KwS is back in an SD1 again, because of course.

[kws]

Here we go again. The SD1 sickness just gets into your blood and never leaves.

I really regret selling Effie, but at the time I had no other choice as I still had Tess and she wasn't ready to sell, and we had just been kicked out of our rental so they could sell it, so had no parking for one SD1, let alone two. I managed to source a spot for Tess to stay until we settled on our house, but Effie had to be moved on.

Tess wasn't quite the same, I never quite bonded with her the same and found that between the aftermarket cam and the manual box it didn't quite drive how I wanted an SD1 to drive. I feel the autobox and lazy low down torquey engine suit the style better.

So here we are again. That desire for an SD1 didn't leave me, so once the Tomcat was sold, I started my search. I looked at what was available online, of which nothing was suitable (HAD to be a Series 2, and there were none at a reasonable price), and then began reaching out.

I started with Nigel, or NP70 as it used to be called. It's been sitting outside, uncovered, untouched and unused since approx 2018. Allegedly it has a starting issue, which is why it was parked up. I contacted the owner and proposed buying the car and saving it, but unfortunately the owner wasn't having a bar of it and more or less said he'd get around to fixing it at some point and that was that.

Of course, I checked with Effie's owner if he might sell, but he is dedicated to getting her back on the road and knows full well that selling her would be a regrettable mistake.

Next was to try my luck with a comment I had seen on Facebook on an SD1 group. An NZ SD1 owner posted asking if it was worth exporting his Vanden Plas EFI back to the UK as he had tried to sell it in NZ with no luck, and the UK market for these cars is far hotter. This was back in December.

I sent the guy a message and just asked if he was still looking to sell the EFI. Sure enough, he was. A few more messages were passed back and forth, a price was discussed, and some photos and a video were sent to indicate the condition.

It looked nice enough in the photos and video, and did sound like it ran well.

Being the bore that I am, I keep a database of all the injected SD1s I come across in NZ. This is one of the ones on that list (one of 10 VDP EFIs), and I had known about it for a number of years, since it was originally from around my region. I have a few photos of the car from when it was for sale the past couple of times, and had even seen the car in person about 5 years ago, and recall it looked quite tidy.

Once we agreed on the deal, I once again booked in my preferred transporter (Brent at Classic Towing) and by some miracle, he managed to fit my collection in this weekend.

The next day, today, after a solid effort by Brent, the car was delivered

The engine took a few turns to get fired up from cold, but came to life easily enough and without any unusual noises or clouds of smoke. I warmed it up a bit while Brent undid the rest of the tie-downs, and then backed the car off the truck and into the drive.

First impressions are a bit of a mixed bag. The paint looks good, but only because it had a blow over at some point, which is really obvious as there are masking lines and overspray everywhere you look. There are a couple of spots of rust that I have found, including some big bubbles in the sunroof panel, and some small blisters at the top corner of the windscreen. Otherwise, without having been under it, it appears to be quite solid.

The interior looks in good condition, with no tears in the seats and it all seems to be complete. The obvious elephant in the room is the steering column being in bits, but that is due to a disclosed issue where the indicator stalk has failed, so the previous owner removed it for replacement (and had failed to source the replacement). Everything is really dirty though, so I will need to get the wetvac out and give it a going over.

All the doors are really sticky and the catches need a real good slam to catch. The car has only been off the road for about a year, but obviously sitting hasn't been kind to it.

The engine looks like a standard, albeit slightly neglected, EFI engine. It starts and runs well enough, and although the temp was low on the gauge, it didn't overheat sitting idle. There is a slight tapping from the engine, which I'm hoping is just an indication it needs an oil change.

The obvious modifications/issues I have noticed are that there is an aftermarket electric fan on the radiator, which appears to be running at full speed whenever the key is turned ON. There is also an aftermarket cooler mounted in front of the radiator, for either the transmission or power steering, I haven't looked to see which yet. Someone has also messed with the ignition coil setup, as it has a Bosch GT40 coil and the electronic module for it is mounted to the AFM bracket on the strut top.

Speaking of bodges, the breather system can't be working as intended. There should be an inlet filter on the LH valve cover, but instead, someone has blocked it off with a bit of hose and a bolt. I will need to look into refitting a filter to it. It might explain all the weeping oil around the engine.

I haven't driven the car yet (as the steering wheel was barely held on and the adjustment clamp for the column was loose - oh, and no indicators), so I'm not sure what the suspension and brakes are up to, so that's some excitement yet to be had.

It's a good basis for a car, with some foibles. I'm glad I bought it when I did, as it really needs the Tastes Like Petrol treatment to recover it back to its glorious self.

There will be a ton more work to be done, so stay tuned.

 

 

Also, why Lucas I hear you ask? Well, the obvious link is the Lucas electrics, but the more obscure reason was the little jumping spider the car came with. They're about the only spider I can happily live with.

 

Discussion

[kws]

The first step in getting Lucas back on the road was to address the one issue I knew of when buying the car; the lack of a working indicator stalk.

