Project Shed-Rover 100
Discussion
After deciding that neither my Elise or ZT were candidates for winter usage, this left my 125cc scooter as my sole means of transport for the next few months. A by product of winter on two wheels is bound to be cold hands, a wet body and an increased risk of ending up on my arse, so it was a fairly easy decision to look for a shed to serve as warm, safe transport whilst the clocks have reversed.
The requirements of said shed were low running costs, small size (as a result of my current fleet, space is limited), comfort and a bit of entertainment if possible. Maximum purchase price including insuring it as a third car was a grand.
I started out looking at uncool stuff, figuring I'd get more for my money than if I went for the typical Focus, Fiesta, Astra etc, etc. I looked at a Fiat Seicento Sporting, which was a complete and utter dog, several Ford Ka's, considered a Vauxhall Agila (before having a strong word with myself) and looked at a Perodua Kelisa. All of which were either rough, tired, battered, poorly repaired or in need of serious surgery to make a viable car.
So, I decided to look at even uncooler, but at least known to me stuff, and bought a Rover
May I present my granny owned, 38,000 mile, mint Rover 111 Knightsbridge, complete with rust free arches, unblemished underbody, crushed velour upholstery, a period tape deck and a slight smell that can only be described as "old". Frustratingly, I've not had any petrol station comments in three years of Elise ownership, four months of ZT V8 ownership but on the third fill up of the Metro (I can't be doing with Rover's mouthful of a naming rehash-from hereon in the car is known by its twenty year old origins) today I got a comment of "Nice car mate, you don't see many of those around now". Sigh.
Ah yes, filling up. It's a frequent task, not because the car is uneconomical, but merely thanks to Rover fitting it with what can only be described as a petrol bottle. £24 at today's prices brims the tank from the (imaginary) fuel light. Good job my ZT's appetite for the stinky stuff makes feeding the Metro almost pleasurable.
The list of jobs completed on the Metro is quite lengthly already, some out of necessity, some out of preservation, some out of a desire to make it a little more liveable. To its credit, on Saturday evening it cracked out a 200 mile round trip happily enough, cruising at the national limit on the M3 merrily, with only the cassette deck a source of frustration. A DAB unit with aerial was duly fitted this morning...
So, to the work done;
-Full service including cambelt (hilariously-the belt change took me just over 30 minutes! ), new distributor cap/rotor arm (my friend born in 1992 had absolutely no clue what these were!), ignition leads and a coolant flush and change.
-Hydragas pump up-the poor thing was doing an impression of the b
d love child of the Titanic and a bouncy castle beforehand. Serenity and ride comfort restored with £30 of Hydragas fluid (akin to asking for myrrh in the motor factors) and half an hour with a borrowed pump.
-A machine polish. Nightfire Red comes up quite well when attacked with some decent gear.
-Eviction of the spider family from the OSF brake caliper, plus a brake system service, grease up, clean and fluid change-this has fortunately restored the brakes from "OH SHIIIIIIT" to merely "Oh bugger" operation.
-Four new tyres (£114 fitted for the set thanks to my previous workplace-I paid that for one for the ZT...) to replace the cracked, old, understeer/oversteer/whoaaaa moment inducing examples on the car. One of which had a date code from 1995...
-DAB head unit fitment. Listening to the Archers optional.
-Pistonheads sticker fitment-I think I've found the perfect match for the car...
It'll also be getting a pro rustproofing session from Rustmaster in Hatfield next week-given that Metros have a nasty habit of embarking on their own ferrous weight loss program, this one I feel is good enough to preserve. It's nice that it's not concours enough to tuck away (I've already got two cars that fit that bill...) but rather to use, keep nice and have a bit of fun with. It drives surprisingly well-the steering has feel modern city cars can only dream of, grip is decent for 155 section tyres, the ride is reasonable, the seats have that squishy comfort only the 80's or 90's understood and performance is, well, okay. MPG a respectable 44, up from 37 prior the service.
Part of me secretly hopes the engine goes pop so I'm forced to fit a 1.8 VVC...
