KwS's Rover 220 Tomcat

[fuel]

Is that an oil leak under it already?

[kws]

1 hour ago, fuel said:

Is that an oil leak under it already?

No, thats from bleeding the cooling system.

[kws]

Last time we left off with the gearbox in place, full of oil and the axles in place. Thankfully the gearbox passed the white paper test with no leaks, which means I managed to seal it up correctly and all the new seals are holding oil.

Unfortunately, the lower radiator hose was still AWOL; I had planned on waiting for that to arrive, but in the meantime, after work, I decided to fit the freshly rust treated and painted heater pipe and some of the coolant hoses in preparation for the hose to arrive.

This did end up with me getting carried away and just sending it and installing the old coolant hose as it was in usable condition and wasn't leaking beforehand, and whacking the whole thing back together.

New stainless lower pipe

I had to replace this hose to the heater pipe as I found some quite deep cuts/wear in the original hose. It is originally a moulded hose to clear the gearbox and air intake, but some careful trimming and clamping had the generic hose in a good enough position.

Starting to look like an engine again, and a huge milestone

It had been a long time since I had seen the car without the engine support bar in the engine bay.

All the intake and boost pipes were then reinstalled

The cooling system was filled, bled and then it was time.

Still up on the Quickjacks, with my Wife standing by to check the wheels were turning, I jumped in the car and started it up.

Into first, clutch out. Wheels turn. Second. Third. Fourth. and gingerly into fifth since wheel speed was getting up there. All forward gears were doing what they should, and the clutch was actuating correctly. Clutch in, on the brakes, popped into reverse, and bam, the wheels go backwards even.

I built a gearbox, and it even works

With the wheels back on, and then off again to torque up the hub nuts (oops, that was lucky), and the wheels back on again, the car was lowered to the ground for the first time in a couple of months.

Its maiden voyage was out onto the drive to turn the car around, warm the engine up and bleed the cooling system

After the thermostat (hey, it has one now!) opened and the fans cycled, the car went back into the garage for the night.

The next day, I got home from work and immediately checked the fluid levels and took the car out for a drive. I needed to make sure everything gearbox related was working as it should, before booking the car in for a WOF inspection.

First impression of the work done is that the shifter is really good. It's direct, firm and has very little play. The clutch is nice and progressive with a good bite point, and despite being a slightly uprated clutch the feel is good and it's not heavy. The sticky shudder I had when engaging the old clutch is gone (thankfully, I was thinking the cable was sticky, but clearly not).

The gearbox works really well. It's silent at idle in neutral, where it used to rumble noticeably beforehand. The synchros are working well with no crunching. There is a slight whine in second gear, but considering what the gearbox has gone through (or what's gone through the gearbox) I'm not surprised the gears didn't survive completely unscathed. It's a huge improvement.

I haven't been able to give it a real good test since I don't want to push the car too hard until the clutch has had some time to bed in, and I have checked the rest of the car over a bit more, but the couple of times I came on boost in a corner showed that the diff pulled the car around the corner. The feeling of being pulled wheels first around the corner was quite pronounced, and I feel like I could push even harder into a corner and have the car pull it to the exit.

The torque steer everyone comments on was almost non-existent. I say almost, just because if it was there I never noticed it. On boost it just tracks straight and true.

I'm really happy with the work I have done, the gearbox is sublime to use.

The turbo noises are addictive and hilarious too. So much whoosh.

A quick stop to check I wasn't pouring fluids out gave me a chance to take some photos of the car that aren't on my drive, in my garage or broken down.

Yes, the front corner splitters will make a comeback at some point (the steel inside them that mounts to the bumper is like a doily so I either need to fix these or find replacements), and yes the bonnet desperately needs paint.

The car also happened to tick over 113,000km just where I stopped

I have more or less doubled the KM I have covered since I got the car, and *touches wood* the car even made it home under its own power this time.

You may (but probably didn't) also notice that the side repeater lamps on the front guard arent orange anymore. I didn't like the fact that all the other indicators on the car are clear but these weren't, so I bought a kit to replace them last time I ordered parts from Rimmers.

