Roadwork's 825Si

[Richard Moss]

Blame that hydraulic damper - it makes bleeding the clutch a bleeding pain.

[Roadwork]

Blame that hydraulic damper - it makes bleeding the clutch a bleeding pain.

That's an interesting point... I wonder if it's that that's at fault?

[scoobyh123]

Something else just occurred to me reading through - your pressure plate could have weak fingers allowing a bit of "bend" before actually moving the pressure plate away from the friction plate. Try the clutch damper first though - if it causes the sort of problems the valves in the ABS system caused for me to bleed my brakes you'll have to get vicious with the clutch pedal instead of a smooth, steady stroke.

Good luck with it and hopefully the cylinders will last for a while longer!

[Roadwork]

Good points, duly noted. Thanks chaps.

[Roadwork]

I can only apologise for how long it's been since I was last on here. It's all changed somewhat, hasn't it? Very pretty.

Anyway. I'll do what I can to bring us up to date with where I'm at with the silver dream machine.

In the interim between posts, and with assistance from a Lord Sterling (of this parish):

"...Floor mats were obtained, and damn spiffing they are too.

100% Genuine VINTAGE NOS Rover 800 Prestige mats. £12ish quid a set plus semi-exorbitant postage charge. From Rimmer Bros.



Check out the "Back in time" packaging, straight off the shelf of your friendly local Rover dealership.

I bought two sets, one for use, one to tuck away packaged up for future concours (!) work or simply to watch the values spiral upwards, which will definitely happen.

Put them in the car before it started to blezz it down. Mobile Phone Flash Photography not the best.... it actually DOES look better in the flesh.







My interior is now even more of a riot of beigeness, and is now upgraded to nigh-on full old war-hero-giffer-spec."

[Roadwork]

Then, a bit later....

"....Elegant little wisps of lovely, playful, joyous steam curled prettily from my front grille in traffic this morning. Truthfully I'd noticed it before; in fact every single morning this week ghosts of steam have lazily eminated from the underbonnet area, I'd put it down to evaporation of one of the myriad fluids that are leaking from my car.

Yes; I CAN HAZ MENNY LEAKZ. The clutch is definitely leaking, I've known this for a while and done absolutely sod all constructive about it. The power steering leaks from around a union in the pressurised part of the hydraulic circuit (my ghetto-solution is likely to be wrapping the offending union tightly with self-amalgamating tape), and now I have a coolant leak too.

Actually, that's nonsense. I believe I have a split in the radiator, as all the steam seems to be coming from a specific patch of the centre of the front face of the rad.

So:



Yes, the appropriately named K(V6)-Seal. A bottle of pour 'n hope, please. Tenner. Well, cheaper than a new radiator.



I administered it in the Sainsburys filling station. Attracted a good few glances; must all have been Rover 800 enthusiasts.

In other news, my previous posts in this thread relate to a problem with the clutch master cylinder. Well, of course, THERE IS NOTHING WHATSOEVER WRONG WITH THE MASTER CYLINDER. Never was, actually. To make the car driveable I bled the system from the bleed nipple on the slave cylinder; that was about a month ago. All was well until, last Sunday, I drove back from Colchester and found some of the gears somewhat hit and miss. By Tuesday I had a box full of false neutrals, no 2nd or 5th and a reverse that made me sound like Maureen from Driving School every time I attempted backwardsness.

Time to bleed it again. This time I made the job easier by sticking it in the workshop and throwing a Mercedes-Benz qualified technician at it. It was bled in 5 minutes at the cost of four cans of wifebeater. And I stole the fluid I topped it up with. We did discover, though, completely inevitably, that the slave cylinder is actually FUBAR'd. Th piston gaiter is all that's preventing all the clutch fluid flowing over my parent's heavily Rover-Stained blockpaving.

So a new clutch slave cylinder is in order. But it'll have to wait until the new year, maybe longer if the house move happens. Hmmm."

[Roadwork]

A few months later, after bleeding the slave cylinder again a couple of times:



".....That's my Rover, that is. Abandoned on a patch of waste ground next to the dealership, where we all park during the day. The time is 18:08, I've just attempted to drive home after work.

There's a Mercedes A-Class on my drive right now 'cos my boss took pity on me.

Note to self. Fix things while they're going wrong, not when they've actually failed."

[Roadwork]

A week after that, progress was thus.