The previous owner told me it was broken but didn't say how or why, so until the car arrived it was a bit of a mystery. I could see in the pre-purchase photos that the column shrouds and stalks were missing, but knew no more than that.

Upon arrival, the car came with the stalks missing and the shrouds on the passengers seat. There was an icecream container in the back seat with the remnants of one switch, and what appeared to be quite a new, albeit incorrect side, indicator stalk assembly

Assessing the stalks, the disassembled one was very likely the original broken one, so that's where I started. If you have been following my posts for a while you will know that I'm a big fan of fixing what I have, instead of just throwing new parts at a problem. This was no different.

I could tell immediately that the high beam detent on the switch was broken, which would cause the high beam to fail to latch and stay on. The plastic piece that causes it to latch should be sticking up in the gap the arrow is pointing to.

Now, I can't find it, so I may not have written about it, but I have done this job before. Not for the detent, but to fix a broken horn wire. 99.1% of the job is exactly the same, so I had an idea of what I was doing.

The donor was the mint condition mirrored stalk. This is either from a different car that uses a similar switch but has the indicator on the RH side of the column, or is from a LHD. You can see that the stalk is upside when on the correct LH side and bent upwards.

There were a couple of other differences too; the connector was the later "church window" style, which the car didn't use, and there was that random blue wire coming off it, which had no place to connect to.

The first step is to VERY carefully remove the metal plate from the front of the switch. There are two small machine screws, and then it hooks in under two plastic tabs near the stalk. Once the plate is off you can see the gubbins that makes it all works. Be careful though, at the top and bottom are detent springs and plungers that can and will make a break for freedom. The top one should have a ball bearing under the spring, and the bottom one a plastic wedge.

The white collar for cancelling the indicators just lifts out, and then so does the central mechanism that the stalk moves (the big black piece with the white arms on it). Be careful here as there is a copper roller, spring and plastic plunger in this section that will drop out.

With all that removed, you are left with the rear housing and the stalk.

It's interesting to note that the three long contacts for the indicators are mirrored on the opposite-handed stalk. The top holes are populated on one, and the bottom on the other.

The detent needs to be released from the back casing, by carefully pulling back the piece of black plastic on the back that is holding it in place. It can take quite a bit of force to pull it out. Here it is removed and flipped upside down to show the notches it locks into fr high beam. That's the part missing from the broken one.

Now its time to get serious and cut the two wires that run through the switch and into the stalk (one had purple and black, the other was purple and purple with a black trace, but it's obvious which two run to the middle of the stalk) and then the stalk can be removed.

Now, I couldn't just swap the stalk over, since it was upside down and bent in the wrong direction, so I had to remove the detent piece and swap it to the existing stalk. To do this I needed to remove the little plastic block on the end. Be VERY careful with this as it is super easy to break those little round ears off and render it useless; DO NOT use those ears to support it when you drift out the shaft.

I lightly held the stalk in some pliers on top of the vice, and used a punch to drift the stalk out through the block. Oh, and it helps to mark the position of the block beforehand, so you can have the stalk rotated the same (or it may not face quite forward).

With the block removed, the detent piece just slides off and over the wires.

Do the same to the good stalk, and swap the detent piece to the original stalk. Now line up the block with the marks you made, making sure the horn ground wire is tucked under the block and wraps over the top, and then gently tap it into place again. I gently held the stalk in the pliers, clamped in the vice and used a small hammer to tap it back into place.

Congrats, you now have a good stalk, that isn't attached to anything. Give it a good clean, and let's reassemble.

Reassembly is quite simply the reverse of disassembly. The only thing I had to change was to move the wiper contact over from the top hole down to the bottom hole in the central mechanism. I did give the contacts a quick clean, and lubricated everything with dielectric grease.

The front plate can now be gently reinstalled, making sure it sits flush and the plungers haven't fallen out. Now flip it over, and solder the two wires back onto the harness.

With the switch reassembled I could plug it in and test it. I got a bit cocky and reinstalled it first.

And we have dash lights! Gosh, I love the green illumination in these cars. I was well chuffed.

Until I wasn't. We had dash lights, park lights front and rear, and flash to pass, but no dip or high beams. Damn.

I connected a known good bulb. No change.

Tried a different headlight switch. No change.

Located the dip beam relay and swapped it over with another. No change.

So it was time to grab the test light and start probing around. I had traced the wiring diagram back and had an idea of where to start looking; starting with the headlight switch

Lots of probing later

I was led to this mess under the passengers side of the dash. Ugh.

That bracket with all the relays on it should be bolted firmly to the firewall, not ziptied to a bracket. Not a good start.

I traced a few wires back and ended up at that weird white relay in the foreground. Turns out it isn't a relay, it's a "diode pack" that all the power for the dip and high beams go through. And nothing was going through it.

I could see some traces of corrosion on the casing, so pulled it out and removed the casing.

Well shoot, that'll do it. It looks like it's been under the sea. You cant even identify the diodes on the board, it's just a mess of corrosion.

I got out the can of contact cleaner, and the trusty old toothbrush and got to work, cleaning away as much of the muck as I could. I then used my multimeter to check I had continuity where needed. A couple of contacts were a bit iffy, so I have them a quick re-solder.

