Outlaw Anglia - took it racing & lifted the wheels!

Had a good nights sleep so time to update.

As mentioned, good progress was made yeaterday. I started by assembling the headers on to the engine, gaskets cleaned and some gas tight paste smeared on to ensure no leaks.

Then oil added to engine followed by transmission fluid. Then it was fire up time as you saw in the video, I did not run it long as there was no water in it.

Andy & Kim popped over then to drop off the wheel with the new tyre fitted - its very hairy!!!



I fired it up again for Andy (it's was on open headers at the time) and he had a massive grin on his face He was very happy that it started instantly every time. The video does not do it justice, it sounds as good as my Chevy - not bad for a Rover!

We then messed around with steering wheel positions - we are still looking for a 2" dished steering wheel - does anyone have any ideas where any are available nowadays?

With Andy & kim off home after that I could get on with fitting the complete exhaust system back on, this went fairly smoothly though fitting the centre rubbers back on was a challenge - but some spray oil to lube them saw them slide on with a lot of levering.



Then I started on the water - the neck out of the block had a small weep that another of Andy's friends had tried to fix with some really sticky goo - took ages to remove it all. They had assumed it was the electric fan sender wire causing the leak, but in actual fact there was a big knob on the bottom of the stat housing (I assume to stop the hose going on too far) but it was quite near the end (about 20mm) so after a lot of filing in a tight space it is now gone and the hose can slip on properly. The hose clamp was sitting on the knob before so leaving a small gap either side.

There was one hose (bottom hose) that was a very loose fit on the water pump (the hoses were 44mm for the rad & couplers but the water pump is approx 38-40mm) so I used an old trick of slipping a couple of sections of bike inner tube over the water pump outlet which makes it thicker, and then sliding the hose over those. It was now a nice fit and all were clamped up tight.

Coolant was added and it could now be fired up to get to operating temp. This all went well and no leaks were found anywhere. The lifters were a bit chattery for a while but once it started to get hot they fell silent - probably took a while for them to pump up fully after sitting dry for a couple of months.

Ran the gearbox through the gears and checked trans fluid levels, once it was brought up to the correct levels it all worked properly, and no leaks anywhere on that either.

One big problem is the Smiths oil pressure guage, it was all new from car sos but it wont work? If I ground the sender the guage works ok, but connect it to the sender and nothing? Senders are about £60 so I'm loath to just change it as its new - is there any way of testing them?

With that all sorted I got around to trimming the window rubbers ready for glass fitting,





After that I spent some time removing the glue & roof lining where the trimmers had wrapped it around the bodywork to the outside flange it should only bond onto the inside of the bodywork. This did remove some paint in places, so this was all touched in with basecoat and clear so it will be dry enough to fit the windows tomorrow (today).

Then the car was stripped out prior to the (almost) last bit of welding - fitting the seatbelt mount points at the top of the B posts. These have been prepped and Phil (grey pop) will help me with this later today as plenty of shielding will be required to not burn any of the headliner or carpets.





The final but of welding will be making the new mounts at the bottom of the B posts - but this may have to wait till after the NSRA Supernats in 2 weeks as I don't think I'll have time to do those before - it's now a race to get it drivable for Andy to take it there - it will be unfinished but at least he can enjoy it properly.

Its the old style needle (analogue) guage with the single wire sender.
It does have a load of ptfe tape on the threads, but I ran an earth wire from the sender body to chassis and no change?

I tried my multimeter on it and there is no ohm output that I can measure.

Is it possible they (car sos) can damage it somehow - I cant understand how a new sender/guage would not work?

Had a look at my info and there's 2 types 1 uses a resistive sender and the other a bimetallic sender both are not interchangable and matched to the guage. Any part numbers on the gauge & sender ? I'm wondering if they have the correct sender for the gauge? You'd expect that to be correct if they were bought as a set ?
Running a ground wire to the body should have eliminated any possible insulation problems from tape etc.

Hmmmm...it is looking like a new sender then, expensive little buggers 😞

You could always swap out the whole lot for a capillary gauge…

That's a good call andrew, I was going to ask them why a sender would not work when new anyway.

Ps, anyone know where I can buy more of these? They are the lock on covers for 6.4mm female spade connectors.

Running out of my stock and having trouble finding them.

Any use ? Linky

I have got this here that you’re welcome to if you want it.

New and unopened. Capillary type, so no sender issues.