1985 Rover 3500 Vitesse

1985 Rover 3500 Vitesse

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1275 GT

Original Poster:

365 posts

165 months

Thursday 16th August 2018
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KelvinatorNZ said:
Gosh that interior is lovely. Mine isnt bad, but nothing like yours. Very nice.
Thankyou Kevin, It came up well. I'm really enjoying the Vitesse interior, the velour is underrated.



bungz said:
Be too good to use soon that!
Definitely not, infact I went for a drive in it this evening!

Joe

Mr Tidy

22,065 posts

126 months

Friday 17th August 2018
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1275 GT said:
Definitely not, infact I went for a drive in it this evening!

Joe
Great news. thumbup

5er

4,432 posts

174 months

Friday 17th August 2018
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Just read every post - brilliant effort, and what a superb outcome. Very well done.

oobster

7,065 posts

210 months

Saturday 18th August 2018
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1275 GT

Original Poster:

365 posts

165 months

Saturday 18th August 2018
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oobster said:
redfaceredfaceredface

Now that is bloody amazing!

Only my blue one has turned up so far!

My red one should be arriving in the next few days. I'm gonna need a set of plates for my own one.

Thankyou for doing that, it looks cool!


Joe

CR6ZZ

1,313 posts

144 months

Sunday 19th August 2018
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Fantastic, as always!

MrVert

4,394 posts

238 months

Sunday 19th August 2018
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What a fantastic job OP! Lovely car! smokin

1275 GT

Original Poster:

365 posts

165 months

Monday 20th August 2018
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CR6ZZ said:
Fantastic, as always!
MrVert said:
What a fantastic job OP! Lovely car! smokin
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Thank-you guys!

Well with the interior all but finished, it was time to get the car road legal again.




I had a few niggles to sort first, one being a dodgy connection on the trigger wire for the starter motor.

While fixing it though I noticed I'd got bigger problems.



That's one knackered steering coupling.




December 84, so probably original!

This was not what I wanted to find 2 days before the car was booked in for an MOT. Before bombing up to Rimmer Bros, I had a feeling I'd seen one in one of the job lots of SD1 things I'd been buying.

After 20mins of routing through bags of spares, I found it!



I knew hoarding parts would pay off!



Well that put me at the inevitable pre-MOT stage, I'd done as much as I could.




Well apart from setting the headlight aim.

By doing it purely by what looked right when I put the headlights back in, I was worried that they'd be way out. Turned out to be perfect!





MOT morning!

Now I'll warn you all, this was not my usual methodical work, and did not go to plan at all but it does make for some fun reading after the fact so enjoy!



This was not a fun day. This was the first time I'd driven the car properly, and it was not good, it did not run right at all, which was disappointing considering all the work I'd done on the engine. I thought fresh fuel might help, but nothing changed.

I actually aborted trip and came back home. It wasn't going to pass like that. Afer ringing the garage they agreed to test it if I arrived any time before 2.30pm.




Whilst sitting on the drive re-checking the timing, it then proceeded to then dump a whole mixture of fluids on the driveway.

It was the first time it had really got up to running temperature, and unfortunately it leaks.





So I got it up in the air and began spanner checking everything, this managed to stop almost all of the leaks. I'd replaced most of the gaskets, but obviously needed a second torquing after a heat cycle.

Back to the running, timing was fine, I'm still working out the fuelling, but it ran well enough to drive, and I was out of time.




This was also a bit of a fiasco.

After being driven into the testing bay, it was the emmisions test first. Probably what I was most nervous about. It actually passed this easily.

After this it got shut off, and when it needed to be moved onto the ramps for the next part of the inspection it wouldn't restart. These cars were known to vapour lock their fuel system when they got too hot and are left, (down side of a viscous fan) what a time for a first experience of this!

But it didn't need to run to check the rest of the car.






Very nervous waiting for my verdict!

Passed with no advisories, and after leaving it with the bonnet up to cool down, it fired right up. The guy testing it loved it, and was very complimentary of the work that I had done, despite it not starting! Ironic that my car passed despite not being able to start half way through its test.

