After lurking on here for a while I thought I had better post up about one of my own cars... Have to say I love the variety and ingenuity here on RR for fixing things instead of just replacing stuff.
Right, so where to start? The story is long so I will try to summarise, with a sprinkling of photos in a vain attempt to keep your attention…
I grew up in a family dominated by Land-Rovers (we have 8 of the things between myself, my Dad and my two younger brothers). My first car was a 1959 88” Series 2, which was my daily drive for quite a few years, here it is as it stands today:
A house purchase then meant that I would be commuting a lot further to work, so that was when I picked up my second car (the series 2 stayed) – a 1984 2.25 powered 90. This also served me well, and the 2.25 although not powerful was extremely reliable and ran incredibly sweetly! This I converted to LPG, and enjoyed virtually free motoring:
Then a hankering for more power saw me acquire and rebuild a 3.5 rv8 to fit. This happened, and life was good. Apart from a gearbox failure and subsequent failures of supposedly reconditioned units, everything more or less just worked. I upgraded it to Megajolt distributor-less ignition, and then finally went full EFI with Megasquirt and all was sweet and right with the world. The soft top had gone at this point and a hardtop was fitted, and some alloys:
Then I changed jobs, and my company then changed offices. This was where I was to meander away from the righteous path of Land-rover ownership and venture down different avenues
The problem was that my company decided to move from somewhere where we had onsite parking, to the centre of Kingston-Upon-Thames where we would be forced to use one of the ploppy local NCP’s. This particular drug-den/homeless shelter/toilet/car-parking structure had a particularly low height restriction – 6’0” exactly. I looked into ways around this problem and even if I ditched the 235/85’s in favour of roller skate wheels the 90 still wouldn’t fit, and so the hunt for something suitable began.
Criteria were pretty basic:
• Not modern
• Easy to work on
• Minimal potential for welding
• Preferably British
I realise that the last two points are more or less mutually exclusive, but hey that’s what I had in mind and I went with it.
Initially looked at MGB’s – I have always had a hankering for one, and figured I could get a rubber bumper and slap an rv8 in it (purely for economies of scale you understand – 3 of the Landies are rv8 powered so we have lots of bits lying about between us). My wife had even hired my one for the day one year as a birthday present, which was great fun!
Then one evening whilst surfing everyone’s favourite auction site and searching for random stuff I discovered the Rover P6. Initial impressions were that it looked good, and seemed to tick a couple of the boxes at least (Not modern, Preferably British) and best of all was that they were dead cheap!
Further googling told me that these cars were very advanced when they were first released, and apart from the funky suspension setup and inboard rear discs were all fairly straightforward to work on. Welding wise, the body panels all unbolt to expose the “base unit” beneath – so any required welding could be strong, without being “bodywork standard” pretty. I bid on a few, missed out on them and then came across a Poo brown one. Said it had been dry stored, but hadn’t been roadworthy for about 10 years. I phoned the guy and arranged to view it the coming Sunday.
Sunday arrived and I stopped at my Mum and Dad’s place on the way up to collect my Dad, thought I’d just phone the guy to let him know I was still coming to which he replied “sorry mate, I’ve sold it already” Mother curse word! He could have least called me to let me know. Anyway, somewhat deflated I went back onto eBay immediately and saw a 3500s in Monza Red over in Whyteleafe. I called the number, expecting to leave a voicemail as instructed by the auction, but I actually got a live person! They said I could come over and see the car now if I was free – so off we went.
When we got there the car had until recently been kept in a garage – for ten years! It looked solid, and when I prodded in all the places that the internet told me to and it seemed sound enough. It didn’t run, although the owners had tried, and the clutch pedal was seized solid. The inlet valley was full of fuel where the carbs had been leaking. The passenger footwell was full of water and the carpets were saturated. The paintwork was also knackered from being under a car cover and microblistering muchos badly. The car had been their dads, and had come off the road when he had passed away.
I struck a deal and arranged to buy it for £750. Transport was arranged (Dad’s 110 and a hired trailer), and my Dad and I dropped over one evening to see if we could get it running before collection day.
I bailed out the passsnger footwell and rolled the carpet back to let the floor dry out slightly. The SU’s on the P6 were swapped for the ones I had recently removed from the engine of my 90. I cleaned and set the points, cleaned up the cap and rotor and we stuck some fresh fuel in. After a lot of cranking, changing the coil for a spare we had and being jumped from the Land-Rover it eventually coughed into life and slowly, slowly all 8 cylinders came in – success!!!! The haze from 10 years’ worth of dust and plop burning off the exhaust manifolds, combined with the smokescreen being fired out the back from the combustion of decade old petrol was quite a sight to see! We called that a successful night, packed up and went home.
Collection day arrived so we went to collect the trailer from the hire place. When we got there they had no trailer – the people who had hired it before us still hadn’t returned it… Some hanging about and it eventually came back. The guys at South west trailer hire (Mitcham) were great and not only gave us the trailer hire for free, they also made up a pucker numberplate for it to match the 110. Nice!
The P6 was nose down on a steep sloped drive, and with the non-functioning clutch we decided to drag it off with the 110.
This complete we then parked the 110 and trailer slightly downhill of the Rover and I coasted down the hill and onto it.
Dad starts strapping it down whilst mum watches:
Once on the trailer I got my first proper look underneath – Koni dampers and a stainless exhaust, bonus!
Next was the phase of getting it back up and roadworthy after so long, which I’ll add when I get a mo...
