Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

My steels are on my brother's Daihatsu Applause. I was borrowing the Applause's wheels and tyres until I could afford to get the tyres transferred to the alloys. So the Rover's steels are currently on the Applause with the bad tyres and the trims are in my garage. When my brother gets new tyres for the Applause steels I'll get the Rover steels back and decide what I'm doing with them later. The front pair of steels on the Rover are in fairly bad shape and need straightening but I'll keep them as emergency wheels just in case. They may end up being shod in winter tyres, and they may just sit in my garage for a while gathering dust.

Vulgalour wrote: Is this is a known problem on the 400 perhaps? I know Rover are historically big fans of letting water into the boot, see any SD1 for reference.

You are not alone!

I suspect I'll be joining the fun once I've got everything bolted back together after my HG is fixed and engine cleaned up. Must be the climate.

Managed to find and order some proper new lowering springs for the Rover, they claim a 45mm drop which is more than adequate. I'm guessing it'll look like this.



I'll report in full when I fit them.

Accidentally did more work than I intended to on the Rover today because I had some help with sorting out the front and the rear of the car. As a result, I'm much happier with how things are now.

I really wanted to get a look at the front headlights, the passenger side one has always been badly aligned since I got the car and I wanted to know why. Usefully, I had the better condition headlights from my brother's old 216SLi which I also knew had better headlights than the ones my car had. So, off with the headlights which is a fairly involved but straightforward job of undoing the top bolts, the screws holding the indicator and under-headlight trim and the one really difficult lower nut holding the bottom of the headlight in place. First thing I noticed is a broken clip.


Nothing looked to be bent or damaged in any way. I was expecting some minor damage to explain why the headlight sat so badly but all was good. There are signs the under headlight trim has been repainted and was originally white and there's some evidence of a good respray on the driver's side front wing, I suspect the wing is a good replacement to get rid of a crusty original rather than accident repair. After a bit of wiggling about I got the replacement headlight to sit almost as well as the driver's side (which I also replaced since I had the better units to put in). I did have to bend the lower bolt bracket up slightly so I wonder if there has been a minor parking incident on this corner like on the opposing rear corner.


Alignment was still a little off and after inspecting the leading edge of the bonnet it turned out that was ever so slightly bent outwards on the passenger side. Gentle persuasion with a soft cloth and a rubber mallet had it sitting as well as it ever does on these cars.


The driver's side was much easier to swap the headlight on apart from the lower bolt which was nigh on impossible to access no matter how I tried. Mike ended up doing that one for me because he has small sensible hands. Both sides now look much the same, so I'm happier. The headlights are brighter and the alignment better, I could see far better on the very wet drive home.


Front all sorted I turned my attention to the back of the car. The side vents are the likely culprit for letting water into the car and to sort those the back bumper needs to come off. That's actually a good thing because the lower bolts for the bumper had sheared before I got it so it gave me chance to make a rudimentary repair to one of the brackets and weld new bolts on to the bottom of both to replace the sheared items. It's not pretty but you never see it so it doesn't matter. Liberal coating of rust treater and stone chip paint to keep things as good as I can.




Dropped the ball a bit here because I didn't take a picture of my now sag-free rear bumper. It was a devil of a thing to get seated back on the car because of the side pegs but we did it and it looks better than ever.

Before the bumper went back on I removed the rusty bubbles on this corner including the rear arch warts, gave it some rust treatment and a quick coat of red and lacquer. I'll redo the arch properly when I've got better conditions to do so but for now it's good. Everything cleaned up very nicely back here. The other side didn't need anything.


Mike was meanwhile turning his attention to those vents. The old gaskets had started to perish and judging by the water trapped between them and the bodywork they were likely the cause of the leak. After removing the old rivets, Mike cleaned up the vents and surfaces and replaced the vents with a suitable sealant and new stainless steel washers, nuts and bolts. A more than acceptable finish to the job I thought, particularly for something that isn't ever seen.




I'm leaving the boot trims out both to dry and to make sure this is the cause of the water ingress. Time will tell.

Another little job I wanted to do was fit the small rear door Vikings to my centre caps so they look like proper Rover alloys. I've only got two at the moment so put them both on the same side of the car. I have another two heading my way but no eta. I quite like these, finish the wheels off nicely.


Finally, a job that is incredibly small but which has been bugging me since I got the car; radio end caps. Those little bits of plastic trim being missing has been a visual irritation since I got the car, always seen just out of the corner of my eye. It is an eyesore no more.

Just popped outside to get a picture of the rear bumper. It's not perfect, alignment is still a teensy bit off but it's better enough that I can live with it. I may fiddle with the bolts on the passenger side to see if I can lift the corner a bit further. Oddly enough, the driver's side has a much worse condition bracket but sits better.