Thanks for reading; comments, questions of sanity or indeed encouragement dressed as pisstaking welcomed.
The requirements of said shed were low running costs, small size (as a result of my current fleet, space is limited), comfort and a bit of entertainment if possible. Maximum purchase price including insuring it as a third car was a grand.
I started out looking at uncool stuff, figuring I'd get more for my money than if I went for the typical Focus, Fiesta, Astra etc, etc. I looked at a Fiat Seicento Sporting, which was a complete and utter dog, several Ford Ka's, considered a Vauxhall Agila (before having a strong word with myself) and looked at a Perodua Kelisa. All of which were either rough, tired, battered, poorly repaired or in need of serious surgery to make a viable car.
So, I decided to look at even uncooler, but at least known to me stuff, and bought a Rover
May I present my granny owned, 38,000 mile, mint Rover 111 Knightsbridge, complete with rust free arches, unblemished underbody, crushed velour upholstery, a period tape deck and a slight smell that can only be described as "old". Frustratingly, I've not had any petrol station comments in three years of Elise ownership, four months of ZT V8 ownership but on the third fill up of the Metro (I can't be doing with Rover's mouthful of a naming rehash-from hereon in the car is known by its twenty year old origins) today I got a comment of "Nice car mate, you don't see many of those around now". Sigh.
Ah yes, filling up. It's a frequent task, not because the car is uneconomical, but merely thanks to Rover fitting it with what can only be described as a petrol bottle. £24 at today's prices brims the tank from the (imaginary) fuel light. Good job my ZT's appetite for the stinky stuff makes feeding the Metro almost pleasurable.
The list of jobs completed on the Metro is quite lengthly already, some out of necessity, some out of preservation, some out of a desire to make it a little more liveable. To its credit, on Saturday evening it cracked out a 200 mile round trip happily enough, cruising at the national limit on the M3 merrily, with only the cassette deck a source of frustration. A DAB unit with aerial was duly fitted this morning...
So, to the work done;
-Full service including cambelt (hilariously-the belt change took me just over 30 minutes!
), new distributor cap/rotor arm (my friend born in 1992 had absolutely no clue what these were!), ignition leads and a coolant flush and change.-Hydragas pump up-the poor thing was doing an impression of the b
d love child of the Titanic and a bouncy castle beforehand. Serenity and ride comfort restored with £30 of Hydragas fluid (akin to asking for myrrh in the motor factors) and half an hour with a borrowed pump.-A machine polish. Nightfire Red comes up quite well when attacked with some decent gear.
-Eviction of the spider family from the OSF brake caliper, plus a brake system service, grease up, clean and fluid change-this has fortunately restored the brakes from "OH SHIIIIIIT" to merely "Oh bugger" operation.
-Four new tyres (£114 fitted for the set thanks to my previous workplace-I paid that for one for the ZT...) to replace the cracked, old, understeer/oversteer/whoaaaa moment inducing examples on the car. One of which had a date code from 1995...
-DAB head unit fitment. Listening to the Archers optional.
-Pistonheads sticker fitment-I think I've found the perfect match for the car...
It'll also be getting a pro rustproofing session from Rustmaster in Hatfield next week-given that Metros have a nasty habit of embarking on their own ferrous weight loss program, this one I feel is good enough to preserve. It's nice that it's not concours enough to tuck away (I've already got two cars that fit that bill...) but rather to use, keep nice and have a bit of fun with. It drives surprisingly well-the steering has feel modern city cars can only dream of, grip is decent for 155 section tyres, the ride is reasonable, the seats have that squishy comfort only the 80's or 90's understood and performance is, well, okay. MPG a respectable 44, up from 37 prior the service.
Part of me secretly hopes the engine goes pop so I'm forced to fit a 1.8 VVC...
Thanks for reading; comments, questions of sanity or indeed encouragement dressed as pisstaking welcomed.