Until next time!
Right, so where to start? The story is long so I will try to summarise, with a sprinkling of photos in a vain attempt to keep your attention…
I grew up in a family dominated by Land-Rovers (we have 8 of the things between myself, my Dad and my two younger brothers). My first car was a 1959 88” Series 2, which was my daily drive for quite a few years, here it is as it stands today:
A house purchase then meant that I would be commuting a lot further to work, so that was when I picked up my second car (the series 2 stayed) – a 1984 2.25 powered 90. This also served me well, and the 2.25 although not powerful was extremely reliable and ran incredibly sweetly! This I converted to LPG, and enjoyed virtually free motoring:
Then a hankering for more power saw me acquire and rebuild a 3.5 rv8 to fit. This happened, and life was good. Apart from a gearbox failure and subsequent failures of supposedly reconditioned units, everything more or less just worked. I upgraded it to Megajolt distributor-less ignition, and then finally went full EFI with Megasquirt and all was sweet and right with the world. The soft top had gone at this point and a hardtop was fitted, and some alloys:
Then I changed jobs, and my company then changed offices. This was where I was to meander away from the righteous path of Land-rover ownership and venture down different avenues
The problem was that my company decided to move from somewhere where we had onsite parking, to the centre of Kingston-Upon-Thames where we would be forced to use one of the ploppy local NCP’s. This particular drug-den/homeless shelter/toilet/car-parking structure had a particularly low height restriction – 6’0” exactly. I looked into ways around this problem and even if I ditched the 235/85’s in favour of roller skate wheels the 90 still wouldn’t fit, and so the hunt for something suitable began.
Criteria were pretty basic:
• Not modern
• Easy to work on
• Minimal potential for welding
• Preferably British
I realise that the last two points are more or less mutually exclusive, but hey that’s what I had in mind and I went with it.
Initially looked at MGB’s – I have always had a hankering for one, and figured I could get a rubber bumper and slap an rv8 in it (purely for economies of scale you understand – 3 of the Landies are rv8 powered so we have lots of bits lying about between us). My wife had even hired my one for the day one year as a birthday present, which was great fun!
Then one evening whilst surfing everyone’s favourite auction site and searching for random stuff I discovered the Rover P6. Initial impressions were that it looked good, and seemed to tick a couple of the boxes at least (Not modern, Preferably British) and best of all was that they were dead cheap!
Further googling told me that these cars were very advanced when they were first released, and apart from the funky suspension setup and inboard rear discs were all fairly straightforward to work on. Welding wise, the body panels all unbolt to expose the “base unit” beneath – so any required welding could be strong, without being “bodywork standard” pretty. I bid on a few, missed out on them and then came across a Poo brown one. Said it had been dry stored, but hadn’t been roadworthy for about 10 years. I phoned the guy and arranged to view it the coming Sunday.
Sunday arrived and I stopped at my Mum and Dad’s place on the way up to collect my Dad, thought I’d just phone the guy to let him know I was still coming to which he replied “sorry mate, I’ve sold it already” Mother curse word! He could have least called me to let me know. Anyway, somewhat deflated I went back onto eBay immediately and saw a 3500s in Monza Red over in Whyteleafe. I called the number, expecting to leave a voicemail as instructed by the auction, but I actually got a live person! They said I could come over and see the car now if I was free – so off we went.
When we got there the car had until recently been kept in a garage – for ten years! It looked solid, and when I prodded in all the places that the internet told me to and it seemed sound enough. It didn’t run, although the owners had tried, and the clutch pedal was seized solid. The inlet valley was full of fuel where the carbs had been leaking. The passenger footwell was full of water and the carpets were saturated. The paintwork was also knackered from being under a car cover and microblistering muchos badly. The car had been their dads, and had come off the road when he had passed away.
I struck a deal and arranged to buy it for £750. Transport was arranged (Dad’s 110 and a hired trailer), and my Dad and I dropped over one evening to see if we could get it running before collection day.
I bailed out the passsnger footwell and rolled the carpet back to let the floor dry out slightly. The SU’s on the P6 were swapped for the ones I had recently removed from the engine of my 90. I cleaned and set the points, cleaned up the cap and rotor and we stuck some fresh fuel in. After a lot of cranking, changing the coil for a spare we had and being jumped from the Land-Rover it eventually coughed into life and slowly, slowly all 8 cylinders came in – success!!!! The haze from 10 years’ worth of dust and plop burning off the exhaust manifolds, combined with the smokescreen being fired out the back from the combustion of decade old petrol was quite a sight to see! We called that a successful night, packed up and went home.
Collection day arrived so we went to collect the trailer from the hire place. When we got there they had no trailer – the people who had hired it before us still hadn’t returned it… Some hanging about and it eventually came back. The guys at South west trailer hire (Mitcham) were great and not only gave us the trailer hire for free, they also made up a pucker numberplate for it to match the 110. Nice!
The P6 was nose down on a steep sloped drive, and with the non-functioning clutch we decided to drag it off with the 110.
This complete we then parked the 110 and trailer slightly downhill of the Rover and I coasted down the hill and onto it.
Dad starts strapping it down whilst mum watches:
Once on the trailer I got my first proper look underneath – Koni dampers and a stainless exhaust, bonus!
Next was the phase of getting it back up and roadworthy after so long, which I’ll add when I get a mo...
Until next time!
(later to discover the build date was a month before they went on sale in 84!)