The old lights were quite faded. They slide back or forward and then wiggle out

The bulb on this side was covered in filth. It turns out there should be an O-ring on the bulb holder to seal it. I tried but couldn't find one that fitted, so will just deal with having to clean the light later.

The new lights come with orange bulbs

Which then twist-lock into the new light, and after a quick clean of the grot that lives behind the light, the new light clips in.

So flashy

Of course, I couldn't leave you without a video of the whooshy noises. Enjoy.

 

 

 

[Roman]

I wonder how much people's torque steer comments are just from poor wheel alignment or stuffed bushes.

Great milestone! 

[kws]

3 minutes ago, Roman said:

I wonder how much people's torque steer comments are just from poor wheel alignment or stuffed bushes.

Great milestone! 

Apparently the bushes for the front tie rods regularly flog out and that would cause the wheels to flop all over the show when accelerating. Mine are in good shape but will be replaced with poly at some point.

I'd say you'd be fairly right on that one, between that, shite roads and the original snatchy torsen diff, its no wonder so many ended up in hedges.

[kws]

With the Tomcat finally on the ground again I could get around to doing some smaller jobs that I didn't have space to do before.

The first was to replace the door switch on the RH side, again. I replaced both door switches when I first got the car as both had broken and the interior light didn't work.

Unfortunately the same night the gearbox gave up, I opened the door and a piece of plastic fell on the ground and the switch was missing its lever again. Nuts.

Old photo as an example.
Thankfully Pick a Part still had a Rover 45 in the yard, so I grabbed a couple of original Rover door switches from that, but whilst I was there I had a look at a Honda Concero (the platform brother of the Rover 200) they had and noticed it had a different style of door switch, in the same location and a similar design.

The Rover ones look like this; All plastic design. Broken on the right.

The Honda one has a metal base with a slightly different plastic lever that has a more gentle radius on the 90 degree bend the Rover one usually breaks at.

The underside is more or less the same, and its retained in the same manner

It was easy to fit, slots right into place.

And the interior light works a treat

The best thing is that the Honda switches are also used on the 1st gen RD series CRV, which are a dime a dozen at wrecking yards (Pick a Part currently has 9 on the yard), unlike Rovers (zero on the yard).

The next small but satisfying fix was to replace the brake light switch. I looked into an issue with the brake lights back when I first got the car, and I tried to adjust the switch, which did work for a bit, but was really touchy and often left the lights stuck on.

I picked up a generic Tridon switch, TBS041, which was listed for a Honda Civic, which has the same thread, plug and design.

The switch is tucked up under the dash, in an almost inaccessible spot above the pedals. I removed the panel under the dash, which gave me a little more room to work with but still meant contorting myself into the footwell. It lives here, screwed into a bracket above the brake pedal.

There is a lock nut which you need to loosen first

There is also a connector on the end you need to unplug so you can rotate the switch and remove it.

Before installing the replacement I plugged it in and tested it

The new switch is slightly different to the original one, but is close enough.

The old one had an original label dating to 1994, so it had never been replaced.

It's just a matter of screwing it into the bracket until the button is depressed, but don't screw it in hard against the bracket or you'll probably break it. I wound it in until the button was just completely depressed and then backed it off a turn. Use the lock nut to lock it in place.

Check the lights work, and bam, jobs a good'un.

The final job I had wanted to do was to install a boost gauge so I could check the turbo system was working correctly.

I picked up a cheap second hand electronic Prosport boost gauge (I've used the brand before and like the style) and set about installing it.

The electronic gauges have a remote pressure sender, which is mounted in the engine bay. This has a wire that has to go into the cabin to send the data to the gauge.

I started by running said wire into the cabin. This turned out to be really easy, as there was an unused grommet in the firewall, which lead into the cabin.

When you remove the grommet, behind it there is a pre-cut section of insulation on the inside. A quick poke with a screwdriver removed this

The hole in the firewall comes out up to the left of the clutch pedal, which is very easy to access inside the car. I poked a hole carefully in the grommet and fed the cable through

And refitted to the firewall

I mounted the sender on an unused stud mounted on the firewall

The boost reference hose was run to an unused vacuum takeoff point on the manifold

With the sender plugged in, that was that part of the job done

Moving to the inside of the car I found and tapped into a switched power feed under the dash, and ran the ground to the bolt securing the fuse box.

