Those PH'ers who know me will be familiar with my illness with the unfortunate incurable symptoms of buying 1990's and 2000's era MG Rover products (See here for Rover 75 based evidence|ht ... week/37567).
The disease was contracted in my childhood growing up surrounded by MGR products-my parents owned such delights as a Maestro, a R8 214Si then a 214SEI, a couple of 75 Connoisseurs and a Rover 200Vi, a personal favourite. I've owned examples of R8's, a 75 and ZT, but I've never managed to find a mint 200Vi to buy. I did a few months ago, but the bugger slipped through my fingers.
However, while searching, I found a 38k mile, dry stored for 12 years 200 BRM that seemed absolutely perfect. Cue a hurried drive up the M6 to Litchfield, to find an absolutely spanking car with zero rot (try that now-BRM's were allegedly hand built over the course of a week's night shifts at Longbridge, and seem to have zero rustproofing as a result), a mint interior and just generally a nectar car to a Rover bee such as me…
A deal was struck, and the nervous journey south on a decade plus old cam belt began.
It didn’t go well.
The M6 wasn’t that nice a place to wait for the RAC (membership strongly advised if owning a fleet of British vehicles). Fortunately the cam belt was intact, the alternator decided that it didn’t want to be part of the onward adventure.
The nice man from the RAC turned up, filled the car up with electricity and followed us off the motorway to a pub to wait for the relay flat beds home. At least the petrol saving paid for a steak-I just got home at 2am after leaving Birmingham at 5pm…
Home the next day, I began the extraction of the offending alternator, replacing it with a genuine Rover one (in stock at Brown & Gammons, much as I detest using them) and carried out a full service to include fresh cam belts, a water pump, coolant, spark plugs and filters. A pleasant morning’s work-nothing was seized, everything came apart easily and underneath the car was as mint as the top. Fortunately the battery survived being flattened and took a trickle charge happily.
Unfortunately when the previous owner had driven the car out of long term storage, she’d caught the O/S/R wheel arch and creased it slightly. A real shame; what was even more frustrating is the pointless dent repairer who attacked it before I picked it up created a mess modelled on a teenagers face. I don’t have a picture of the damage as I couldn’t bring myself to photograph it, even though it was pretty small (about the size of a hand, and not even a David Seamon palm, either).
Finishline in Gravely to the rescue. They also refurbished the wheels and did some precautionary tidying of the boot hinges, a common R8 rust point.
A set of new Dunlop tyres (the cars were originally supplied on Dunlop rubber-I want to maintain originality), a geometry check, a machine polish and the car is ready to…be tucked away for winter. Sigh.
I’ve had a few drives on dry days and it’s just great-raw like modern hot hatches aren’t, the power is all at the top end of the rev range (think 6000 rpm before things really start happening), the LSD is pure witchcraft (Milton Keynes roundabouts are great fun) and the grip it generates on supple suspension could teach a few modern cars a lesson. It’s not powerful at all compared to modern stuff but it really involves the driver.
Hope you enjoy the finished article. Here’s to Pride of Longbridge and sunny days next year-it’s going to be preserved but used for 1-2k fun miles a year.
