Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Vulgalour wrote:Instead, we got the new outer CV gaiters fitted, something that was made much easier by using the cone and the bench vice.

Were these 'stretch' gaiters to be able to use the cone?

Yeah, they were super stretchy types. I don't like the glue-together ones. The old CV grease inside them was like soup so we put some nice new CV grease in there.

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Why, car, why?

There wasn't going to be a second update on this today, but Mike and I were persuaded to return by my brother after we'd had something to eat and a bit of a sit down at home. The passenger strut was removed when it was determined getting the remains of the balljoint stud out wasn't going to be possible in situ. Happily, the suspension is in pretty good order and the strut tower is really clean.


Track rod ends look fairly new and came apart quite easily - compared to everything else - which was a relief.


The springs too are in good order. They're the wrong sort to chop being pig-tailed, so I'll have to buy some proper lowering springs when I want to lower it. That will definitely have to wait for there is no more money available to spend.


With the strut in the vice the leg was removed from the hub, which although difficult due to a fairly crusty bolt, wasn't impossible. The goal here was to get the remains of the lower ball joint out of the hub and for that we needed to strip things down to the smallest we could. Later the disc and caliper were also removed for ease of access.


Even with three of us, various manual and power tools and lots of swearing we couldn't get this to budge at all. Tomorrow both hubs are off to the local engineering company to get the bits out and if they can't do it then I need to find some new hubs. This is all because we tried to undo some castle nuts that were nothing but balls of rust. Lesson learned for the future: leave well alone.




Trying not to worry too much about this. With a relevant hydraulic press we're hoping the stubs will just push out and everything can be bolted back together but what a nightmare it has turned into! Mike and my brother were mostly fettling with mechanical things and trying to think of a way to get those stubs out so I turned my attention to the deep scratches on the boot lid. After a few passes with the machine mop and cutting compound I'd got the worst of them out. It will need some fresh lacquer at the least to get it all sorted, some of the scratches are really deep.


It's difficult to photograph, the red is really photogenic. You can just about make out that I've done the right hand half of the boot lid but not the left as the left is slightly orange and more obviously scratched. Flame Red is definitely up there in the Resale Red shades at being excellent at hiding damage and looking fantastic at its worst and being really stunning at its best.


With more time I got the left side of the boot done and it's now looking far more presentable and wearing a coat of polish.


I'll work around the car with the machine mop to get the worst of the scratches out that I can. This will help me pick and choose which bits of paint damage to deal with as I go, it's difficult to tell just which scratches are going to polish out and which ones need paint and lacquer to remedy properly.

Tomorrow I won't be working on the Rover but Mike will. I've got to do just one job, I don't have the energy to be working at the unit and working at home on my regular job for another day, I'm just exhausted by it.

Vulgalour wrote:Track rod ends look fairly new and came apart quite easily - compared to everything else - which was a relief.
[...]
Even with three of us, various manual and power tools and lots of swearing we couldn't get this to budge at all. Tomorrow both hubs are off to the local engineering company to get the bits out and if they can't do it then I need to find some new hubs. This is all because we tried to undo some castle nuts that were nothing but balls of rust.

Track rod ends with nylok nuts are a later thing, same with lower arm ball joints. I expect the change in production from castle nuts to nylok was at the same time for both components.

Have you had a blowlamp on the hub lug which houses the remains of your balljoint? Mine needed that. Made quite a bang when the joint went, under pressure from the wound-up splitter.

Oh yes, we've tried heat on the stub. We've tried just about every tool in the unit for this job, the only thing we don't have is an hydraulic press hence the hubs going to an engineering company so they can fight with them.

The most important thing to impart is that tonight I DROVE the Rover home. This is a Good Thing.

The balljoint stub was got out using the hit-it-with-a-hammer technique. More specifically, you hit one or both sides of the ring the balljoint stub goes through and the shock of the impact frees the stud. I'm told it wasn't the easiest even then but both did eventually ping out leaving us with a nice undamaged hub ready to accept the new ball joint, which was a massive relief.


That meant the arm could be put back together and put on the car. New driveshaft oil seals were fitted to cure the one big oil leak the car did have, it will likely have some smaller ones somewhere being a Rover. Driveshafts back in, brand new lower arms fitted, tie rods reattached and everything where it ought to be before we could get the brakes and wheels back on.


