1985 Rover 3500 Vitesse
Discussion
Fuel consumption seems pretty good! We’ve had a couple of Rover V8s with slush boxes and they were generally awful - thirsty and slow. Having a five speed manual transforms them, but not done any calculations for economy in the current P5B (carbs so probably thirstier for that).
I’m sure I did know the P6 had inboard disks but it had totally gone from my mind! As you say, no point with the BBSs.
It looks incredible. Definitely prefer it on the gold now, hope they come back soon!
I’m sure I did know the P6 had inboard disks but it had totally gone from my mind! As you say, no point with the BBSs.
It looks incredible. Definitely prefer it on the gold now, hope they come back soon!
B'stard Child said:
I’m hugely biased I know but RR events have a really good vibe and Goodwood is such a good venue
They really do. I think my favourite event of the year.MTW said:
So glad to find this thread, I saw your car at Bicester and loved it. Looks absolutely spot on with the BBS, such a cool looking car.
Thankyou, now going back to the standard wheels makes me realise how much I love the BBS's. bangerhoarder said:
Fuel consumption seems pretty good! We’ve had a couple of Rover V8s with slush boxes and they were generally awful - thirsty and slow. Having a five speed manual transforms them, but not done any calculations for economy in the current P5B (carbs so probably thirstier for that).
I’m sure I did know the P6 had inboard disks but it had totally gone from my mind! As you say, no point with the BBSs.
It looks incredible. Definitely prefer it on the gold now, hope they come back soon!
Cheers, yeah it's really pretty good considering. I'm the same, I don't think I realised how much i loved the BBS's until I put the standard wheels back on. I’m sure I did know the P6 had inboard disks but it had totally gone from my mind! As you say, no point with the BBSs.
It looks incredible. Definitely prefer it on the gold now, hope they come back soon!
So continuing with the improvements I'm coming back to a previous improvement I'm not happy with.
I'd previously replaced all the rotten fuel line brackets with some snazzy aluminum ones. I thought perfect, but because of the design pushes the fuel lines too far apart, and the bottom one below the chassis rail.
Which means last year I almost ripped one off entering an underground car park, and this year leaving my driveway!
That scuff mark does not make me happy.
I'd been looking for an alternative for a while, which wasn't so easy with the specific space constraints and I wanted them to hold both 8mm fuel lines, and 13mm rubber hoses. But I came across these plastic clips from a range rover. Which with a little modification should work nicely.
That brings the lines into exactly the same position as original, and above the chassis line, so much more protected now.
Does look really odd back on the original wheels.
But does break them loose easier!
So my diagnosis of why it had been hunting and generally randomly driving like crap was incorrect.
The drive down to Motofest was hateful!
I pulled into our meeting point with my idle going from 12:1 to 20:1 AFR.
Luckily it's only 35mins away.
But for that day it just needed to look pretty.
It was a good weekend, but christ are the general public disrespectful.
Don't get me wrong I had some lovely people asking about the car, but over the weekend I watched a man and his son walk up to a Lotus, try the door, and then try to get in! ( It was 100% not his car), a kid pulled the wing mirror off a stag, and another kid broke the door handle of a Micra trying it to get in.
Shame as the backdrop is brilliant. My car came off unscathed, just a lot of handprints over the sides and windows.
(yes I know the stickers look silly on the original wheels)
It also decided it wanted to run brilliantly from the saturday afternoon, and the whole of the sunday!
So searching back through my memory, This isn't the first time I've had this weird hunting, and last time it was cured by swapped in the ECU from my other Vitesse. But I suspect that's now developed the same fault. They are known for their solder drying out and cracking giving intermittent rough running.
I've already got it booked in with ATC for an ecu and AFM rebuild just to really belt and braces it. But in the mean time I knew I'd bought a spare ECU.
This one was supposedly rebuilt. Abet quite a while ago...
But in she goes, and I've got a lovely stable AFR reading again.
Just in time for Players Classic!
Joe
Bobupndown said:
It looks so much better on those standard wheels.
They're so narrow and weedy though! Strangely Brown said:
Personally, I would lose the Bilstein sticker on the wing too.