The gauge pod was then carefully placed and stuck down.

I used fabric tape on the wires so they wouldn't look shite. The wires are tucked into the gap down the edge of the dash and cant be seen.

The view more or less from the drivers seat. It's tucked down quite low but is in line of sight for the driver. It's not too obtrusive.

Could look worse. I did want a boost gauge that had a smaller scale so it'd use more of the gauge dial, since these cars are quite low boost (around 10psi), but it was hard to find a good one that was less than a 30psi scale.

On a closed road in Mexico, I can now confirm the turbo system is working spot on. I'm seeing about 9psi in the first two gears and 11psi in the rest, which is expected for this system. Boost comes on really quickly and holds all the way through with minimal drop-off.

The car doesn't feel fast as such. In first it's pretty hectic, but second onwards it just gains speed quickly with little fuss (other than the noise). I feel like that's a Rover thing, and without torque steer and being thrown into hedges it's all kind of a bit civilised.

I have booked a WOF inspection for the end of the month, and will see how we go from there. Hopefully it's a pass and then I will be able to drive the car on the road legally and work on fixing some of the other issues.

[kws]

In preparation for the upcoming WOF inspection, I needed to make sure everything works, including all the lights. The high stop light is a constant source of annoyance for me as it just doesn't consistently work properly.

With the brake light switch now working correctly, I had to make sure the high stop light kept working. I kinda bodged it back together and got it working a couple of months ago but by the time I had it all back together, the damn thing had already lost one of the five bulbs.

It turns out, since then, it had lost four out of the five bulbs now, which wouldn't pass a WOF.

I removed the lens and pulled the bulb unit out

And this is what I was playing with

My plan was to replace the whole assembly with LEDs and never look at it again.

First, I purchased an LED strip unit designed for motorcycles

I connected it to the high stop wiring to check it works, which is certainly did

The problem was that it was too small

I even went to the extent of 3D Printing an enclosure to mount the LED strip into the casing on the boot lid, but I didn't like that it would have only lit up a small strip in the middle of the lense.

The next idea was to salvage the LED strip from a larger aftermarket high stop light

I cut the end off it, and fit it into the original housing

But with the lens on, it's too direct. It's just a strip of red.

The problem with the original unit is that the bulb holders are shite and the circuit board they interface with is corroded and ugly. I tried to clean the corrosion up with the fibreglass brush last time, but this time I just hit it with sandpaper. I've done the RH two, the rest are original.

There is also pitting on the circuit where the tiny little contact point of the bulb holder touches it, which means it'll never be good.

In the end I just cleaned the circuit tracks and the bulb holders up as much as I could, swapped in some LEDs and refitted that to the car

The light coverage is far better, but I don't know how long it will keep working like this. I wouldn't be surprised if it just stops working completely the day before the WOF.

I think my plan now is to find some generic T10 bulb holders that have wires instead of contacts, and 3D print a new board to go on the back of the standard reflective housing, which will hold the bulb holders with LEDs in them and I will wire it into the standard plugs. This will remove both the dodgy bulb holders and the worn out and corroded circuit board I currently have.

[kws]

Tomcat went in for a WOF yesterday. Unfortunately it was a failure. Not a bad thing in the big scheme of things, I was expecting a whole lot of worst case scenarios, and for it to only fail on steering rack ends and tie rod ends on both sides due to excessive play, thats a win. Parts have been ordered and should be here Monday. I kinda expected this to pop up at some point as the steering is really vague and wanders. I was hoping it wasn't the rack.

Having removed the old parts already, yeah they are toast. Very loose Ball joints all around and the movement in them was very pronounced when wiggling the wheels side to side. Not sure how it passed the last wof (end of 2020) without being noted.

[kws]

Well, the time has finally come, it's time to see if the car is roadworthy or not.

It's been a long time coming, but it's good to finally be here. It's a milestone; it means I'm confident the car will make it to the testers in one piece, and it might not fail too badly.

So on Friday, I rolled on down to the workshop and left the car to be inspected. I've used these guys to do my tyres before, but haven't had them do a WOF yet, so I was hoping they weren't going to be real picky about it.