You'll notice the numberplate is off, that's because I'm scanning it to get some reproduction dealer plates from DMB Graphics who can replicate precisely what is currently fitted. The rear plate is the dealer original while the front is presently a replacement, both are scruffy. New number plates make a big visual difference and should make it look a lot more loved. Anybody know anything about Trinity Motors?




Other news is the boot leak. I drove home through the rain and nothing came in through the vents. On inspection this morning there was water in the spare wheel well and it looks like it's coming in through the rear drivers side light cluster. This is easy to resolve at least and normal for Rover.

This morning I thought I'd quickly change the door card and see if I could find out why my central locking made noises but had to be operated manually on the driver's side of the car. Simple, right? Getting the old card off was fairly straightforward, a few screws and a bit of jiggling and off it came mostly no bother. The entire top edge of the card has just disintegrated, much worse than I expected it to be once I saw it properly off the car. Also explains why the side window demister vent has never worked this side, which can be very frustrating first thing when you can't see out of your window at a roundabout.


The wooden trim on the new door card was darker than my trim so I had to swap those over. That's really easy, you just push on the metal clips - three on the large section, two hidden behind the demister vent - to remove and push the new ones in. Again, you can see how little structure is left in the top of this trim.


On the replacement card some of the funny plastic clips were damaged and one was missing while the ones on the original card were, generally, in better shape so I swapped the ones over I needed.


Stripped the old card of all useful components before it went in the bin. You never know when or if you'll need electric window packs and spare grab handles.


Before refitting the central locking mechanism was investigated and we suspect it's stripped the teeth of an internal cog or similar because it does nothing at all beyond making noises, no attempt was made at repair because I don't have the spares and it works manually so there's no real bother. It was a nightmare to refit. I've done plenty of door cards over the years but I've never had one put up such a fight as this one. Nothing wanted to line up and when you lined one bit up another bit would pop out. The top edge was almost impossible to seat correctly no matter which order you fitted it and the door mirror interior trim panel. I might as well not bothered swapping the good bottom clip-pegs things over because they were intent on not staying in the holes, falling out, moving... urgh. It's on, at any rate, and the mystery jingle seems to have been resolved.


The last job I did was resealing the rear light cluster. I checked this when I got home and the water ingress is now limited to one spot which I'm struggling to understand. I had thought the water was only getting in between the seal and the bodywork, which it now isn't, but on inspection it appears to be getting through the two pieces of metal that the light cluster bolt goes through and I can't really figure out how so I don't know what to seal up to stop it. I'm wondering if it's blown a seam just enough to let the water drain through the panel gap as normal but then drip into the car.


In good water leak news, the passenger side light cluster isn't leaking and the vents have remained absolutely bone dry even after driving through puddles.

Rover had it's first failure to proceed in my ownership the other day and I've been asking around trying to figure out what's wrong. I can report that the boot appears to have stopped letting water in completely now, which I'm thrilled about, and my height reduction springs have arrived so I can get those fitted before putting the boot interior trim back in.

Tonight, I managed to get the car running and running rather well for minimal expense. Big thanks to Mike for running me out to get parts and helping with the job. First thing we did today was to inspect for spark, pulling the plugs is a bit of a nuisance compared to what I'm used to and when cranking we got a variable spark which pointed to an issue with the distributor and rotor arm rather than from the coil. I was loathe to write off the coil pack my car apparently has somewhere in part because it was expensive, in part because I'm not entirely sure where it is and in part because I had a gut feeling that the problem just wasn't that.

A run out to Eurocarparts in Durham to pick up a new rotor arm and distributor cap as they were the nearest supplier I could get the parts from today at short notice, checked in store and a run back. Then on with the job. The plugs when removed looked practically brand new and are a matched set of NGKs. The leads likewise are nice and flexible and look pretty new with no signs of damage or arcing or similar so I didn't bother replacing either of those, some of this was experience some was that gut feeling again that it wasn't where the problem was. I'd been told the plug wells can fill with oil if the rocker cover gasket has failed and cause problems like I'm having, happily that's not the case but I did notice one plug well had a little smear of oil so the gasket is probably going to want replacing eventually.


On trying to get the new distributor cap on the screws wouldn't go all the way in. The old cap wasn't very happy about going in either. Mike tapped the threads and cleaned out some gunk so the new cap can go on. The rotor arm is odd to me as well, rather than just a push fit there's also a securing nut.


Bolted it all back together and tried to start the car. It turned over much better but still no joy. On checking the spark it was a really good fat bright spark so the problem must be somewhere else. The ICV was still clicking away to itself so nothing ventured, nothing gained, we unbolted it to have a look to see if we could figure out what on earth it was doing. Was pretty grim.


