1985 Rover 3500 Vitesse
Discussion
Engine time!
With the front end disassembled I figured it was the best time to put the engine back together. Before assembly though I had some more cleaning to do.
First was the intake manifold.
With the plenum top removed you get to see the intake trumpets in all their glory.
A common problem with injection SD1s, and early injection Range Rovers is the heater pipe that runs under the plenum corrodes. This causes a coolant leak onto the valley gasket, as seen on my car. The offending pipe is shown below.
Now this design was revised quite early on on the Range Rovers, ducting the coolant pipes around the inlet manifold, but this requires a different intake manifold. So repairing the original gets quite tricky as parts are almost impossible to find. But i found a few...
Refitted back onto the original manifold.
Next up was the tappets.
The replacement engine had had an appalling oil service regiment, and clattered badly. Hydraulic tappets require clean uncontaminated oil to work properly, and required complete disassembly to clean all the oil gunge out of them.
All replaced back onto the camshaft with plenty of assembly lube.
OEM metal head gaskets where used to try and keep what little compression is left in the old motor.
Cylinder heads where thoroughly cleaned, and had new valve stem seals fitted.
Heads on.
Later style composite valley gasket with the new end seals.
Inlet manifold on.
Polished my trumpets...
Plenum top on, and most things buttoned up.
Driveway with lots of red cars and silver mirrors. Really happy with the way the engine went back together, and how the car looks with its repairs. Still lots to do though!
Joe
With the front end disassembled I figured it was the best time to put the engine back together. Before assembly though I had some more cleaning to do.
First was the intake manifold.
With the plenum top removed you get to see the intake trumpets in all their glory.
A common problem with injection SD1s, and early injection Range Rovers is the heater pipe that runs under the plenum corrodes. This causes a coolant leak onto the valley gasket, as seen on my car. The offending pipe is shown below.
Now this design was revised quite early on on the Range Rovers, ducting the coolant pipes around the inlet manifold, but this requires a different intake manifold. So repairing the original gets quite tricky as parts are almost impossible to find. But i found a few...
Refitted back onto the original manifold.
Next up was the tappets.
The replacement engine had had an appalling oil service regiment, and clattered badly. Hydraulic tappets require clean uncontaminated oil to work properly, and required complete disassembly to clean all the oil gunge out of them.
All replaced back onto the camshaft with plenty of assembly lube.
OEM metal head gaskets where used to try and keep what little compression is left in the old motor.
Cylinder heads where thoroughly cleaned, and had new valve stem seals fitted.
Heads on.
Later style composite valley gasket with the new end seals.
Inlet manifold on.
Polished my trumpets...
Plenum top on, and most things buttoned up.
Driveway with lots of red cars and silver mirrors. Really happy with the way the engine went back together, and how the car looks with its repairs. Still lots to do though!
Joe
1275 GT said:
Northern.N said:
LOVELY thread Joe, good to see you on PH with this too!
All the best, Nick M.
Thanks Nick, I was intending on dropping you a message about your opinion on the paint defects, see if theres anything that could be done about them.All the best, Nick M.
Glad to see you’re keeping well and up to great things as per usual
1275 GT said:
I've been spending a lot of time looking at it recently, still has some real presence. I have to admit I really wanted a black one!
Joe
My friend's Vitesse was black and admittedly it did look good in a Darth Vader way but my Dad's 2600 was the same red as yours which I think is the pick of the bunch. It sets it aside from modern dull-coloured cars (like my own - black) and being as yours is so clean and perfect, it'll absolutely shine wherever you take it.Joe
Northern.N said:
Hit me up on the old book of faces mate. We can sort something I’m sure!
Glad to see you’re keeping well and up to great things as per usual
I will do, hopefully get it mobile very soon. Thanks man, its a bit nicer than my turd of a 1275GT! Glad to see you’re keeping well and up to great things as per usual
Good to see you've still got a scooby, was horrible to see what happened to your last one.
Grahamdub said:
Shame you can't leave it like that 
Good work on an excellent car !
I thought that too, really looks cool when you popped the bonnet. Good work on an excellent car !
Watchman said:
My friend's Vitesse was black and admittedly it did look good in a Darth Vader way but my Dad's 2600 was the same red as yours which I think is the pick of the bunch. It sets it aside from modern dull-coloured cars (like my own - black) and being as yours is so clean and perfect, it'll absolutely shine wherever you take it.
It does add a slightly more menacing look, but I'm sure the red will be too, and I think black cars are the worst to maintain paint wise maybe one day though. I don't think there's a bad Vitesse colour, I'd have a silver or blue in a flash. My dad's old SD1 was in Moonraker Blue, amazing colour. Joe
Like anyone who's just put an engine together I wanted to hear it run!
