thank to advice offered on various forums. This will either be on a little card in the manual wallet or I pay a company about £17 for them to provide it to me. It's something to hope for at any rate.