I plugged it in, initially without the housing on it, for testing.

I turned the ignition on and flicked the light switch. No change. Damn. I flicked it off and on again, and suddenly I was blinded, the test bulb was glowing brightly.

I had headlights. A quick check also showed that I had high beams too. Everything was working. Headlights, park lights, tail lights, brake lights, plate lights and fog lights.

I refit the housing and bolted the relays to the firewall as they should be. One of the two bolts on that bracket I swear is the worst bolt on an SD1 to get at. Cant fit a socket on it, and it's one flat at a time with an open ended spanner.

Some quick jiggling of wires to refit all the column stalks, and refitting the steering wheel came next. It's starting to look more like a car now. Heck, I might finally be able to take it around the block tomorrow after work. Hype!

I still need to refit the column shrouds, but that will come in due course.

One other thing I noticed when I was messing around in the car, was that this sweet old Clarion radio still works perfectly, auto electric aerial and all. Awesome retro design. Shame the plastic surround was broken and someone has bodged it with bits of interlocking foam floor mat...

[kws]

Just a small but significant update today.

With all the work on the column switches completed, this meant that I could finally take the car for a quick spin around the block to see how it actually drives and if it highlights any further issues.

The cold start was really good, only needing a couple of turns to come to life. I wasn't too impressed with the top end rattle though, I will need to get some new oil in there and hope it's not a sign of things to come. The oil in there will be at least a year old, if not two, and I don't know what grade.

Before I could back the car out of the drive I had to raise the steering column, as all the wiring work was done with it at its lowest height.

Overall the car drove really well. The weird notchy feeling in the steering seemed to clear up, so hopefully that's just from lack of use. It tracked and drove straight, without feeling too rolly polly on the suspensions, so maybe it's not completely poked.

The engine pulled well, although I forgot how lazy the autos are; but that's what I like about them. The revs stay low, and it just rides that low end torque and gains speed quickly without fuss.

Say what you will about automatic transmissions, especially ones from the 80s, but this old GM 3 speed shifts beautifully. The previous owner claims it was rebuilt, but I have no proof of that. The shifts are smooth and seamless, and kickdown was snappy.

I didn't check the trip computer, but everything else seemed to work. The gauges all rose, the speedo and tacho worked, and all the lights worked. The low coolant light worked a little too well though, the bottle and radiator are full, but the light is still on. Will need to do some digging.

The Rover SD1 has such a commanding presence on the road. I can't imagine what it's like for the average joe to see one driving around in a sea of boring beige appliances.

[kws]

Well its all turned pear shaped rather quickly. Looks like the engine is toast. Really slow to build any oil pressure when cold, low oil pressure all round, and clatters deep in the valley when under load. The engine also isnt the original one, its a lower compression engine from a carb SD1. Been trying various things over the past few days to see if the engine is saveable, but i think its done.

Sigh.

[kws]

This may not surprise you, but I have been bit by the Rover SD1 bug.

I sold NP70/Nigel when petrol hit $2/litre for the first time ever. I was a young’un at the time and that was my only car, which I had to daily to my minimum-wage job. A 3.5L V8 probably wasn't the smartest choice.

Look at it though, *swoon*

I reluctantly parted with Effie when our landlord faced financial struggles and evicted us at short notice to sell up. We had nowhere to live, let alone somewhere with secure parking for two SD1s. My wife called on a friend to store Tess until we found our feet.

On paper, Tess was the holy grail of SD1s. Black, manual, Vitesse. But after investing $3,000 and countless hours in her, she was back on the road (after several years being parked up with a mystery issue) and driving solidly and reliably. I didn’t bond with Tess as I had with Effie and, with no more work to do on her it was time to find her an owner that would drive and enjoy her.

For my 65th car, I knew it had to be something special. I wanted another one. Ideally, a Series 2 EFI, of which according to my records, there are ten of in the country.

There were none for sale, so I reached out to NP70’s current owner. I know the car has been off the road since 2018 and the owner has a large fleet so hadn’t gotten around to fixing it, but he’s not intending to sell. I tried Effie’s owner too, as we’ve kept in touch, but he’s got plans for her and knows he would regret selling.

Then I recalled someone last year had posted something on Facebook about planning to export their SD1 to the UK. It would be a shame to drop another car from NZ’s limited numbers, so I reached out to see if he still had the car and was soon fizzing with the excitement of adding Lucas to the TastesLikePetrol fleet.

Alas, some of you may have picked up on social media that very quickly I ascertained that there was something seriously wrong with Lucas. I’ve been conned.

At this point - I could skip forward to the moral of the story. But of all 65 cars I have purchased, this is one that’s going down in infamy, so I’m going to lay the facts down.

This is Lucas’ story.

First impressions

After several exchanges with the previous owner, I needed that car. He played hardball - he knew what he ‘had’ and that Series 2 EFI cars were rare. It was now or never. There are so few of these cars and too many of them are rotting into the ground, if I could save a fourth one and get it back on the road after over a year languishing under a ‘best intentions’ owner, I would.