But regardless it was now road legal, and now I had the opportunity to properly get to grips with the injection system, rather than just listening to it idle on the driveway. I could now tune to my hearts content.

Joe





Edited by 1275 GT on Monday 20th August 22:05

CR6ZZ

1,313 posts

144 months

Monday 20th August 2018
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Congrats!!

dbdb

4,311 posts

172 months

Monday 20th August 2018
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What an absolutely glorious looking thing this is!

LordGrover

33,531 posts

211 months

Tuesday 21st August 2018
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Love it. I had a non-vitesse 3.5 way back when - a non-runner as I only wanted the engine to go into my Lotus Elite II of the time.
Wrote off the Elite before I had a chance to do anything with the Rover so moved it on sharpish.
At the time I didn't think it was a patch on my grandfather's P6. 30-odd years later, and I'm warming to them. smile

james_tigerwoods

16,287 posts

196 months

Tuesday 21st August 2018
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Nice one - Very impressive...

Idiot question though - How do you fix the warm starting problem (can you fix it)?

Maty

1,232 posts

212 months

Tuesday 21st August 2018
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Fantastic! What a thread.

Great to see it almost finished and back on the road again, hats off to you.

And to whoever said “too good to drive now”... ssshhh! Cars are for driving, not sitting in garages being looked at smile

1275 GT

Original Poster:

365 posts

165 months

Tuesday 21st August 2018
quotequote all
Thank again, glad you've all enjoyed reading my ramblings.


LordGrover said:
Love it. I had a non-vitesse 3.5 way back when - a non-runner as I only wanted the engine to go into my Lotus Elite II of the time.
Wrote off the Elite before I had a chance to do anything with the Rover so moved it on sharpish.
At the time I didn't think it was a patch on my grandfather's P6. 30-odd years later, and I'm warming to them. smile
Sadly a lot of SD1s met that fate, but I can understand the want to V8 an Elite. Shame you never got to complete that project, it would have been very interesting. The SD1 was a huge step back technically from the P6, but I just love the way they look. Especially in Vitesse form.


james_tigerwoods said:
Nice one - Very impressive...

Idiot question though - How do you fix the warm starting problem (can you fix it)?
Rover actually recognised this problem in 1986 and issued their own kit to fit it. It basically involved by a combination of
switched relays, a delay unit and a solenoid valve, the fuel pressure was temporarily
increased, when the engine was too hot, thereby purging the fuel system and enabling the
engine to re-start.

I actually have seen cars with this system installed. It was done on a if you complain enough to your dealer they'll do it basis.

But finding all the correct parts after the fact is almost impossible, so other solutions are needed.

Of course solutions have already been formulated.

• Lift the bonnet and wait.

• Give the accelerator some heavy boots-full when re-starting to make the fuel flow
faster and give a richer mixture.

• Run the fuel pump for a few minutes without starting the engine. This can be done
on both auto and manual SD1's. On an auto try to crank the engine in drive, the
pump runs but the engine does not turn. On a manual, disconnect the engine
harness and try to crank the engine, the pump runs but the engine does not turn.

• One can’t very well relocate the fuel rail but it might be possible to lag it - but
thinking about that, it would probably work against the problem when everything
is piping hot!

• Fit thermostatic electric cooling fans that continue to run after the engine has
stopped to try and remove latent heat from the engine whilst the car is stationary.
However, with no circulating coolant this would be a marginal solution.



I tend to go for the first option!

All information taken from Ramon's brilliant website.

http://www.vintagemodelairplane.com/pages/Download...



Maty said:
Fantastic! What a thread.

Great to see it almost finished and back on the road again, hats off to you.

And to whoever said “too good to drive now”... ssshhh! Cars are for driving, not sitting in garages being looked at smile
I think since it was MOT'd I've done nearly 700 miles in a month!


So why was I rushing to get the car MOT'd after spending so long on it!?