An hour later, I get the call. Its failed. Damn. What did it fail on? Excessive side to side play in the front wheels. It needs new inner rack ends and one tie rod end.

Not the worst thing to fail on, and being the only thing it failed on, I was still reasonably happy. I was expecting much worse.

I picked the car up and immediately shot around to a couple of parts stores to price up the parts. It seems they all get them from the same place, as they were all the same price, so I picked the last one I went to and ordered them.

While I wait for the parts to arrive, I got stuck in.

Up on Quickjacks, confirm there is noticeable play in both sides, and off with the wheels. The LH side looked original and still had an old castellated nut and split pin instead of the nyloc new joints come with.

I had also slipped the boot off the rack to see what I was dealing with on that end. Annoyingly Rover is dumb and used an inner rack end that doesn't have a locking washer or even flats on the joint to put a spanner on.

There was a factory locking method though; a notch in the rack and a punch used to deform the rack end so it locks into the recess.

I had to use a hammer and punch to hammer the deformed section back away from the rack

With that hammered back, I used a pair of vice grips to grip the joint and then a dead blow hammer to crack it loose.

Then before completely removing the inner joint, I popped the tie rod end ball joint from the knuckle. This LH side one was really stuck and took a ton of force and lots of hammering to pop it free. Remember to crack off the adjustment locking nut first, whilst it's still easy to do.

The amount of force the tool was putting on the joint can be seen in how deformed the threads are around the split pin holes

Eventually it popped free

And out it came, being careful not to turn the tie rod end (so I could use it to set the new ones up later)

I did the same on the other side too. The inner joints were very loose, and the LH outer joint was stuffed too. The RH outer had been replaced at some point in the past and was still good (and kept as a spare).

I then started work on removing the front struts to install my nice new KYBs, only to find the first one I went to fit was DOA and had no gas pressure. Damn.

Moving on from that bitter disappointment, I left the car for the rest of the weekend.

Monday rolled around, and the parts had arrived. I picked them up early morning.

They were a weird brand I hadn't heard of before but looked like they'd do the job

I fit the new inners first. I used some medium-strength Loctite and tightened them with vice grips and a hammer, like I did to remove them, as these new ones also didn't have spanner flats. Because of the orientation of the locking notches in the rack, there was no way I could use a punch to lock the rack ends with the rack on the car. Obviously they did that before fitting the rack in the factory.

I got a pair of nice new universal boots. I trimmed these to fit and popped them in.

I wound off the old tie rod ends, counted the turns, and spun the new ones on the same amount of turns (after checking they were indeed the same length).

On went the wheels, and down went the car.

A quick test drive immediately revealed that the wooly vague feeling the steering has always had (in the 2 or 3 drives I've done) is completely gone, replaced with an overly darty but direct steering.

By some fluke, both the alignment shop and the WOF workshop were able to squeeze the car in that afternoon, so off it went for an alignment.

Where I found that the car had 17-18mm toe on each side, instead of 1-1.5mm each side. No wonder it felt darty.

Next was the WOF workshop, where they were they were surprised I had fixed it already, and it went up on the hoist and had the play checked again. This time it was a pass, and the new sticker was applied to the windscreen. This gives me six months of being road legal.

So almost 5 months, thousands of dollars and many many hours later, I finally have a road legal Rover Tomcat.

So, what does one do when they have a road legal car? Take it for a hoon around some back roads of course!

My wife and I jumped in and took a drive over some of the local back roads I like to hoon around.

 

 

 

The car was running and driving great. The turbo was pulling well, and that diff is great. I can see why despite the cost, people rate the Quaife ATB, it just pulls you around corners, like understeer isn't a thing. It definitely needs those KYBs though...

There is a little spot I like to stop at and take photos, so we swung by there and grabbed some. There are no bad angles on these cars. Enjoy.

 




Wait. What is that...

So, whilst taking photos of the car I decided to leave the car idling since I had just been pounding on it, and 90s turbo cars need some cooldown time before shutting down. I'd idled it heaps before without issue.

This time, nope, she was hot. Not boiling, but very hot.

We carefully pulled away and once moving the temps started to drop. As long as I was moving the temps were under control. Stop, and you could watch as the needle rose.

I wasn't best pleased.