....."Hilarity ensued today, when my line manager and I extricated the Rover from the muddy field, using a tow-rope and one of our A-Class loan cars, and deposited it here....:



...Around the back of the valet bays, by (not in) the skip. This to me represents an enormous step forwards; a) it's not in a filthy, uninsured, insecure field any more, and b) it's within rolling distance of a four-point lift.

When workshop traffic allows I'll get it airborne and pull the horrible malfunctioning slave cylinder off, and take it home because....



....This arrived in my in-tray today; theoretically enough bits to convert the horrible old malfunctioning slave cylinder into a lovely new co-operating one.

Tax expires at the end of Jan and the MOT lapsed on tuesday 17th, but insurance is still running until I cancel it. So to legitimately drive it home when it's all finished I'll need to throw a new MOT at it. That should be a laugh."

[Roadwork]

So, this post brings us completely up to date.

At this point I was actually planning to have the Rover off the road and safely in storage for the rest of the winter and through the spring, but it's sadly still marooned ten miles from home. The MOT expired on tuesday, the tax finishes at the end of the month. My "other" car, the infalllible but dull Audi, is back in service after blitzing the MOT despite total abandonment for six months.

However, today there was, at last, progress on the Rover.

I powered my way through the five or so fairly involved warranty claims I had to process and won myself a bit of spare time in the latter part of the afternoon. There wasn't a lot of workshop traffic today so I had a chance to nick a bay and haul the Rover inside for a look-see. It's opportunities like this that remind me that, if I wasn't paid as badly as a child chimney-sweep from Victorian Britain, mine would actually be quite a cushy job,



Note the pool of fluid on the floor. This is of concern.

I had the engine running while my very much esteemed colleague and I manhandled the barge into the bay, so we had some power assistance for steering. I've been aware of a seep from the power steering since I've had it but it needs to be made a priority pretty soon, it's losing fluid almost as quickly as the clutch was.

Having the car up on the lift reminded me just how spoiled you are when you have the chance to work on your car in a proper workshop. I peered up at the slave cylinder, noting that access was going to be a bit challenging, but nowhere near as much of a swine as it would have been trying to get to it with the car up on axle stands.



There it is. SOAKED with clutch fluid and generally a bit fucked. Removal is dead simple, but access is a joke; with a 10mm socket on either of the two mounting bolts you have only about 4cm of actual winding moment available for spannering. Each bolt took about five minutes of ratchetting, three teeth at a time.



The RAVE manual I use (my bible) suggests removing the hydraulic feed from the Slave cylinder before unbolting it from the housing, but that would have been a bastard. I chose to take advantage of the coiled section of the hydraulic line and use it as a flexi-hose, I was able to thread the Slave Cylinder from all the surrounding gubbins with the hydraulic lines still attached. I then unbolted it from the line, capped the pipe with a handy bit of Mercedes that I found on the bench, stuck a rubber glove over it to make doubly sure that no dirt gets into the line, and hey presto.



A swarfega session later and the offending article is bagged up and sitting on my desk. Next step is to strip it down, fundamentally clean it and, depending on a number of factors, either rebuild it using the new bits that Rimmer Bros sent me, or throw it away in a fit of rage and trawl scrapyards for KV6 manuals with slave cylinders that are still intact.

Once it's all back together I'll see what can be done about the PAS issue, then try and mastermind a plan for getting it back home.

[scoobyh123]

Ah-ha! So progress of sorts then - at least you have now confirmed it's the clutch slave cylinder that's FUBAR. Fingers crossed it holds for you until such time as you're able to fix it properly.

Might have to have a look on Rimmers and get some new mats, mine are a bit on the tired side now! Also recently discovered the previous owner used to work in a gravel pit with red diesel and mud - at least those were 3 of the substances i identified as i washed the mat when it got wet due to an oversight on my part recently!

Just read your updated post about the MoT - they're usually pretty good at going through as long as the basics are done but as with everything else, you wont know until you try! Good luck with the test!

[CHR15E]

Certainly been testing you hasn't it?

[Roadwork]

To be fair to the old girl, I blame the fact that it's been pressed back into use after spending two years mouldering away doing 500 miles a year. It's done six thousand in my custody, in 6 months. I can't blame it for throwing a strop every now and then!

[scoobyh123]

Bound to be a few teething troubles then! I often wonder if i did more miles in mine if i'd have more trouble but i've averaged about 3k a year since owning it and not really had anything too serious except the brake master cylinder, mainly because of the state of the fluid!

Should be fine once you find all the bits that want doing and then you'll be able to keep on top of it all.