This went swimmingly until I managed to do this.


Yep, that's a ratchet spanner stuck on the lower ball joint stud because I'm an idiot. Slackened off the hub nut and slid the driveshaft out just far enough to free the spanner before tightening it all up with a more different spanner. Job jobbed.


Then we went to do the brakes and another problem. The new pads are the wrong ones so I need to take those back. For now, and I'm aware it's a big no-no, it's new discs and old pads because the old pads still have plenty of life and they'll be replaced as soon as the new pads arrive.


After that we checked all the various fixings to be sure it was all tight and sorted then put the car on its temporary wheels, topped up the gearbox with two litres of lovely fresh oil and test drove it around the yard. GONE is the weird scrapey-draggy noise in first, second and third. HERE is an actual biting point on the clutch. No weird noises, no untoward smells, no issues at all. No further issues on the drive home either with the exception of one dust shield which is rubbing ever so slightly on a disc but not enough to leave a mark on it, I'll give it a little tweak in the daytime.

Last of all, proof I need to lower the car. I love the new wheels but the arch gap is comedically huge. The camera angle likely isn't helping, I had to enlist our Henry to serve as a steady because it was the only way to get a non-blurry pic. I'll do better in the future.


It felt great to drive home and not face another day of frustration and expense sorting mechanical stuff out. The really big jobs that I know about are now resolved and I should have a really good little car that I can continue to tidy up and make excellent.

As an aside, I drove my old Xantia today which I sold back to my brother. He has done amazing things to it because it now drives very nearly like a petrol car with performance when you want it. It's so quiet too! He's done such improvement on it I felt like it was a completely different car and I did have a moment of regret parting with it until I remembered the long distance seating position discomfort and the fact that he needs the car far more than I do for what he does. A diesel just isn't suited to my driving habits.

please burn those corsa wheels

I'm on steels and trims rather than the alloys at the moment, I can't run the car looking like that can I? Taller tyres and shorter springs are needed, then I can enjoy my three spoke alloys properly. I like them, just need to spend more cash to make them work better.

Please dont fit those wheels
I have lots of types of Rover/MG wheels that you can try/buy.

You'll like this tiny little update then because it proves I'm on Rover approved trims again.

Here's that connector thing on my old bonnet release mech, it's riveted in place and looks like it's put in when the latch is actually put together so I'm not sure how I'd get it out to swap onto my other mech.


Made a start cutting and polishing the new paint on the bonnet but I really need to get the car inside the unit to do it properly, the weather is all wrong for doing it outdoors and I'm ending up with too many marks in the paint. Still, it's showing promise with just a quick pass over this lunch time and I'm sure with a bit more graft it'll look like I haven't even done anything.


I'm happy enough with how the car looks now, it's very nearly how I want it to look. Clutch is taking some getting used to and the cable and/or pedal needs some adjustment to be spot on. New (hopefully correct) brake pads arrive tomorrow afternoon so I can fit those and hopefully fettle the dust shields a bit more because one is still catching just a tiny bit somewhere.

Gearbox no longer makes an unpleasant noise in first, second and third, which is really reassuring. Driveshafts are behaving themselves, fluids are staying where they're put, temperature never goes above the first third on the gauge and the car feels really nice to drive now. Quite pleased, all told, which is a relief considering the marathon it's been these past two weeks or so.

Bodywork will be the next big thing to sort and I'll tackle it a panel at a time. There's quite a few parking dings and dents here and there, some look like they'll dress out from the back of the panel, some don't. There's a couple of minor rust blemishes on arches and doors but the sills are pristine so far as I can see. The car gets noticed a lot, the only other R8 I've seen up here is the Nightfire Red Tourer with terminal lacquer peel, previously spotted in April this year and more recently driven past while I was in the Rover on the way to the shops.





The Corsa alloys are going to happen, whether you like it or not. I shan't be fitting them until the car has been lowered, they've been refurbished and given suitable tyres so it'll be a while yet. Personal taste.. well choice. The only taste I have is in my mouth.

The only taste I have is in my mouth.

and its the wrong one


3 spokes can be cool,


vauxhall is not the solution.

keep it original
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171882643695? ... 1555.l2649