I ran some tests once I was back in the garage, and sure enough, both stages of the fans were working, but it just couldn't bring the temps down.

After some research, the most common conclusion I could come to was the thermostat was sticking closed, and since the coolant temp is read just before the thermostat, it was reacting to that blockage very quickly. Well, it was either that or a blown headgasket or blocked radiator.

I purchased a new thermostat from Rimmers ages ago, since the car didn't come with one fitted I was going to fit this one to the existing hose, but ended up buying a New Old Stock hose from Japan instead, which came with a new thermostat already fitted. These are a bit weird; on the A/C cars they use a special top radiator hose which has the thermostat wedged into it, and held in place with a hose clamp, hence the two clamps in the photo below, one to hold the hose on the outlet, and one for the thermostat.

The first port of call was to test the old and "new" thermostat. I figured the old one could have been from as far back as 1992, whilst the new one was stamped 2012, so it's a bit of a difference. I still wanted to make sure the new one was working before installing that.

I popped the top hose off, and removed the thermostat. I put the two into a pot on the stove and raised the temp while monitoring it. The "old" one is on the right.

Boiling them showed that both did open, but the new one opened further than the old one. Its hard to tell in the photo, but the new one on the left has a larger gap.

After that test, I drained the coolant system of all its foul smelling brown water (I had been running mostly water with a low concentration of anti-freeze in the system to both help clean it out a bit, and since I had planned on replacing the lower radiator hose again). I'm sure I have flushed the system once before with a hose, but it's also had at least two other drain and fills since I got the car.

This time I flushed the radiator, engine and expansion tank with water until it ran clear. All of them took a while until the brown stopped.

With the new thermostat fitted, a 50:50 mix of coolant was poured in, and the system bled. It came up to temp quickly and the thermostat opened fine.

I took the car for a decent drive, making sure to use the turbo to get the engine nice and hot. Once home I sat on the drive for a good few minutes to see what happened, and the needle was rock solid. The low-speed fans came on, as expected, and everything seemed happy.

If anything, the needle on the gauge sits a hair lower than it used to when at operating temp, so maybe this has been an issue for a while. It's no use surprise that a thermostat which I believe to be stamped 1994 has aged badly and is sticking.

I'll keep an eye on it, but this car is really testing my patience and making it hard to trust it. Hopefully I can just get a few good miles on the clock without any more issues.

[yoeddynz]

From what I have read in the past using a richer coolant ratio actually decreases the rate at which heat can be pulled off from the system. (something to do with the fact that water is more efficient at absorbing heat than straight coolant)

In NZ we get more than enough frost protection from a 30% mixture, plus easily enough corrosion protection.

Not too mention the antifreeze costs of running 50% over %30 - just thinking about that starts to boil my Scottish blood.

More pressing issue for you is what to do about that worn steering wheel leather!...

[kws]

Since driving the car more, there has been one small but persistent issue; the valve cover is still haemorrhaging oil.

A while back I fitted new valve cover gaskets, as they came with the car and they had obviously been leaking as there was just oil everywhere on the top of the engine.

The rear gasket is a weird plate type, which is metal sandwiched between layers of a compressible material

Putting a few KM on the car now, it was immediately clear that even with the new gasket it wasn't sealing. The pools of oil in the valley make that really obvious and there was a faint waft of oil smell when stopped.

Removing the gasket, I could see that it had been leaking around the entirety of the gasket

The sealing surface on the gasket was very wet with oil. Keep in mind this engine hadn't been started in a week or so...

I enquired on the Rover Coupe Facebook group if leaking gaskets were normal, and one helpful chap told me to check the metal sleeves that the bolts pass through. Sure enough, this is what I found.

That metal sleeve should be flush with the face. All of them were like this

This is from a previous owner seeing the gasket was leaking (probably the one I originally replaced, instead of them replacing it themselves) and just cranking down on the bolts. The plastic cover cant squeeze down any further because of the metal in the gasket, so the metal sleeves get pushed out through the holes in the gasket. Not a chance it was ever going to seal as it was.

I used a pair of big grips to gently squeeze all the sleeves back into place until they were flush.

And after a thorough clean of both faces, refit the cover with a new gasket. I decided to fit the gasket dry this time, with no sealant on it.