I'd read that this is not a serviceable item and that a replacement, when I'd found new ones, are in the £150 region which is significantly more than I had available. I decided to clean it. Turns out the metal cone type part unscrews, the protective plastic collar beneath slides off and there's a spring under there too. Everything was full of sooty deposits and jammed.

Much carb cleaner was employed and everything made as shiny as possible before reassembly. We tested it by just plugging it in and turning the ignition on but not starting the car. Now the piston moved and that seemed promising. Bolted it back together and at first the car was very reluctant to start, but the clicking had stopped. Decided the best thing to do was put the accelerator to the carpet and try again, the car vroomed into life and settled to a very smooth idle. That made me very happy. We left it idling for a while and marvelled at how it wasn't quite so rough when cold now and then I took it for a spin around the block. Surprisingly, the car is much smoother in the lower end of the power band and gear changes that could be a bit clunky when cold were now smooth and easy though I'm not sure what I did to make that happen.

All back together, clock reset, battery clamped down properly and all is happy in Rover land.


In protest, the driver's front door electric window has decided to be on a Go Slow and the passenger front sidelight has gone on Strike.

I broke it again. :(

Swapping springs is usually an easy job, as these things go. We started by loosening the top nuts on all four corners and my brother decided we should start at the back because they're usually easier. He's usually right so I was happy to go along with this. Off with the little rubbery covers.


On with a ring spanner and a hex/allen key thing in the top of the threaded section and get busy. This stage was actually quite easy, which was nice.


I forget precisely what order we did things in so this isn't a how-to, but suffice to say that was the last easy bit of the job. What I do remember is that we fought with the bolt holding the bottom of the shock to the lower arm which decided it would be fun to shear off. Fine, off with the lower arm then, which put up some fight on the upper bolt which did eventually come free but the lower bolt would not. Things got drastic, we got the nut grabbers out, and then that bolt sheared off inside the bush. This was not good.


It was becoming one of those jobs. We did remove the outer drum and found the shoes, cylinders and bearing were all practically brand new which was a nice surprise but were thwarted by various other components. The trailing arm bushes are worn out, which is where the creak is coming from as suspected. Trouble with the bolts was that they have a grooved section that's supposed to be greased to allow it to move freely within the metal sleeve inside the bushes and there was no grease on them at all. This in turn led to the bolt and bush seizing together and corrosion spidering through the bolt itself.


We did at least get the shock off eventually and rebuilt with the new spring which was pleasantly easy, like the rest of the job should have been. Unfortunately we were all - Mike was helping out too - suffering from having had colds and stomach bugs lately so we had little patience for anything else. Here's a comparison shot of my new and old springs.


When I got back and had recovered I got onto Rimmer Bros and put in an order for new bushes and bolts. I can't find anyone that supplies the lower arm so I'll get both sides rebushed and I'll be getting new trailing arm bushes too. None of the individual bits I need were expensive, but all together it totally £135 delivered. That's much more than I wanted to pay but it does need doing because the bits I'm replacing are all shot, not surprising since they look like the originals from 21 years and 110,000 miles ago.

I don't mind - well I do mind, I hate spending money - too much because when this is done the car will have new brakes all round, new clutch, new radiator, nearly new tyres, new springs and all new bushes on the back. There's also the new lower arms and ball joints we fitted at the front and the temperature sender. It will practically be a brand new car and it is worth doing while the parts are still available.

I had the same trouble when I lowered my GTI . I now keep a spare set of bolts&bushes and shocks in stock.

Going to have to wait a while before I can afford to amass spares for future use but I am going to do that soon because I want to keep this one for a while.

Today, Mike and I made some more progress on the suspension. There's only so much we can do while we wait for new parts to be delivered. On the back I only got as far as removing the wheel and inspecting components. Everything looks cleaner and better overall condition on this side so it might not go quite so disastrously wrong. I'll still replace parts anyway so I've got a fully matched rear end.


At the front we started with the driver's side first as that hadn't been disturbed at all yet. It was a little tricky on one bolt but everything else came apart and went together tolerably well with no broken components. Passenger side was even easier because we'd taken this apart recently as previously documented. Here's it sans strut.


We took our time with the job to avoid getting stressed out with it. Much of it was fiddly and irritating to put together if I'm honest. The front springs aren't too stiff and fit really well, they're not rock-hard either when fitted so shouldn't ride too horribly.


Front end went back on the ground and while it's not terribly evident in the picture, it does sit a good bit lower. When it's settled out and the back end is on the ground it will likely be a bit lower than expected.


I'm looking forward to getting the back end finished more than I am actually doing the work on it. One issue I did have is that sidelight bulb that had failed. I fitted a known good bulb to replace it, the one that came out looked perfectly fine. It's a bit annoying as a job, I had to remove the battery to get in at the bulb fixings. Thing is, the sidelight bulb still isn't working and I'm not sure why. All the other functions on the lights front and rear are as normal.