In addition to needing a new indicator stalk for a WOF, the one caveat he stressed was that it “wasn’t show quality”. That’s fine, he had already specified no rust, and the body and engine were otherwise solid, just in need of a good service and some "TLC". I’d seen the car under its previous ownership, circa 2016, and recalled it was a tidy example.

British Car Day 2016

He sent me some potato quality photos taken from a distance, and a video of the engine starting and running when cold, also potato quality and not quite showing some bits. It seemed solid enough though, and although there was minor lifter clatter on initial start, it sounded fairly normal. We made a deal (or more like, I agreed to his price and sent the money).

This is the point where he said he would “hold the money in a separate account” in case I wasn’t satisfied and wanted to return the car. Perhaps that should have been a red flag, but I took it as a positive sign.

A few days later Brent’s truck pulled up (cut to ad break for Classic Towing NZ, for all your personal door-to-door automotive delivery needs *no affiliation, he's just a good guy that does a great job*) and first impressions were mixed. He said it wasn’t show quality, but I didn’t realise that he struggled so much with carparks. Both front and rear bumpers were cracked with chunks out of them.

From this vantage point, something also seemed off with the fuel tank. Perhaps he had a habit of doing sweet jumps over speed bumps.

The paint job is also a bit questionable - overspray everywhere and it’s lifting in places showing little prep may have gone underneath. But I guess that’s covered by not being show quality, and while a niggle, it wouldn’t affect the enjoyability of being behind the wheel again.

Speaking of, the steering wheel was at its lowest height, floppy and with the positioning screw MIA. The stalks and surrounds were sitting in a plastic container on the back seat.

As I was pulling the car into the garage, I was surprised that the car with “no rust” had clear rust at eye level, including a large area of bubbling on the sunroof and rust around the windscreen that will hopefully hold for a bit, but will eventually require the windscreen to come out.

Can of worms

You know me, I tend to dive straight into projects and this was no different. I’d only had the car a few hours and already fixed the “one issue” for a WOF - being the replacement indicator stalk (and reassembly of the steering wheel), which I’ve already posted about.

In testing the indicator, I discovered I had no headlights and spent a couple of days tracing wiring diagrams and finding that part of the loom had been submerged in water at some point (also covered in the above post). I’m yet to work out where the water was getting in - but the owners manual in the glove box has been destroyed by moisture and overtaken by black mould so there’s a leak on that side somewhere.

Snooping around the car and building my shopping list for the inevitable Rimmers order, I found:

• Three fuel leaks (fire hazard)
• A dented/weeping fuel tank (fire hazard & WOF issue)
• Washer jets don’t work (WOF issue)
• Doors sticking and/or not catching properly (WOF issue - at this point, I’ve been too scared to try the windows other than the drivers once, which is stuffed)
• Everything was finger-loose. Why does no one like doing up bolts?

And this is where it gets really good/bad

Following the initial work, I took the car for a gentle lap of the block - just to validate the steering column etc was all good for a Warrant.

I had non-existent oil pressure. Rovers are known for low pressure (high flow, low pressure system) and the floppy gauges aren’t decimal-point accurate, but at best it was getting about 1/2 what I should be and you could tell.

Less than 15PSI at idle, but hey, the lights not on, so that's something.

Then I got the car up to temperature and the knocking started.

 

 

Turns out it’s made the noise before (of course - cars don’t go from fine to full on metal-spoon in a saucepan by themselves) but “didn’t make the noise when loaded on to the truck”. That doesn’t mean it’s magically better, it just meant the car hadn’t come up to temperature??

But wait, that’s not all

I’ve saved the best for last. Last week I noted something not right and I discovered what it was.

The tired, worn-out engine was not original to the car.

It wasn’t even an EFI engine (31A engine code, 9.75:1CR). It was a lower-spec (11A 9.35:1CR) engine rated at significantly less power.

Now, some people legitimately don’t know what’s in their engine bay. These people typically aren’t “enthusiasts” or active club members who explicitly “know what they’ve got” and the value of a Series 2 EFI.

But while I knew he knew, I had no way of proving that he knew it was not the original engine.

Let's recap

Exact quote:	Surely it’s reasonable to assume?	What he sent me
Series 2 EFI	A Series 2 EFI with a high compression "Vitesse" EFI engine in the car	A Series 2 shell with a lower spec engine, with the EFI gear bolted onto it
Just needs an indicator stalk for a WOF	Just needs an indicator stalk for a WOF, and maybe a good service	Needs an indicator stalk, headlights fixed, the fuel tank repaired, fuel leaks fixed, the doors to function, and maybe some rust work depending how picky the inspector is.
“Any rust?” “No rust.”	Light surface rust, but no bubbling	Visible rust at eye-line - bubbling through the paint on the sunroof and around the windscreen. Have also found rust in the floor pan so far
“Got some spares”	A box of miscellaneous spares - usually includes an airbox, maybe a spare taillight, radio surround, that set of spark plugs you hadn’t got around to fitting. That sorta thing.	A pile of scrap, including the original engine - as yet, not provided.