My friend Dudley at TalonSportsCars specialises in dropping the 1.8 VVC K-series in these, and doing the suspension mods too. His old blue granny spec demonstrator would have put my Clio 172 through its paces thats for sure... We used to take a slightly more modified VVC metro with Quaife LSD to Zolder in Belgium, it would harass some serious cool cars, and would lap just as quick as a decent Elise. Even quicker with its slicks on...
Something about them appeals, no idea what but I mainly prefer the older Metro in MG flavour.
I remember picking up a Rover 111GSi as a courtesy car from the body shop and had a 60 miles drive home on NSL A roads mostly. I had yet to see 70mph but knew a long straight with a slight dip was coming up soon so gave myself some space in front ready to use every last drop of momentum and see what I could get out of it. I think I hit an indicated 75mph or thereabouts and an unmarked police car pulled out from a side road and put the blues on. Part me thought "oh balls!" but mostly I was pretty chuffed to be getting a speeding ticket in something this slow. The buggers went straight past me and stopped a truck a couple of miles down the road, they didn't even hesitate so I'm guessing the speedo wasn't 100% accurate to say the least.
I'll always have a soft spot for them after that, it was even the same colour as yours! Looks like a perfect little winter car.
I remember picking up a Rover 111GSi as a courtesy car from the body shop and had a 60 miles drive home on NSL A roads mostly. I had yet to see 70mph but knew a long straight with a slight dip was coming up soon so gave myself some space in front ready to use every last drop of momentum and see what I could get out of it. I think I hit an indicated 75mph or thereabouts and an unmarked police car pulled out from a side road and put the blues on. Part me thought "oh balls!" but mostly I was pretty chuffed to be getting a speeding ticket in something this slow. The buggers went straight past me and stopped a truck a couple of miles down the road, they didn't even hesitate so I'm guessing the speedo wasn't 100% accurate to say the least.
I'll always have a soft spot for them after that, it was even the same colour as yours! Looks like a perfect little winter car.
Looks like a lovely metro, you definitely need to drop in a bigger lump but being Spi, you have a bit more of a shopping list due to the fuel pump, engine pipes etc are not quite right for a mpi engine like a VVC but I converted mine from Spi so its doable and not too bad.
Need to update my thread after reading this, been busy doing work on it all weekend.
This is mine next to my old ZT260 #881
Need to update my thread after reading this, been busy doing work on it all weekend.
This is mine next to my old ZT260 #881
One of the very last V8's you have there. Nice!
I was looking around the engine bay when I was working on it-I guessed as much the fuel supply pipes would need changing, as well as the pump. I'd keep the standard R65 box but get hold of a R25 1.6 one as I prefer the ratios on it. Anything else I'd need apart from the obvious stuff? Is it all bolt on?
The only other thing that would concern me is the brakes-what would fit under 13" wheels that are actually decent? The standard brakes are rubbish even with 60bhp to cope with, so goodness knows how big the accident would be asking them to deal with 160bhp+!!
I was looking around the engine bay when I was working on it-I guessed as much the fuel supply pipes would need changing, as well as the pump. I'd keep the standard R65 box but get hold of a R25 1.6 one as I prefer the ratios on it. Anything else I'd need apart from the obvious stuff? Is it all bolt on?
The only other thing that would concern me is the brakes-what would fit under 13" wheels that are actually decent? The standard brakes are rubbish even with 60bhp to cope with, so goodness knows how big the accident would be asking them to deal with 160bhp+!!
itcaptainslow said:
One of the very last V8's you have there. Nice!
I was looking around the engine bay when I was working on it-I guessed as much the fuel supply pipes would need changing, as well as the pump. I'd keep the standard R65 box but get hold of a R25 1.6 one as I prefer the ratios on it. Anything else I'd need apart from the obvious stuff? Is it all bolt on?
The only other thing that would concern me is the brakes-what would fit under 13" wheels that are actually decent? The standard brakes are rubbish even with 60bhp to cope with, so goodness knows how big the accident would be asking them to deal with 160bhp+!!
