Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Had a good run to the Powderham Castle Car show near Exeter yesterday.



Even in the heat it performed flawlessly.

The recent 2nd automatic transmission oil change seems to have improved the gear shift between 2-3 to another level so that even under load the gear shift is smooth. Got enough oil to do a couple of oil changes next year which will hopefully means all the old oil will have been completely flushed out. I’ll then be in a position to decide whether any further work is required, although it’s looking like that won’t be necessary at the moment.
Shows the importance of keeping up to date with changing the automatic transmission oil so easily forgotten about

Small update
Managed to spray the Plenum gallery with cavity wax after clearing the old stuff off earlier in the year.
Biggest issue was blocking the air intakes so that stuff didn't clog the heater matrix.
Cut up some car cleaning sponges and shoved these in the slots in the plenum gallery.
I used Bilt Hamber Dynax S-50 . The spray can with extension nozzle gave really good coverage in the gallery and it's solidified into a dark brown coating.
Not the most fetching colour but hopefully gives the area a good protection coating, although prehaps not as important these days due to lower mileage and use in only fine weather.

Managed to purchase an ECU for the car. Part No 37820-PP5-E51. Seems to be a a rare beast but managed to find one after a few months of looking.
The one purchased was made in 1989 so is older than the one fitted to the car but comes with a 12 month guarantee. Have fitted it and will run it for a few months to may sure its all good.

Interestingly the existing ECU was manufactured in Dec 1990 but the car was registered in Dec 1991.

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But at least I now have a spare one in case of failure

Resoldered the main relay solder joints as I was getting the intermittent failure to start.
The board seems to be covered in some sort of varnish which seems to have come off in some places and not others during soldering and using the flux pen.
Used some electrical contact cleaner but this seems to have made it look even worse.
Thankfully the print circuit board looks sound still

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Will reinstall and see if it works better now.


I'm even on schedule for my jobs to do this year, but as the MOT is booked a week Tuesday this might change

Well decided to have another go at cleaning the face of the PCB on the main relay after resoldering it.
Used the contact cleaner again but used a cloth dipped in the cleaner rather than spray the cleaner on and using a tooth brush to clean the surface.
Took some time , mainly due to the contact cleaner evaporating quickly from the small bowl I was spraying it into .



Very pleased with the outcome - well worth the extra effort - looks better than when I took it apart originally

Looks good, and great to see the ongoing work with your car!

Hey Plodder, How come you changed the ECU?

Only reason I changed it was to make sure it worked.

The one I brought came with a 12 month guarantee so I decided to plug it in to check it was working.

Seems to be absolutely fine as I have done a few trips in the car and there doesn’t seem to be any issues.

Will swap the original one back in over the winter and keep the one I just brought as a spare in my ever growing “just in case” box

Collect bits for the car seems to be a hobby in itself

Just received the good news that the Rovers got a clean bill of health for another year , well it passed its MOT with no advisories.
Does that mean I don’t need to do any work on it for the coming year?? I don’t think so

Good to hear. It’s always a relief when they pass!

Just a small update as house buying and other family commitments have occupied my time of late so progress on some of the bigger jobs has been delayed yet again.

Got a couple of quotes to get the front suspension turret repaired. Just need to visit one more shop before deciding who to go to in the new year.
Got some varying quotes for a full respray.
One place would only do a bare metal respray.
Said 30% of their resprays had resulted in a reaction between old and new paint so they only offered this option.
Pricey at £10K so I don’t think I’ll be going there, nice work on show though.

I have swapped the original half vinyl half fabric sun visors with a set of all vinyl sun visors that I got from a club member.
This is because the fabric on the visor has become baggy with age and will spoil the interior appearance once the roof lining is renewed.
I may have a go at renewing the fabric if I can work out a way of neatly bonding the material edge to the vinyl.



Have also sourced a driver’s seat belt stalk again.
I replaced the original, after it broke, with one from Rimmers Mega Sale. It was Ash rather than Flint but it was £20 instead of £90.
But when I fitted it I realised the stalk was 30mm longer than the original, even though it was suppose to be the correct item.
The extra length didn’t affect the operation but it didn’t seem to fit round me nicely.
Found one on ebay that is identical in colour and length just hope it doesn't break like the original. I think a spring broke on it so I couldn't plug the buckle in.



The car is due for a cam-belt change the last one being in 2016.
But I was a bit concerned the head gasket might be feeling it's age, as it's never been replaced, and felt it wasn't worth changing the belts etc if I needed to change the head gasket as well.
I decided to do a sniff test on the coolant, after hearing other members talking about them, so brought a Dr Headgasket tester and run a test.
The results even after a prolonged warming up period to working temperature showed no colour change so I'm hoping the gasket is good for a bit longer.



Currently in the process of getting all the parts and tools, mainly a tool to hold the crankshaft pulley in place, to change the cam-belt, power steering belt, alternator belt and water pump.

Finally, maybe someone can give me a definitive answer to my boot access panel saga.
I noticed last year that the nearside boot access panel was missing. I couldn’t understand where it would have gone or even if it was ever there
The Rover workshop manual shows both nearside and offside ones fitted.
Chris on the forum kindly found some but they were all offside ones and he observed that the cabby only has offside access panels fitted.
A request on Breakerlink yield exactly the same response from BAS Mini Spares " Loads of offside access panels but no near side access panels sir".



So my question is to anyone in the know, was a nearside access panel ever fitted to the first Generation 400 (R8) boot?
They are unique so can’t be interchanged which seems a bit of a missed opportunity in the design stage to save tooling costs.
If the answer is generally no I’ll stop wasting mine and everyone elses time looking for one.

I think you will find that the panel on the o/s is there to protect the lock mechanism rather than look good.