Return to sender

After hours of diagnosing and googling and pricing, it was clear that the car was miles away from what was described and sold to me.

• I don’t have space to do an engine swap at home (noting our steep driveway making manoeuvring limited when a car’s missing running gear, and remembering the Marina has dibs on half the garage). 
• I have no money left to pour into a significant project like this. Effie had an engine rebuild before I got her - receipts for $6,000 NZD.
• I have a long list of jobs still to get through to get the Marina to British Car Day in February 2023.

Earlier in the week, I had signalled to the seller that the car wasn’t happy and I was going to run some further diagnostics just in case it wasn’t serious but it wasn’t looking good and we might need to revisit. Remembering his original offer to hold back the money in case I wasn’t satisfied and needed to return the car.

At minimum, I’d need to be compensated at least half of what I paid for the car to keep him but a) I’d still have issues with space and time, and b) let’s face it, the seller was never going to go for that.

I drove the Swift up the Coast to clear my head the next day and made a call. A hard call. Lucas had to be returned.

I first sent a video of the clattering engine. Then I sent a note outlining the disappointment and that I would have to return the car. I proposed that he covered return costs as the car was so drastically misrepresented - and in the meantime, I’d fixed the indicator stalk he’d spent a year "fixing", and the headlights, given it an oil change, and replaced the AWOL exhaust gaskets for him.

He said if I wanted my money back, it was my problem to send it back to the Bay of Plenty. That would put me out $1,400 in transporter fees and I would have nothing to show for it. But better than being out of pocket for the full cost of the car, I suppose.

I agreed and provided him with my bank details so I could start arranging return transport.

“No no. Send me the car first. I’ll refund after I’ve inspected it.”

Well, how about half now - as a sign of good faith, considering everything?

“No. Return the car first"

Okay, I’ll just get a short agreement written up for us to sign, to cover us both - you get the car, I get a full refund.

“No.”

You won’t sign?

“Send the car first - I'm suspicious you have done something to the car"

"Return the car or get lost"

So apparently I found one of the dodgiest guys in the Rover community, and his behaviour was getting slipperier by the minute.

Even if I returned the car to him at my cost, I had zero confidence I’d see my money back. After the total of the interactions I’ve had with him in the last month, there was no good will there. He declined, on several occasions, to sign a simple agreement to provide a full refund because, I believe, he never had any intention of providing that refund and actively dodged answering the question. I half expected him to come back with things like “Hey, this isn’t the original engine! And it makes noises when up to temperature! Oh well, thanks for the car back. I’ll just have to keep your money as compensation.”

So I told him as much.

He doesn’t deserve Lucas. He had a plan to export it to the UK (likely as-is. He has no time nor intention to fix it) saying he had a buyer for £12-15,000 GBP. So, you’re welcome unsuspecting British Rover-lover. You would have bought a lemon without an EFI spec engine and who knows how many more to-be-discovered issues.

Karma’s a bitch. 

Final chapter

I had no proof that he knew it didn’t have the original engine (except in hindsight I seem to recall it being mentioned in the listing when he bought it in 2018). Or, that is, until two full weeks after money had changed hands. I get this message from the seller:
“By the way I still have the spares that came with the car when I bought it. They are the original 31A engine block, cylinder heads power steering pump etc that was replaced with the different engine.”

Check and mate.

This was the first time he had acknowledged it did not have the original engine - despite commanding such a fixed, high price. Apparently a “nut or screw went through” the original engine, so there is a reason it was taken out, and he knew all about it.

For the record - this is grounds for compensation under the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017 (which does apply to private sales, unlike the CGA). Yes, I’ve had someone look into this. The compensation entitlement would likely be greater than I had asked for. The question is whether having the car in limbo, in order to go through the motions and see him in Court is worth it is another thing.

Now, I wasn’t in the market for a project - the Marina is deserving of my time and money first.

But had I been told there was an SD1 with a temporary (albeit knocking) engine, so it was rolling, that would come with the original engine needing a full rebuild, maybe I would have reassessed the value and potential of the car. Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to resist. Maybe I still would have taken it on.

But that’s not what he sold me, and not at the hefty price I paid for it.

And they lived happily ever after

When you get sold a lemon, make lemonade. It may Taste Like Petrol, but that’s kinda our signature here.

Lucas is staying and he’s going to be back, better than ever.

I don’t know how we’re going to get there. I still don’t have time, money, or space. I’m enquiring about offsite storage to keep him dry over winter while I sort a plan and order what I need.

[kws]

As mentioned in the previous update, once I noticed the engine wasn't happy, I began looking into how bad it was, hoping it was recoverable.

The first thing to do was to drain the old oil and refill. According to the sticker on the windscreen, it was last changed 2 years ago and was due last year by time, not miles.

I idled the engine to get some heat into the oil, and proceeded to drain it. I remember from my last SD1s that you cannot remove the oil filter with an empty sump or you risk draining the oil pump and having it lose its prime.

The oil that came out was really thin for what should be a 20W50 grade. It had a slight metallic sheen, but no glitter and no chunks. It didn't smell overly like petrol, but it did have a smell to it. It was very black.