The front cover has been sealing perfectly since I replaced the gasket, so no need to touch that one.

A decent drive shows that there is no more oil leaking down the cam carrier, and the valley is dry. Finally, after all the work I have done it appears I have stopped the valve covers leaking.

[yoeddynz]

I await for the next episode of  "I thought I had stopped my British car from leaking oil for good but I was dreaming"....

[kws]

2 hours ago, yoeddynz said:

I await for the next episode of  "I thought I had stopped my British car from leaking oil for good but I was dreaming"....

Notice I picked my words carefully "I've stopped the valve cover leaking" 

No doubt it'll find another way out of the engine. 

I really need to get under the car and clean it, gosh it's oily under there. Years of leaking from the top down. 

[kws]

Like all good things, my ownership of the Tomcat wrapped up today.

Long story short, after much back and forth, the Tomcat was sold to a collector in Australia who is looking to import this to Australia and add it to his rather sizeable collection of other Rovers.

As he still resides in Aus currently, he managed to arrange for a friend to come to collect the car from me and store it until he can make the trip over to arrange the export.

It's bittersweet really. I've put so much time, money and effort into this car, to take it from the hunk of junk it was when I got it (thanks previous owner), to the solid, reliable and mechanically sorted car it is today. It's still got a long way to go in terms of cosmetics and things like suspension, but the foundations are there for one of the best examples around; with a gearbox that is just a joy to use and a diff that pulls you around corners like understeer doesn't exist.

On the flip side, I didn't get a chance to drive it much (I prefer to use the Swift, and the Honda is the daily) so it only came out occasionally, and I could really do with the space it was taking up on the drive.

Hopefully the new owner gets a chance to put some decent miles on it, because it's only done something like 1000km since it was imported to NZ from Japan back in 2016 (says a lot about the condition before I got it then if no one drove it). It deserves to be used and driven hard, now that the gearbox can handle it!

So, after a 2 hour bus trip for the chap collecting it, the car was picked up today

I'm sad to see it go; the noises it made on boost were just so intoxicating. Nothing I have owned had quite the same sound. Once the suspension is sorted, that thing will be a real weapon, just chewing up corners flat out.

I have put the feelers out for a potential new project, but no details will be revealed on that until I know the outcome (since it's likely a no), but we will see how it goes. In the meantime, I have two other cars that need my attention.

Goodbye Tomcat

[Colinstg]

Hi I have recently bought one of these cars on trade me from Auckland , so very interested in your progress. I  have done a compression test showing 125 to 130 psi which seems pretty low but realize they have low compression pistons. Starts and runs but need to un seize rear brakes. 

[kws]

4 hours ago, Colinstg said:

Hi I have recently bought one of these cars on trade me from Auckland , so very interested in your progress. I  have done a compression test showing 125 to 130 psi which seems pretty low but realize they have low compression pistons. Starts and runs but need to un seize rear brakes. 

Good luck, mine nearly bankrupted me by the end. Great cars but let down by years of bad owners when they were "cheap" and now most are suffering. Was it the black one you bought?

[Colinstg]

Hi Kws I have recently bought one of these Rovers 220 turbo Coupe and trying to sort out a intake manifold leak. The ECU is hooked up to the manifold so that's good but there are two  pipes either side of the throttle body and not sure if they should be blanked off or connected to anything...can you help. PS these cars are getting sort after in the UK and prices are goin up.

[Colinstg]

Sorry Kws didn't see your earlier post and hadn't realized you sold it. Yeah the black one. How much you get for yours I'll probably put mine on trademe.  

[kws]

6 hours ago, Colinstg said:

Hi Kws I have recently bought one of these Rovers 220 turbo Coupe and trying to sort out a intake manifold leak. The ECU is hooked up to the manifold so that's good but there are two  pipes either side of the throttle body and not sure if they should be blanked off or connected to anything...can you help. PS these cars are getting sort after in the UK and prices are goin up.

Hi, yeah sorry mine is long gone. Your best bet is probably to jump on the RoverCoupe facebook group and pop some questions on there. They're an incredibly helpful bunch on there and should have you sorted quick smart.

I seem to recall that black one having had a lot of work done, including most of the common issues, so would be a good one to hold onto.