Well I'd gone through so many self imposed deadlines I really wanted to get the car finished and my good friends dad is the Show Manager at the British Motor Museum, so the annual BMC and Leyland show was a perfect debut. (and I knew that I'd still get a good spot even if I was late wink )

The Vitesse went in for its MOT on the Tuesday before, as I was expecting to find some issues that I would need to sort. With it passing first time this gave me almost a week to play with the running so it was show ready on Sunday (1st of July) .

I got it running better, but still quite lumpy. Once up to speed though it cruised nicely. Good enough to get me there!





After much arguing I eventually gave in and let my dad drive. I was left with the yellow support vehicle. We swapped half way though so I could drive the Vitesse into the show.




We had people taking pictures of both cars whilst we drove down the motorway which was fun, its always awkward to know where to look though!





Was a brilliant day with lots of fellow SD1s, and it got such a positive response from people looking over it. I was little apprehensive of how it'd stack up compared to other restored cars, as I know it has some paint defects, but it really stood up well.




People always love a mini too.









The journey home was uneventful too, and a brilliant way to celebrate the Vitesse's returning to the road. Couldn't help but take lots of gratuitous pictures when I got back too.










Just need to figure out the injection system and sort out the wheels...


Joe






gforceg

3,524 posts

178 months

Tuesday 21st August 2018
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Great stuff! What a cracker.

Have you considered adding an auxiliary water pump to help the fans out (a la Corrado)?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=J...



bgunn

1,416 posts

130 months

Tuesday 21st August 2018
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Megasquirt or such, fitted in a 4CU box so it looks original. The original injection is very primitive - the cold start and thermo time is pretty basic!

You'll get many more modern features, too. I think done sympathetically, it'd be a nice project..

LordGrover

33,531 posts

211 months

Wednesday 22nd August 2018
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Re the hot start issue; isn't it the same as TVR Griffiths and Chimaeras suffer from?
Plenty of DIY fixes in the relevant forums over the years.

WinstonWolf

72,857 posts

238 months

Wednesday 22nd August 2018
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LordGrover said:
Re the hot start issue; isn't it the same as TVR Griffiths and Chimaeras suffer from?
Plenty of DIY fixes in the relevant forums over the years.
I was just going to post the same thing biggrin

Trevor450

1,740 posts

147 months

Wednesday 22nd August 2018
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The hot start problem on TVRs was caused by TVR wiring the immobiliser the wrong way round. They used the fuel pump side of it to (low current) power the starter trigger (high current) and vice verca which caused problems with the immobiliser relays when hot.

1275 GT

Original Poster:

365 posts

165 months

Thursday 23rd August 2018
quotequote all
gforceg said:
Great stuff! What a cracker.

Have you considered adding an auxiliary water pump to help the fans out (a la Corrado)?
I haven't actually, but that would work nicely, I'll look into that. First though as my car is an Air-Con car, it has the condenser in-front of the rad, with twin electric pusher fans. I'm going to rewire them to a manual override. So I can leave fans going.


bgunn said:
Megasquirt or such, fitted in a 4CU box so it looks original. The original injection is very primitive - the cold start and thermo time is pretty basic!

You'll get many more modern features, too. I think done sympathetically, it'd be a nice project..
This is something that I have looked into, but first I want to figure out the original system.

I don't like to be beaten, and even though its primitive it did at least work when it was new!

This and I'm a stickler for originality.

LordGrover said:
Re the hot start issue; isn't it the same as TVR Griffiths and Chimaeras suffer from?
Plenty of DIY fixes in the relevant forums over the years.
WinstonWolf said:
I was just going to post the same thing biggrin
Trevor450 said:
The hot start problem on TVRs was caused by TVR wiring the immobiliser the wrong way round. They used the fuel pump side of it to (low current) power the starter trigger (high current) and vice verca which caused problems with the immobiliser relays when hot.
I had always wondered if TVRs suffered from similar issues. Interesting to know that the chimera had a different hot start issue!

I do like to read up what TVR owners have found and done to improve running and performance.

I know the 350i is basically a Vitesse engine setup.



Joe