I refilled the engine with the cheapest 20W50 I could get that was still a good brand. I found some Nulon on clearance; perfect. It's not what I would normally run (Penrite HPR30) but there was no point filling the engine with $80 of oil just to see if it was toast or not. $30 oil is more like it.

Once the sump had oil in it again, it was just a case of spinning off the old oil filter and fitting the spare Ryco filter I had in my parts stocks.

Starting the engine, and already it has made a noticeable change. The oil pressure is still scary slow to rise when cold (the light goes out, but it's many seconds to rise above 0psi on the gauge), but it's higher on the gauge now.

I did notice that the idle when in gear was lower than it should be (about 400rpm). It still idled nicely, and about where Effie used it, but the lower RPM meant that the oil pressure was bottom of the gauge. I used the idle screw on the throttlebody to bring the idle up a bit. It's now about 900-1000rpm when at idle in neutral, which is higher than the book says (800rpm), but it means that when the RPM drops in gear, the RPM is still high enough (about 600rpm) that I have oil pressure. It's a bandaid masking a bigger issue, but it works.

Between the idle bump and the oil change, at idle in gear, when warm, we now have about 16psi of oil pressure, which is a damn sight better than the 8-10psi before.

Which is a damn sight better than what we had

(no I don't know why the coolant level light is on, I might need to clean the sensors as the system is full)

When revving the engine it goes up to about 30psi at 2000rpm, which is more or less in the ballpark of where it should be (I believe the book says it should be 35psi).

It still clatters though.

The next diagnostic task was to check the exhaust manifold. I had heard that if there is a leak from the manifold that it can sound like a clattering engine knock. Sure enough, a few of the manifold bolts were barely finger tight. I tightened that up, and it still clatters.

I bought a pair of cheap exhaust gaskets and got to work, thinking that maybe the gaskets were blown.

Removing the manifolds was easy enough. All the bolts came out fine since they had recently been loose already. I did note there were no locking tabs fitted to the bolts. Even the downpipe joints came undone easy enough, despite some bodging by a previous owner.

Well, I guess the gaskets aren't blown then...

They just aren't fitted

A couple of the ports had traces of sealant on them, but that was it

It was pretty obvious that it had been leaking quite badly. There were carbon traces everywhere.

Using a series of wire brushes both by hand and on the drill, I cleaned up the mating faces of the heads and manifolds. I also had to do some work with the downpipe flange on the manifolds. I cleaned up the threads with a die. One of the flanges had a replacement stud on it, that had less thread. The thread stopped where the arrow is pointing, meaning the nut couldn't even reach the flange. To compensate, a previous owner had used an oversized nut as a spacer so the actual nut could still tighten down on the thread.

That's not my style, so I ran a thread down the rest of the stud

The RH side manifold got fitted first. A couple of zip ties through the top bolts holes on either end kept the gasket in place. The gasket was fitted with high temp sealant smeared on both sides, just to aid in sealing. The bolts were fitted with flat and spring washers, to help stop them backing out again.

The other manifold needed the gasket cut in the middle. Since it's a one-piece gasket, it would interfere with the dipstick tube. It was easy enough to cut out the center piece with some tin snips, making sure to round the razor-sharp corners off a bit

This was also then fitted, with new washers on the bolts and sealant on the ports.

I chose to remove the downpipes so I could clean up the flanges. This turned out to be a PITA.

With the manifolds fitted, and the exhaust still in place, it was a nightmare trying to get these things to fit again. The flange on the manifold isn't too bad, but the standard joint with the exhaust Y pipe uses a sealing olive and those annoying three bolt clamps to squeeze it together. In hindsight, I would refit the downpipes to the Y pipe before the manifolds, and then fit the manifold with the downpipe loosely bolted to the flange. I wish Rover just used a standard flange and gasket.

As the photo above shows, there are a few oil leaks. It appears that the worst two are the valve cover gaskets, and the sump gasket. Both will be replaced when whatever happens to the engine happens.

So, did that fix it? No. It still clatters, although the engine is noticeably quieter when running now.

The final check I did was the spark plugs. They all look really old, are Champion, and have a weird yellow colour on the ends. Google indicates that the yellow colour is generally due to old and dirty fuel, which would make sense. I put some 98 octane in the car since it came with almost nothing in the tank, and it really woke the engine up and make it run smoother, so I don't know what the seller put in the tank to load it on the truck.

I had some NGK plugs in my spares, so I swapped all the plugs out for those. I've never used Champion plugs, and the internet doesn't rate them very highly.

So all in all, the engine still clatters. It might be a bit better than it was when I first got the car, more from me masking it with other things than actually fixing it, but it's still there, intermittently, mainly under acceleration now.

The engine is running better than it has. It can still be a bit grumpy and I'm not sure the EFI system is quite working 100%, but it's drivable, if you wait until the oil pressure comes up when cold, and can ignore the clattering.

[kws]

Moving on from the last lot of repairs, I have also been tinkering with a few other small issues, in preparation for a potential WOF check.

