My first Vitesse

[Lord Sterling]

Great to see that you've taken on this car Tim! The wiper linkage problem reminds me of the one I had on the G-reg Sterling, Brad helped me stick a new linkage on (in the rain) the car itself almost promptly awarded this effort by detonating its own engine.

You gotta love these Rovers for all thier attempts at suicide

[whitelion58]

Spotted at Lopington Village Fete this afternoon..

A classic English beauty with a lovely pair of wipers.

[whitelion58]

When we used the Vittesse the other weekend there was a strong smell of burning brake pads and the offside front wheel got pretty hot. I thought/hoped it was just burning off rust from the discs and would soon free off. It seemed okay later in the afternoon and the car was not pulling to the side at all.

Anyway, I decided to use it for the commute to work this morning but after 5 fast-ish miles the smell was back so I pulled over and checked. Smoke was pouring from the offside front wheel and it was too hot to touch! Hhmm - not good. Let it cool down for a bit, phoned in to book the day off and headed home.

I had also noticed the ominous clunk front the front end, so jacked it up and had a good look. As expected nearside lower ball joint completely foobarred. Other side not great with disintegrating boot and same for both upper wishbones. On the upside both CV joints and TR ends look recent.

So, by 7:30 ( I start work early), it looked like this:



I decided to swap the struts/springs for a low mileage set I had in the shed and ditto the upper wishbones. New QH lower ball joints went in both sides.



A few notes on changing the ball joints - since it is a pretty common service job.. I have done loads of them now and the method I find quickest is to use an angle grinder to cut the stud off (after it is off the car of course) - then you can get a lump hammer in and easily batter the old joint out. To get the new one in I have tried using a vice and large sockets as spacers, but never had much success. The method I use is to liberally oil the surfaces , then use the remains of the old joint as a drift to hammer the new one in, whilst resting the assembly across open vice jaws, like this:



it is suprising just how hard you need to wallop the thing with a brick hammer to get it in.. My circlip pliers have never quite managed to get the new clips supplied into the groove, and always end up recycling the old ones, which works fine.

Anyway, got both sides sorted and investigated the brakes. Pretty well caked up and not much moving. The sliders would barely budge - just old grease.
Once I got them out they were in really good shape. Unlike any I have seen before they have a small rubber section in the middle of the pin which gives a really snug fit in the bore. Got them all moving reasonably easy. Cleaned up the mounts for the pads and put it all together.

Total work time was four hours and a quick spin up the lane shows no more noises from the front end and a cool front wheel.

Need to brace myself for attacking the rear brakes sometime to sort out the ABS light before MOT time. Ho hum..

Tim

[whitelion58]

We set out in this to visit a local farmers market this lovely sunny morning, but first it wanted to pose for a re-creation of this shot of the red 827 taken a few years ago:




and another one..



Anyway, a pleasant morning was spent and later on I moved the car half a mile to collect some shopping, jumped back in - and total refusal to start.
Just churned away on the starter motor, but not a hint of ignition. This car is one of the best starting 827's ever, it barely turns over before it fires, normally.

Of course today is roasting hot - so very probably this is a dry joint in the PGMFI relay.. Only one thing to do, retire to a local hostelry for refreshment and return in half an hour to try again. As hoped, an instant start this time.

So, once back it was time to change the relay. If you don't know it is tucked up by the steering column. Move the seat back, remove the fuse box lid, lay with your head between the pedals and look vertically up and there it is. It is the brown thing on the right:



The black/grey thing is the alarm ecu on the inner wing.

It is attached to a bracket via a cross-head screw that you can feel by finger tip, but not see. A bit of fiddling around and it comes out without too much bother.
Once on the bench, prise out the base plate from its cover:




..and resolder all those joints - 10 minutes work.

Finally refit by cable tying to a convenient hole in some bracketry, dont bother with that silly screw






Of course I will not know for sure that was the problem, unless it never happens again I suppose. Not likely to get many more days this hot though.
Anyway the old unit now also resoldered and joins the spare igniter in the glove box.

Tim

[Lord Sterling]

I like this shot Tim:



It does look like, or could even be an official brochure shot.

Rover did a fair few shots like this at the Black Country museum sometime in the late 80s. It features in one of thier booklets.

I like the keyring too, I've got a similar one but in Silver.

[threelitre]

Regarding the relay: I found it easier not to bother with the screw (did this once and will never try again) - I just unclip the relay from the cover in the car, leaving the cover (and screw!) alone. This way swapping the internals for already soldered ones is a thing of less than 5 minutes.

Regards,

Alexander

[whitelion58]

The offside rear door handle broke on this a few weeks ago, in the way that they do... Unfortunately working exterior door handles are now an MOT item, so it had to be fixed.

This morning I dug out a spare handle in gold, cleaned it up and painted it the correct shade of silver - and it looks pretty good.

I have changed a rear handle before many years back so was not looking forward to the task, and it did not disappoint!

The process is pretty straightforward, with the manual helpfully saying "remove three fasteners and move the the latch out of the way for access". All fine in theory I suppose. The problem is the rear bolt that fastens the handle to the door. The front one is fully accessible, but the rear can barely even be seen. With the latch fasteners removed there is a little movement in it, but not QUITE enough to get a direct line of sight on the bolt head. Even with everything strained to the max you can only just see it, and they the realisation hits that the gap you can sight it through is too small for your smallest 1/4" drive socket or even a box spanner. After a deeply frustrating hour losing the skin on my knuckles I eventually took a lateral approach and found a suitable cross-head screw that could be stuck to the end of a screwdriver with a dab of grease and, after a few breath-holding attempts, I eventually got it to bite and the job was done. The rest of the reassembly was a doddle by comparison, and I do at least have a functioning door handle in the right colour again.

Cheers
Tim

[Richard Moss]

Damned fiddly, aren't they?

[whitelion58]

Another 13 month MOT sailed through, so that is the full set for the summer.



Tim

[Richard Moss]

[SJG]

Another 13 month MOT sailed through, so that is the full set for the summer.



Tim

Well done Tim

[Very Tall Brad]

I always had faith in this car (and you, Tim).

[whitelion58]

No interest from anyone in buying this car, which is pretty much as expected.

Anyway, had another look at the front offside wheel again this morning - seized solid again so something had to be done. First step was to check the slider pins, which felt very stiff. I found another set without the odd rubber section and swapped them in so all was moving freely. Pads nice and loose in the carrier. Applied the brake - and they jammed on tight again.

Obviously the caliper piston must be reluctant to retract, so I tried a few cycles of pushing it back and easing it out again with the brake pedal. It was not getting any freeer though, unfortunately. So, time to rummage in the parts bin and found the recently overhauled set from my old K plate saloon, so just went ahead and swapped in the whole assemblies - caliper, carriers (also 285mm) and pads. A quick bleed to clear the minimal amount of trapped air and all is well again in the braking department.

.. and here is a random pic of the two fastabacks..



Tim

[whitelion58]

Well, with some regret, I waved goodbye to this lovely car this afternoon. A new forum member made the trek from "down south" to view the car and decided it was right for him.

I shall miss driving it, and tinkering with it - but I know it makes sense to cut down a little on the fleet, for a while.

I really hope he posts news on the car now and then and that it continues to thrive in his capable hands.

Cheers
Tim