Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

At a hunch, I think that Xpart who supply Rimmers have bought the Rover 200/400 body panel tooling. The front sub frame is available at reasonable cost, but replacing the complete rear wheel arch panel [if they were available, not at present] would be a huge task, i.e rear hatch off, sixth light out, cut the panel half way across the orifice, cut the door post, sill etc.

A good alternative would be a repair panel that replace's the wheel arch lip with a couple of inches of steel behind it. Put a inwards step into the radius, then the panel can be fitted behind the trimmed back original to make a overlapping joint. Spot weld then bead weld and dress flat, paint and rust protect. Job done!

pete2783 wrote:This diagram pretty much explains all you need to do... I can even put a 'how-to' together when I get a spare minute... I'll get round to joining the club too!

Yes please.

To both !

Mr Teddy Bear wrote:At a hunch, I think that Xpart who supply Rimmers have bought the Rover 200/400 body panel tooling. The front sub frame is available at reasonable cost, but replacing the complete rear wheel arch panel [if they were available, not at present] would be a huge task, i.e rear hatch off, sixth light out, cut the panel half way across the orifice, cut the door post, sill etc.

A good alternative would be a repair panel that replace's the wheel arch lip with a couple of inches of steel behind it. Put a inwards step into the radius, then the panel can be fitted behind the trimmed back original to make a overlapping joint. Spot weld then bead weld and dress flat, paint and rust protect. Job done!

I'd dearly like to see your hunch turned into fact. But didn't everything get slung into containers and shipped to China when Longbridge was stripped out? How would XPart retrieve a few select tools from there? XPart has also changed hands - it used to be part of Caterpillar, who are ruthless profit-seekers, if what they did to GM's EMD (locomotive) business is typical.

As an indication of what detailed knowledge survived within XPart, a few years ago, I was after some clutch cover screws, which had gone NLA. Rimmer's were able to get a copy of the manufacturing drawing from XPart for me, to source an alternative.

There were wheel arch and sill corrosion repair panels available from Hadrian, but only for 4/5-dr variants. There have been changes of ownership there too, but the parts still get sold in encouraging numbers on eBay. Don't know whether the tools are still being run, or whether stocks are just being run down.

I read that story in the papers too! and it's probably true. But the R8 was out of production in all forms by the time of the companies collapse. So might well have passed out of MG Rovers ownership by then anyway. The front wing's are the one panel that fit across the entire range I believe, except for short indicator car's of course.

I was thinking that the cross section exhibition 214 would make a good pattern for the sill dimension's? Were the sill's originally foam filled, or was the foam filling limited to the door and windscreen surrounds?

Mr Teddy Bear wrote:Were the sill's originally foam filled, or was the foam filling limited to the door and windscreen surrounds?

By Jan 1991, when my one was built, neither were filled. I wouldn't have been able to get my Waxoyl wand in otherwise!
Wouldn't they just wick moisture and keep it there, instead of letting it drain? The designers obviously thought draining was A Good Idea, because drain channels are formed in the sill panels.

Acording to the sales blurb that I was reading, can't remember where this was, might have been a road test report; some of the box sections were completely filled with? to improve sound insulation.

SPI cars seem to be very thin on the ground with regards to fuel system components, unless someone knows of a secret source?

Found myself looking for other vehicles with similar setups to replace a faulty injector on mine (its either that or the ecu at fault anyway) and ended up with a whole SPI throttle body from a Rover 820e on route to experiment with.

Only alternatives if you can't get SPI working again would be a MPI conversion, but that is quite involved to the point where you need to change the flywheel as it has a different pattern for the crank sensor which makes it incompatible. (totally worth it to keep the vehicle on the road though)

There are a few 114 cars around being broken but not managed to persuade any of them to split SPI components from the engine. Unless you were willing to buy a whole engine for a tiny part!


Have also had issues with brittle wiring, (door speakers mainly) however its not really much of an issue to resolve if you don't mind pulling looms apart. They can all be made from scratch with new wire and some patience

Mr Teddy Bear wrote:
I was thinking that the cross section exhibition 214 would make a good pattern for the sill dimension's?

But sills are available aftermarket aren't they? I certainly didn't have any issues getting a set last year for the 200. You can only get 4/5 door ones but they modify easily for the 3 door.

They are definitely not foam filled either!

Ref the Honda ALB people, don't even bother trying! I spent weeks looking for a unit and then when I got a second hand one nobody could locate the tool to bleed it anywhere. I ended up having it removed and a standard brake system installed, which is what the first 216gti I had in 1992 was anyway :-)

I imagine 216 Gti wheels would be worth storing if there was space as I am sure they must be pretty irreplaceable now.

Cheers, Mark

t-series aux belt tensioners £143 on rimmers