This post is a bit wordy as I didn't take many pictures!
I'd been reading up on the Rover V8, and saw that if the engine spends a prolonged period of time sat, or drained in the incorrect order the pump doesn't self prime. The workshop manual tells you to pack the pump with vasoline. (Other petroleum jellies are available) Or spin the oil pump using an electric drill through the distributor drive. Since the engine had been sat disassembled for nearly a year I thought it wise to go through this procedure. Spinning with the drill did move oil around, but it wasn't as enthusiastic as I thought it would be. But it showed pressure on the gauge. I was expecting some tappet noise as these were installed dry to allow them to fill with oil to take up the clearances.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXf-wz_3pp8
This was after I'd got it running well enough to put a timing light on it. So still quite tappet-y. It did smooth out and sounded nice. I let it run for a while and get some heat into it. As it warmed up the tappet noise returned, and I watched the oil pressure gauge started to drop. I killed it immediately. Pulled the ignition and cranked it, the low oil light stayed on...
I tried re-priming it, pulled a rocker shaft off, no where near enough oil getting high in the engine.
I'd spent a lot of time reading up about the RV8s oiling system, a high volume low pressure arrangement that did suffer from low pressure early on in its life. But by the SD1 it shouldn't have any problems. So I had an issue.
I feared a damaged oil pump and pulled it. A few wear marks but nothing out of the ordinary.
I'd heard of people finding holes in the pickup pipe causing similar issues. I tried blowing into the oil feed, and didn't get as much resistance as I'd expect from blowing into oil, so next step off came the sump.
It is possible but tricky with everything still in the car. It sits very closely to the cross member.
What I found was the oil pick-up pipe just dangling there, seemed very odd, and had quite a bit of movement, the gasket for the pick-up pipe was also damaged.
On the baffle plate there was a clean square that definitely looked like there should be something there...
The picture is when i was reassembling hence the stud, it was also missing.
I found a picture online of what it should look like, and had a feeling I'd seen it before. I went to the box of miscellaneous parts when I bought the car.
This is what was missing. I was so angry.
Whoever had installed the engine (and swapped the Range Rover sump and pick-up for the SD1 items) had really done a c**p job.
With a new gasket, the support makes a massive difference to the pick-up.
At least it gave me a chance to clean the sump up and fit a new gasket.
All reassembled new gaskets all round, pump packed with vasoline and primed using the priming tool and a drill. It nearly pulled the drill out of my hand when it started pumping oil. I then pulled the rocker covers to check, I had oil properly coming out of the rockers.
This had dragged on for a month, problem shooting and working out solutions. It also required a few trips to get the required gaskets and parts needed.
What a bloody faff!
Firing it all reassembled and it making good strong oil pressure was very satisfying, I let it warm up and it still made oil pressure.
Very relieving.
Joe
This post is a bit wordy as I didn't take many pictures!
I'd been reading up on the Rover V8, and saw that if the engine spends a prolonged period of time sat, or drained in the incorrect order the pump doesn't self prime. The workshop manual tells you to pack the pump with vasoline. (Other petroleum jellies are available) Or spin the oil pump using an electric drill through the distributor drive. Since the engine had been sat disassembled for nearly a year I thought it wise to go through this procedure. Spinning with the drill did move oil around, but it wasn't as enthusiastic as I thought it would be. But it showed pressure on the gauge. I was expecting some tappet noise as these were installed dry to allow them to fill with oil to take up the clearances.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXf-wz_3pp8
This was after I'd got it running well enough to put a timing light on it. So still quite tappet-y. It did smooth out and sounded nice. I let it run for a while and get some heat into it. As it warmed up the tappet noise returned, and I watched the oil pressure gauge started to drop. I killed it immediately. Pulled the ignition and cranked it, the low oil light stayed on...
I tried re-priming it, pulled a rocker shaft off, no where near enough oil getting high in the engine.
I'd spent a lot of time reading up about the RV8s oiling system, a high volume low pressure arrangement that did suffer from low pressure early on in its life. But by the SD1 it shouldn't have any problems. So I had an issue.
I feared a damaged oil pump and pulled it. A few wear marks but nothing out of the ordinary.
I'd heard of people finding holes in the pickup pipe causing similar issues. I tried blowing into the oil feed, and didn't get as much resistance as I'd expect from blowing into oil, so next step off came the sump.
It is possible but tricky with everything still in the car. It sits very closely to the cross member.
What I found was the oil pick-up pipe just dangling there, seemed very odd, and had quite a bit of movement, the gasket for the pick-up pipe was also damaged.
On the baffle plate there was a clean square that definitely looked like there should be something there...
