[Mr Teddy Bear]

These era of cars don't have a diagnostics port, there is a fault code screen in the ECU. That is underneath the carpet in the nearside front passenger footwell. It logs engine faults only as far as I'm aware.

The solution for cars fitted with ALB is to take it out; there are no spares and very little expertise or fault finding kit. There is a member [Montegoman] on here who has done that, or the car was modified before he bought it.

Honda dealers won't help you.

If you have bought from a dealer take it back, for the price mentioned it needs to be both low mileage and with no faults! The trade are trying to flip R8's for far more than they paid and for far more than most people on here would countenance as a fair price.

Pulling the fuse has probably reset the fault codes in the ECU but that won't help you anyway.

John doesn't appear to be around at the moment.

[Montegoman]

My car is a 214 so had the Bosch ABS system, whereas the 216 has Honda's own ALB. The ABS modulator had been removed in my car before i bought it. It has been replaced by a "spaghetti junction" of brake pipes to make the brakes work. It is a nightmare to get the rear brakes to balance and also very difficult to bleed. The Honda ALB is unique to Honda and has a built in design fault which is very difficult to repair.

[RMS1974]

Thank you for the replies, hopefully John will be back at some point.

The ECU for the Cabriolet is underneath the rear parcel shelf, again through reading it would appear that earlier ECU's had a LED that flashed the codes.

As far as I can make out at the moment, it is the dash ABS light (ABS is printed on the display) that flashes the code sequence, it's just to fully establish is it the underseat connector or something under the steering wheel.

I have a friend who bough a lease to an old Austin Rover garage workshop not far from me, and he tells me he has "loads of stuff" possibly even including diagnostic kit and other old goodies, unfortunately he is on holiday until midweek.

I agree for what I paid it should be spot on, this aside it is, 3 owners, 43,000 miles, excellent paint, refurbished wheels, all new matching tyres, good leather & roof etc. but if fixing this is a non starter it'll be going back.

Hey Ho, I'll have to search for another Classic for the show season, because I sold my BMW E30 Baur to buy the Rover.

[crepello]

My car is a 214 so had the Bosch ABS system, whereas the 216 has Honda's own ALB. The ABS modulator had been removed in my car before i bought it. It has been replaced by a "spaghetti junction" of brake pipes to make the brakes work. It is a nightmare to get the rear brakes to balance and also very difficult to bleed.

Regarding brake balance: was the ABS balance valve replaced by a non-ABS one? According to Rover's
WSM they look identical, but the internals differ, so the ABS one is more or less a distribution manifold,
leaving balance issues to the modulator.

[GTiJohn]

Regarding brake balance: was the ABS balance valve replaced by a non-ABS one? According to Rover's
WSM they look identical, but the internals differ, so the ABS one is more or less a distribution manifold,
leaving balance issues to the modulator.

They are different but not in the way described...

The non-ABS rear brake proportioning valve has the 2 'halves' connected by the valve inside. That way it evens up the pressure on the rear wheels. The mounting bracket attaches to the outside of castings.

For ABS you don't want to even-up the pressure, so has two valves separated by the mounting bracket that sits between the 2 castings they're in.

The settings of the pressure reduction valves of 2 cars with rear disc brakes, one with ABS and one without, will be the same but they different from a car with rear drums. All R8s with ABS or ALB have rear discs. Only R3s, HHRs and maybe some very late R8s with ABS have rear drums, which works just as well, and was a big cost saving for Rover allowing them to fit more cars with ABS.

[RMS1974]

Good evening,

After a day of unplugging, cleaning & testing everything I could, I now have a code from the grey 2 pin plug that is housed in the green holder under the dash (easier to access by taking out all the screws surrounding the flip down fuse cover).

The code is "1-2", but it is flashing 3 times in succession; I believe that it is... "Pump motor circuit problem", possibly linked to... "Motor relay, Unit Fuse, Motor fuse."

The "..." is the exact wording taken from a Honda Tech Forum discussing "OBD1 92-95 Civics & Del Sols", I couldn't find anything Rover related.

I have cleared the memory, and tomorrow will take it down the drive, I'm expecting the fault to come back on, but unlike previously, I'll leave it on and go back to my garage without turning the car off & on, as I have been doing.

I hope that when I access the code I'll only get 1 flash, showing "1-2"

If it is, I may have a work- a -round without taking the bulb out or disconnecting the ECU, I'll post again, wether if it works or not.

If anyone can confirm or offer an alternative explanation please chip in.

Regards

[RMS1974]

I’ve made progress, with the bulb fitted and codes read, there were 2 faults, first was the ABS relay, sorted that, but that was masking the main problem, the motor/pump assembly.

I have a complete ABS unit from the States, I plan to split the necessary donor parts, after that I’ll strip the old unit and see if it’s fixable.

I have also temporarily have it sorted whereby the light comes on and goes off.

[Paul_1978_yorks]

Great to hear, and glad you’ve stuck at it!