I sold the ZT earlier this year I was looking around the engine bay when I was working on it-I guessed as much the fuel supply pipes would need changing, as well as the pump. I'd keep the standard R65 box but get hold of a R25 1.6 one as I prefer the ratios on it. Anything else I'd need apart from the obvious stuff? Is it all bolt on?
The only other thing that would concern me is the brakes-what would fit under 13" wheels that are actually decent? The standard brakes are rubbish even with 60bhp to cope with, so goodness knows how big the accident would be asking them to deal with 160bhp+!!
From what I remember, you need:
Fuel pump - MPi metro and easy to change
Fuel pipes - Same again, MPi metro
Coolant hoses - Depends on your budget, I got samcos as I got sick of rubber pipes splitting
4pole flywheel - MPi metro or any R65 box'd car
Brakes, the best upgrade is MGF vented which bolt straight on and are available with some decent compounds. I ran 1144 iirc on mine but need to replace them as the disks are shot. As the brakes are not servo'd you do need more force than your average car but put in some decent brake fluid with disks and pads and you will be fine. One of the guys used to run those brakes with a 300bhp turbo without any complaints afaik.
SlowStig said:
itcaptainslow said:
One of the very last V8's you have there. Nice!
I was looking around the engine bay when I was working on it-I guessed as much the fuel supply pipes would need changing, as well as the pump. I'd keep the standard R65 box but get hold of a R25 1.6 one as I prefer the ratios on it. Anything else I'd need apart from the obvious stuff? Is it all bolt on?
The only other thing that would concern me is the brakes-what would fit under 13" wheels that are actually decent? The standard brakes are rubbish even with 60bhp to cope with, so goodness knows how big the accident would be asking them to deal with 160bhp+!!
I sold the ZT earlier this year I was looking around the engine bay when I was working on it-I guessed as much the fuel supply pipes would need changing, as well as the pump. I'd keep the standard R65 box but get hold of a R25 1.6 one as I prefer the ratios on it. Anything else I'd need apart from the obvious stuff? Is it all bolt on?
The only other thing that would concern me is the brakes-what would fit under 13" wheels that are actually decent? The standard brakes are rubbish even with 60bhp to cope with, so goodness knows how big the accident would be asking them to deal with 160bhp+!!
From what I remember, you need:
Fuel pump - MPi metro and easy to change
Fuel pipes - Same again, MPi metro
Coolant hoses - Depends on your budget, I got samcos as I got sick of rubber pipes splitting
4pole flywheel - MPi metro or any R65 box'd car
Brakes, the best upgrade is MGF vented which bolt straight on and are available with some decent compounds. I ran 1144 iirc on mine but need to replace them as the disks are shot. As the brakes are not servo'd you do need more force than your average car but put in some decent brake fluid with disks and pads and you will be fine. One of the guys used to run those brakes with a 300bhp turbo without any complaints afaik.
The only other thing that would bother me is a lack of a rev counter! Not sure how I'd get around that one.
itcaptainslow said:
Not too horrendous a list then. Presuming with retaining the R65 box all the mounts are the same?
The only other thing that would bother me is a lack of a rev counter! Not sure how I'd get around that one.
Rev counter is easy, get a set of clocks from a model with a rev counter, fit them and 90% of the time they will just start working, if not you just run a wire to the coil(iirc) and thats it.The only other thing that would bother me is a lack of a rev counter! Not sure how I'd get around that one.
With the R65, they have a record of being chocolate boxes. I am running 170-180bhp through mine and it seems to be coping, however I don't launch it everywhere or drive like a tit. If you are that way inclined, you may find a PG1 from an MGF would be better suited, which is a whole new kettle of fish and easier to buy a crash damaged mgf and swop over subframes than trying to make an R65 subframe mount one.
A good engine(imo) is the 1.8 solid cam, with a set of VVC exhaust cams or piper 270's they get about 130bhp+ but are quite torquey from low down so drive a little less frantic to make progress. A VVC redlines at 7200rpm, wheras a solid cam redlines at 6800rpm...
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