It may be obvious, but the work on this car is kinda sporadic and not really following much of a plan. That's because there currently isn't really one. I'm feeling a bit lost and well over my head, as I don't want to spend money fixing other issues, only to have to put the car into storage until I can fix the engine if it does go pop.

What I have been doing is just ticking some things off the list that don't cost me anything but time. Some of these are also getting fixed with the aim of potentially taking it for a WOF check. Technically a clattering POS engine won't fail a WOF, so it's possible I might be able to get it on the road before doing the engine work.

The first work I had to do was kinda forced upon me. The outside temp overnight the other night dropped below zero, and having already checked when I got the car, I knew the anti-freeze mixture in the car was pretty rubbish. I pulled the car into the garage for the night to try and keep it above zero, and the next day worked on draining a few litres out of the system and topping it up with anti-freeze, just so there was some sort of a mixture in there. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing (and no point flushing the system now).

Of course, it wouldn't be one of my Rovers if it didn't leave a green puddle at some point

I ran the car up to temp, bleeding the cooling system (it's mostly self bleeding) and then set on the next task.

Another easy check is to make sure the throttle pot is set up correctly. Most probably aren't, and will result in the ECU not fuelling correctly.

When checked with a multimeter, the throttle pot range should be between 0.32v +/- and 4.7V +/-. Mine wasn't quite there (better than Effie though, which read zero at idle).

And this is where I discovered the car cannot reach Wide Open Throttle. It stops opening at about half throttle...

I marked the throttle pot and tweaked it slightly.

This brought the closed throttle reading into line

But I was still stuck at half throttle. If I disconnected the linkage to the throttle I could get the full opening (or near enough, it might need a little more tweaking but it's not an exact science)

It turns out the auto trans kickdown cable was so badly adjusted it was stopping the throttle from opening fully. The adjustment was wound completely out (I've actually backed it off slightly in this photo for testing, it was right on the end of the thread initially)

I backed it off until I could get full throttle and then locked it off.

A test drive shows that the car has significantly more grunt when you give it a boot, no surprise there; nothing like opening the last half of the throttle to wake the engine up, but I had lost kickdown on the transmission. Clearly, I need to wind the adjustment back in a bit further.

The kickdown works by the linkages pulling on that cable when at a certain percentage of throttle, which overcomes the spring pressure in the transmission and pulls on a rod that causes the transmission to kick down a gear. If the cable isn't being pulled enough because the throttle hits the stops before the cable overcomes the spring pressure, it won't kick down. I can still manually shift the transmission, but I will tweak it so kickdown works again.

Next on my list of things to fix, was the washer system not working, and having a bodge in place. This is a common failure point, and the easy fix is to do what both a previous owner of this car and also Effie did and fit a replacement external pump to suck through a failed pump.

The pumps on these have no filter, so if they suck in gunk they are prone to jamming up and no longer working. They are mounted on the bottom of the bottle with grommets.

I removed the bottle and found the bottom of it covered in green algae. No guesses for what's jammed the pumps then. The cap is also missing, so that won't help.

I cleaned the bottle out with some household cleaner and a good blast from the garden hose.

One of the pumps is jammed solid and I cannot free it, but after some gentle persuasion of the percussive kind, the other pump began to spin freely. The good thing is that they are both the same pump, so can be swapped front to rear. I don't need the rear washer to work at this point, so as long as I can get the front working, I'm happy.

The replacement pump has been fitted on the front guard, sucking through the failed pump. This pump did make working noises, but with the bottle dry and full of slime I didn't actually try putting any water through it.

Thankfully no wiring had been cut or altered, they had made a fly lead that plugged into the standard wiring, so all I had to do was unplug it, cut the zip ties and remove the one screw holding the pump to the car.

I then refit the bottle to the car, plugged the pump in, put some water in the bottle and hit the button. Sure enough, a large jet of water fired from the hose. We have a good pump.

To replace the external pump and join the two sections of the hose, I fitted a handy one-way valve I happened to have spare.

This then allowed the pump to send water to the washer jet, but nothing came out. Darn.

The jet is just held in fairly loosely with a couple of clips and pulls free with a bit of wiggling. I found the hose under the jet was kinked completely over, which wouldn't be helping, but the jet was also blocked.

I could've cleared this with compressed air, but being too lazy to fire up the compressor I instead used pressurised brake cleaner forced into the outlets of the jet (reverse flushing it). This worked a treat, blasting some black grot out the back of the jet. I did this in both directions until I was getting a nice stream of fluid out of the jet.

With the jet fitted directly to the outlet on the pump, I could test that the jet was working. The spray pattern wasn't great; they never are, but there was a good volume of fluid coming out of it.

With the jet refitted to the panel, I finally had a front washer jet again. It puts enough fluid on the screen to clear it, so that's a good pass. Probably puts enough fluid onto the car next to me to clear their screen too.

Yes, the wipers are mismatched and sit too low. Yet more things to fix.

I reluctantly took a look at the rust above the windscreen. There were a couple of small blisters in the paint which had me worried, after having dealt with the Corolla rust.

