Rover 800

[whitelion58]

Just musing on the issue of rusting body panels...

It seems that this is increasingly becoming an issue - hardly surprising considering the age of most of our cars. It is probable that anyone with serious intentions of holding onto their 800's for a while will need to think about wheel arch and sill repairs pretty soon. Unfortunately there is next to nothing on the market.

www.beeversautopanels.co.uk do list skin sills for the Mk1 for about £22 but not the Mk2, which seems odd. Just how different are they??

For wheel arches there seems to be 3 possible routes.

1) Cut up a perfect front wing to let the arch into the rear wing. Seems a waste of a rare panel, but should be achievable.

2) Hand craft from scratch. Again, it can be done, but its going to take a while.

3) Look for an available panel that could be persuaded to fit with some level of rework . I do wonder just how similar the Montego arch is, in cross section and radius? Beever list them for about £30. It may be a good starting point?

I know there are some folks here with both cars, so can they take a good close look and let us know if it looks even feasible?

Any other ideas?

Tim
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'90 827 SLi Fastback
'92 Sterling Saloon
'94 Sterling Saloon
'94 Sterling Coupe
+ others.

If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

[BlueRover]

I think the Mk1 and Mk2 sills would be pretty similar if not almost the same (since the doors on both cars are of the same ilk. As for wings, anyone half decent with fibreglass could make a mould and produce lightweight replacements. Since they're not structural, lightweigh grp mouldings would do surely. I suppose it's down to cost really.
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Gordon:-
Only two 800's now,white 1991 820i with TWR and full special order leather (been stood for 9 years) and now a Nightfire red Tickford with 117k on the clock

[CHR15E]

My MK1 Sterling has now had new sills. Got them from ebay though so not sure on the original supplier. Fitted fine.

As Gordon says can't see why they'd be different on a MK2.

I think for rears it'll most likely be a case of removing a good quarter/arch from a newer car and using that.

Coupes will obviously be trickier due to quantities.

I've heard talk of using Montego arches before. Story is you'll need two Montego ones per 800 arch.

I've been lucky in the past in picking some bargains up.

I have a pair of MK1 fastback rear quarters as well as a passenger inner quarter and a pair of front inner wings.

This is the best pic I have. Cost me less than £100 for the lot. Whether I'll ever use them is another matter.


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Chris

91 827 Si Manual + matching trailer
90 827 Sterling Project
94 Espace 2.1 DT
94 Espace 2.1 DT Spares car

[Very Tall Brad]

As regards rear wheel arch repairs, the way to do this is to use a section cut from the diagonally oppposite front wing wheel arch.

Think about it.

Montego arches are too broad and probably wouldn't look right.
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87 E 825 Sterling
88 E 827 SLi
88 F USA Stlg 827S LHD
88 F Sterling
89 G Sterling
90 G Sterling
90 G Vitesse Manual
91 H Vitesse
91 J Sterling
92 J Red Coupe
92 K Red Coupe
92 K Gold Coupe
93 K Gold Coupe
93 L Gold Coupe

[CHR15E]

Are they really that similar though?

Also the issue of what state the inner would be in if the outer was so bad it needed replacing.
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Chris

91 827 Si Manual + matching trailer
90 827 Sterling Project
94 Espace 2.1 DT
94 Espace 2.1 DT Spares car

[The Professor]

[Very Tall Brad]

[whitelion58]

Looking at that pic I can see the Montego is a much more pronounced arch - a closer match for the Coupe?

Naturally the inner wing flange will need rebuilding but is substantially easier and cosmetics are much less important too.

Its actually the Coupe I am most concerned about - its going to need work on the rear arches at some point in the not too distant future. Its a shame that when Joe had it repaired and painted after the big scrape it took to the side, that they just pushed bog into the rust and torn metal and painted over. A lovely paint finish ruined by a poor underlying repair.

If I am lucky the damage may be repairable without chopping out the whole arch. I have done plenty of patch welding in my time..
Tim
_________________
'90 827 SLi Fastback
'92 Sterling Saloon
'94 Sterling Saloon
'94 Sterling Coupe
+ others.

If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

[CHR15E]

TBH I was surprised he had it repaired. Cost about £600 I think.

He didn't have any input to the work though, had it done at a garage he'd used before. Sounds like they should be avoided.
_________________
Chris

91 827 Si Manual + matching trailer
90 827 Sterling Project
94 Espace 2.1 DT
94 Espace 2.1 DT Spares car

[The Professor]

Pictures to compare. Any help?






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Glyn

[rickt500]

I have to say I've repaired the rear arches on my '89 820e and although they looked really bad before the repair, the rot was basically surface, with no seam seperation, a good clean up with a wire wheel on the grinder, etch primer and a skim of filler and it's taken about 5 years of daily abuse for the rust to show through again. I'll be doing the same again this summer.

My advice would be to attack them as early as possible before the rust can really take hold, and make sure you get plenty of waxoil / dinitrol into the arch from inside the boot.

Problem with using front wings is that they rot much quicker than rear arches, you don't see many that haven't got frilly edges, so getting a couple to cut up might be tricky.

It's interesting, but slightly sad that the 800 is very badly catered for in this respect, I've noticed that the supply of the sill panels has started to dry up too, the supplier I got mine from no longer does them, and I've never seen patern wings available.
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Richard T

1989 820e T16 Conversion
1994 820si
1972 Rover 2000 project
1997 216 Cabriolet

[CHR15E]

Pattern wings do/did exist.

The wings I have all came from ebay. I have 3 sets of new MK1 wings in the garage. But you're not having those to cut up.

I might start stocking up on sills if there's not many around. Only needed the one set so far for the Sterling and they were off ebay as well. £30 posted I think?
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Chris

91 827 Si Manual + matching trailer
90 827 Sterling Project
94 Espace 2.1 DT
94 Espace 2.1 DT Spares car

[rickt500]

I've just bought a new passenger side rear door on ebay (mk1), £10+postage, think they had a couple more if you need any.

I've got a few scabs on the door bottoms on that side plus the current door has always had a couple of ripples in it, so rather than strip and repair the current door, I figured it would be easier to start with a new one.
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Richard T

1989 820e T16 Conversion
1994 820si
1972 Rover 2000 project
1997 216 Cabriolet

[CHR15E]

Where's that from BCP?

I did toy with buying a bulk lot up but the split of front and rears wasn't even. A few others were interested but they had 18 front and 5 rear or something like that.

Wouldn't have worked out. I have one set of new doors. Had them about 5 years. Never even opened them, so I hope they're ok.
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Chris

91 827 Si Manual + matching trailer
90 827 Sterling Project
94 Espace 2.1 DT
94 Espace 2.1 DT Spares car

[rickt500]

Yeah bcp, just stumbled across them after looking at that T series bottom end. Just so happens that's the door I wanted, so perfect.

I do have a couple of used mk1 doors in the garage roof, and a full set of mk2 doors and wings in the container at work "just in case"
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Richard T

1989 820e T16 Conversion
1994 820si
1972 Rover 2000 project
1997 216 Cabriolet