5 In a Row said:
Could the bad running be caused by having an inappropriate cat fitted?
Very good 
So Players Classic Weekend.
I'd been invited to join the guys at Voodoo to display, and Amelia had been brilliant in organising a house for all of us. I thought I'd be clever this year and like Retro Rides travel down on the Friday.
I'd also been liaising with Elie as my centres were taking longer than expected, so we agreed rather than rush it he'd put them back together for the weekend, I'd drive down on the stock wheels and we'd put them on for the show, then he'd take them back with them to redo.
I set off picking a friend up on route around 2pm on the Friday, and had just come off the M40 as there'd been a crash. We were driving down the A43 coming up to the M40 junction in traffic ready to cut cross country to the A34 when the Vitesse just died. I was sat in barely moving traffic in the outside lane of a dual carriageway in a car that would crank but not start.
I knew it wasn't overheating, and would crank easily, but wouldn't kick over. I tried to bump start it with my friend pushing but no luck...
A Good Samaritan / saviour a few cars back shouted and asked if we needed some help, he pulled diagonally across the two lanes allowing us to push it over to the left lane, and then pulled in-front and pulled out a tow rope!
He then attached it to the back of his E46 and pulled us into the services a few 100m away.
If he ever reads this I'm very grateful and owe you a drink!
I went through the usual checks and couldn't find any loose wires or obvious reason why the bugger wouldn't start.
Fuel pump would kick on with the AFM movement and fuel pressure was good.
I pulled the LT from the coil, and could get a spark there. But nothing from any of the HT wires.
At this point my good Samaritan gave us a final good luck and had to leave.
The ignition system is pretty simple and runs separate to the fuel injection so I kept digging.
I had a spare rotor arm and distributor cap, so swapped them just for the hell of it with no change.
A known point of weakness on the Lucas DLM8 distributors is the ignition amplifier mounted on the side of the distributor body. I'd had one die really early when I used to just start it in the garage. I thought I had a spare, but couldn't find it.
A couple also parked near us in an E36 also on their way to players and offered us tools.
At this point I'd narrowed down the fault but was lacking parts. I still believed I could salvage the weekend and didn't want to admit defeat and call recovery. So a call to my ever loving girlfriend was made and she agreed to drive down a spare distributor I'd bought on a whim a few weeks ago with a ignition amplifier on it!
She wasn't even home, and we nearly 80 miles from there too!
I paid the extra services parking so I didn't get stiffed, and went and got some food.
She arrived a few hours later and I installed the new ignition amplifier.
She stood with my friend and waited to hear a running engine...
We were all disappointed, still just cranking.
My Girlfriend had also brought my multimeter with her, so I checked all the other obvious things, relays, fuses etc and everything checked out.
I had also asked her to bring the ECU I'd just swapped out just incase, so at this point I plugged that in, but still no starting.
I had power to the module, spark to the LT, but nothing coming out of the distributor, so it must be the distributor right??
I'm so glad I asked her to bring the entire spare. I re-installed the amp, connected it to power, connecting the LT, chucked an HT wire on it, and turned the gear at the bottom. I've never been so happy to be shocked.
But looking at it, yes I hadn't even unboxed it before, it wasn't the right type. Bloody vacuum advance is in the wrong place.
But I had to make it work.
Bumped the car to TDC, and struggled to get the clamp bolt out. ( it's a sh*t to remove without the right offset spanner because of the aircon pump bracket)
But out it came.
Managed to find a position to get the new one in, and with a little timing tweaking...
(click for video as I can't embed..)
My girlfriend had stuck around incase we needed to use her car to procure any further spares, (she didn't know this) but soon got close to the 2 hour limit, so she headed off.
We'd been at the services for almost 6 hours. So we were very happy to pack the car away and get back on the road. I'd eyeballed the timing so it wasn't running great, but it was running!
We'd been at the services so long that the A43 had closed for the night, so we had to cut all the way down the M40 and around the M25.
I stopped for petrol in Liphook on the A3 gave everything an eyeball and cracked on. It had also cracked over 150k miles on the drive down!
We finally arrived at 12:09 Saturday morning.
Can't say it wasn't an eventful drive down!
Joe
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