Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Got some gas, then my back was bad for no reason, as it is sometimes, so the welding hasn't progressed. I did have a little moment of drama, so here's a little video.

https://youtu.be/mbJAefgntN8

Wow, I've not been updating here for a while, things have been pretty hectic. Princess has been in daily use bumbling about doing regular car stuff, frustrating me with a few issues, but mostly just being okay. Certainly not bored of it yet. I got the door repaired and back on the car. Got the wing done too. It was a horrible job to get it all sorted.



Replaced the old choke cable by pulling out the inner cable from a classic Mini new part and threading it back into the Princess' old sheath. This worked acceptably well. Looks factory and operates as it should.






Retrimmed the parcel shelf with the leather I salvaged from the back of a sofa we threw out. Just so happened that the piece was exactly the right size and now it's done, it doesn't look like I've done anything. Certainly an improvement over the faded velvet from my last retrim.


Hit this little milestone.


Then let down the suspension on purpose for once so I could replace the rubber bumpstop that had fallen off some time ago. This improved the ride a smidge and got rid of an annoying knock from the back end.




Spent some time faffing with panel gaps and edges and got the front wing to be acceptable for a BL car. Had to faff with the trailing edge of the front wing which was about 1mm too long somehow, once that was sorted I got the repaired door in paint and ready to go on the car.




Got the lower rear arch repairs done on one side.


Fitted some high level indicators to the top of the C pillar to compliment the high level brake light.


Then fitted the repaired door, finally, which took longer than expected since I had to rebuild the whole thing. Having an opening window was bliss, I now never take this technology for granted.

Fitted some new mirrors, again. These are better again than the others I've had on the car, offering the best compromise of function and form so far.




Identified a knocking noise courtesy of another Princess owner as being a worn out bearing on my (fairly new) water pump, so ordered and fitted a new one. Took very little time to do and only cost £15 delivered, so I'm not complaining about that.


Spruced up the belt cover once the new pump was fitted too. The purple accents in the engine bay are out of place with the new colour scheme, so I'm replacing them with copper.


Then my fuel gauge packed in so the dashboard had to come out. Again. Only it didn't because the fault is actually in the wiring to the tank rather than the gauge. I now know I have a working spare fuel gauge at least and Mike tidied the dash board wiring just a little more which made refitting easier. While it was out, I decided to try my hand at doing veneer work, which turned out exceptionally well.










Real wood veneer and three coats of satin varnish. I've ended up with a factory look that I really like. I'll be hiding an MP3 decoder behind the radio blanking plate which will itself be hinged for easy access and hide-away functionality. Then the thermostat housing wouldn't seal so I had to repair that. They're badly made and this one had been attacked before my ownership too, probably to get the thermostat out since they like to seize in place.








That's us up to date really. Piloting a nearly forty year old car around daily gets some looks, and it can be frustrating when a new problem raises its head, but mostly I'm really happy with the old crate and it feels like my cosmetic vision for it is finally coming into focus now.

The new wood trim looks mint !

I'm super happy with it. Tonight, we went the furthest north I've ever gone to have fish and chips in North Shields and hang out with some other weirdoes from the internet with old cars. It was nice.



Doubt I'll ever park next to a Lincoln Mk8 on German plates again.

Was Stuart Hall driving it ?

I have no idea who Stuart Hall is but I'm pretty sure the German that was piloting it wasn't Stuart Hall.

Stuart Hall as in the presenter of 'Its a Knockout' and famed sausage shoplifter, also a fan of American Iron.

A lot has happened since the last update.

After the trip to the seaside* I fitted my spare second-hand timing belt tensioner pulley. It too is a bit noisey but nowhere near as bad as the one it replaces.


Been spotted several times and posted on that there Facebook that I don't use.


Decided to remove the rear screen to fix the rust and found MORE rust, as per usual.




With that done, and just the one fire to put out thanks to an errant spark and some plastic I had hidden in the boot and forgotten about, I set about sorting out the rear lights properly.




Sanding, sanding, sanding, painting, painting, painting...




Sorting out the new lights by trimming them where needed to fit.


Fitting new high level indicators, which are actually Austin A30 sidelights with the lenses painted orange inside.


Rear end all together, looking pretty sweet.

Rear screen refitted with Mk1 stainless trim rather than the Mk2 plastic insert. Difficult to fit the trim too, I can see why they switched to the plastic stuff later.


New rear lights are nice and bright. 1964 Galaxie, if you wonder where you might have seen them before.


Treated it to some fresh paint on the steels and some brand new Uniroyal tyres. Also switched to the factory wheel trims since I fancied a change.


Then the experiment began.

Week 1
Distributor internal earth wire replaced as I had a poor earth caused by fatigued wire.
Reverse light not working, traced to a broken wire after replacing the reverse light switch. New reverse light switch collapsed after 30 miles, old one reinstated, reverse light working again.
Hazard telltale stopped working, turned out to be a badly fitting bulb. Bent the bulb tines out a bit and the telltale now works normally again.
Auxilliary belt squealing fixed by retensioning.

Week 2
Occasional misfire/stumble under load. Couldn't trace the exact cause so waited for it to develop.
Some underseal fell off when doing the weekly arch hose out and highlighted this rust.


Week 3
Rust explored and fixed.




New fuel filter fitted
Occasional misfire/stumble became progressively worse. Cleaned out the carb which had some sediment and particles in it. Still couldn't find the root cause.

Spotted a tidy unmolested Mk2 Golf when out on errands.


FTP. Car died coming off a roundabout, float in the carb stuck so it kept flooding. Roadside partial dismantle and rebuild of the carb undertaken. No point calling for recovery since I was pretty much in sight of my house, just a bit too far to push, so worth trying to get it going again, which we did. Car reluctant to drive with any revs until heading home when it suddenly behaved perfectly normally. Still couldn't identify the cause for this.

Week 4
This is where we are now. It's not going well. Potentially cause of poor running found to be a chunk of gasket having blown out causing a massive vacuum leak, once replaced with fresh gasket this seemed to resolve the issues.


Victory was short lived. Today the condenser died and burned the points badly enough that they're no use either. Car will only run when cold as a result, once warm the condenser just wreaks havoc. Electronic ignition ordered.

Rear suspension noticeably firmer and bouncier than it should be indicating that the rear displacers are in need of re-gassing. This will have to wait until next year.



Fortunately I need to do very little driving so the experiment is not yet at an end. If the electronic ignition solves the running problems we'll be back in the game. I've also got a freshly rebuild carburettor heading my way courtesy of a very good friend who does very good work. I did fully intend to start the challenge at the worst time of year to give me and the car a proper trial by fire and it has not disappointed on that front! I'm not about to give up on this challenge yet, if nothing else it's making me appreciate just how easy the R8 is to live with by comparison.