Thankfully it looks like it may have started from a stone chip, as after some careful poking, wire brushing and sanding, it was on the surface, doesn't go too deep and looks worse than it is; a completely different sort of rust to the Corolla. It may go down under the bright trim, but I can't see without removing it. I treated it with some rust converter, and once dry, gave it a coating of epoxy zinc. I'll need to get some colour matched touchup paint at some point, but for now, this should keep it under control.

The sunroof panel is still ruined though, but I'm ignoring that and pretending it doesn't exist. Those bubbles on the left will be a hole if I look too hard at them.

I did manage to take the car further than around the block, just for a quick shakedown. I took it two blocks away to a local park and grabbed some photos. Despite its flaws, it's a hell of a car to look at and drive.

Now, if it would stop clattering, so people were looking at the car for the right reasons, instead of trying to work out if they should move back in case it explodes, that'd be nice.

[kws]

Well, it's most of the bits to make an engine, anyway.

As part of the purchase agreement of the car, the seller said he had "Some spares" that would come with the car. I didn't know what and didn't really bother to ask (any spares are a bonus, and I have lots of spares as it is, so it's just more to add to my collection).

When we were in good standing we were going to meet up a couple of hours north of where I live, as he was coming down to visit family, and I would collect the parts then. That all turned to custard once I realised what a bastard he was, so I decided to just write the spares off.

A week or two ago the seller got in touch and said he had the spares and was willing to crate them up and ship them down, at no charge to me. This time he alluded to what the spares were "it's the original engine and some other bits". As this was the first time he had mentioned anything about the car not having its original engine, I was a little taken back by this revelation, not to mention this would have made collecting the spares a bit of a surprise if I chose to take the Swift that day.

I would be stupid to say no, so after some back and forth on things like "how heavy is it?" "will I need a forklift to move it?",  we arranged for the crate to be sent to my local freight depot and I would collect it with a friend that has a van.

As it turned out, the engine was in more bits than expected, which made it much easier to work with anyway. It arrived in a big crate, but we ended up unloading it into the back of our trusty Honda. The block being the heaviest part, and even that is only 30 odd KG and can be (just) lifted by one weakling.

It's funny how much space an exploded diagram of an engine takes, compared to the assembled unit.

The Honda took it like a champ, riding low in the back but with plenty of suspension travel

After work I unloaded the car and got my first look at what I had obtained. First, I could see in the photos, but it was good to confirm it was the correct stamped 31A engine, with the correct 9.75:1 compression ratio.

I was wondering if it was the original stamping or not, but the layout and font style is consistent with the stamping on the 11A engine in the car currently, it just looks rough as guts.

I purchased an engine stand, but haven't set it up yet, so I'm yet to remove the pistons from the block and check the bores, but from the top of the bores I can see, they look like they would go again with a light hone. The pistons appear to be the correct high compression ones too (shallower recess in the crown).

The engine is completely stripped, other than the pistons being left in their bores, and the lifters all being stuck in place.

The crank isn't looking too hot. It has light surface rust on it, but the journals are all scored to some degree too. It should be reusable with some machine work though, even if oversize bearings are needed.

The cam behind it is looking quite tired too. I plan on replacing that anyway, so no issue.

The first signs of issues began when I found the oil pump gears. I was told by the previous owner that "it looks like something went through the oil pump" and he ain't wrong. One of the gears is properly chewed up, but only one...

The bottom of the oil pump housing looks fine, with only minor scoring, which is about what I'd expect for a high KM, somewhat badly looked after, engine

The bearings were next. These were all nicely dumped into a cardboard tray, and they're all kinds of bad. The majority were through to the copper, and all of them had some scoring. They should be a nice dull grey with an even, smooth coating.

The big ends were worn. Ignore the scuffing, that'll be from knocking around in the box.

And the main bearings are really worn. This one even has an extra oil channel ground into it

I don't know what on earth happened to this bearing, and if it was whilst it was in the engine or not, but its ugly

From the numbers on the bearings, they appear to be standard size, original bearings. Likely the ones the engine was built with.

The good news is that the heads are the original EFI heads

This is most obvious due to the injector cutouts in the intake ports. I bet the heads currently in the car don't have these.

Annoyingly as far as I can see, the rocker assemblies weren't marked, so I have no idea which side of the engine they were originally on. Same with the pushrods, they are all just dumped in the box, so I don't know if I can/should use those again. Probably not to the pushrods, but maybe the rockers will be fine with new pushrods? Pending inspection of them and their shafts, of course.

The plan this weekend is to get the block on the engine stand, get the pistons out, and see what the liners/bores and pistons are like. If they aren't too bad, this engine will be saved. I will need to measure the heads, as going from the used composite gaskets in the box, they have likely been skimmed once already, and they can only be skimmed so far before needing replacement. I will also look into whether I can use the newer 3.9 heads as the valve stem seals are far better than the SD1 style.

It looks like the engine was super tired, and not that well looked after, even before the oil pump shat the bed and dumped bits of metal throughout the engine. I did want to upgrade the car to a 3.9 or 4.6, but if I can put the original, numbers matching, 31A engine back into the car, I think that is best.