The picture is when i was reassembling hence the stud, it was also missing.
I found a picture online of what it should look like, and had a feeling I'd seen it before. I went to the box of miscellaneous parts when I bought the car.
This is what was missing. I was so angry.
Whoever had installed the engine (and swapped the Range Rover sump and pick-up for the SD1 items) had really done a c**p job.
With a new gasket, the support makes a massive difference to the pick-up.
At least it gave me a chance to clean the sump up and fit a new gasket.
All reassembled new gaskets all round, pump packed with vasoline and primed using the priming tool and a drill. It nearly pulled the drill out of my hand when it started pumping oil. I then pulled the rocker covers to check, I had oil properly coming out of the rockers.
This had dragged on for a month, problem shooting and working out solutions. It also required a few trips to get the required gaskets and parts needed.
What a bloody faff!
Firing it all reassembled and it making good strong oil pressure was very satisfying, I let it warm up and it still made oil pressure.
Very relieving.
Joe
I'm glad people are still enjoying my ramblings, I couldn't believe it when I found all the extra bits, the excuse they gave is the removed the air con bracketry, and put it all in a box.
Luckily they did such a terrible job installing the replacement long block it didn't run for more than a couple of minutes at a time, probably saved the engine.
I don't actually have a good video of it running, as it then spent a lot of time in the garage when the temperature plummeted late last year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzHX1koNuPk
I did get a short interior video though.
I feel like I'm jumping the gun, but people always like a little preview. I'm writing all this after the fact, and I'll continue with the work as I've still got 8 months worth of pictures to go!
But the Rover did go for its MOT today...
Passed with no advisories!
Joe
Luckily they did such a terrible job installing the replacement long block it didn't run for more than a couple of minutes at a time, probably saved the engine.
I don't actually have a good video of it running, as it then spent a lot of time in the garage when the temperature plummeted late last year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzHX1koNuPk
I did get a short interior video though.
I feel like I'm jumping the gun, but people always like a little preview. I'm writing all this after the fact, and I'll continue with the work as I've still got 8 months worth of pictures to go!
But the Rover did go for its MOT today...
Passed with no advisories!
Joe
Edited by 1275 GT on Friday 29th June 00:14
In and amongst all the childish arguing that goes on on PH (& that I try my best to avoid!), occasionally a thread appears that reminds me why I joined this site, and this is it in spades!
Like most I've read it all from the start, absolutely cracking work, fantastic that you can do the work yourself and clearly with the attention such a car deserves.
I remember my father coming home with one as a demo, the dash amazed me as a kid in the 80's, he stuck with his 24v Senators but I still have a fond memory of that Rover! Not forgetting it was my first Matchbox car!
Keep the great work up
Like most I've read it all from the start, absolutely cracking work, fantastic that you can do the work yourself and clearly with the attention such a car deserves.
I remember my father coming home with one as a demo, the dash amazed me as a kid in the 80's, he stuck with his 24v Senators but I still have a fond memory of that Rover! Not forgetting it was my first Matchbox car!
Keep the great work up
Mr Tidy said:
Great news, but after all that work I never expected anything else!
I wish it was smooth sailing, but it was the first time I'd driven it since doing all the work. Found quite a few running issues and leaks which I had to turn around and sort before taking it back to be tested. But I got there in the end. acme said:
In and amongst all the childish arguing that goes on on PH (& that I try my best to avoid!), occasionally a thread appears that reminds me why I joined this site, and this is it in spades!
Like most I've read it all from the start, absolutely cracking work, fantastic that you can do the work yourself and clearly with the attention such a car deserves.
I remember my father coming home with one as a demo, the dash amazed me as a kid in the 80's, he stuck with his 24v Senators but I still have a fond memory of that Rover! Not forgetting it was my first Matchbox car!
Keep the great work up
I do love PistonHeads, but I agree some of the squabbling can get a bit silly. I tend to leave that side well alone. I like to just stick to the cars.Like most I've read it all from the start, absolutely cracking work, fantastic that you can do the work yourself and clearly with the attention such a car deserves.
I remember my father coming home with one as a demo, the dash amazed me as a kid in the 80's, he stuck with his 24v Senators but I still have a fond memory of that Rover! Not forgetting it was my first Matchbox car!
Keep the great work up
I really enjoy working on stuff myself, that way I can take as much time as it needs and guarantee I'm happy with the work.
I've never been in a senator, would make for an interesting comparison. I still have my corgi SD1 that I've had since I can remember!
Watchman said:
It's incredible how relevant it still looks. Doesn't look out of place amongst modern cars.
Incidentally, I had a 1275GT once too.
It did get quite a few looks when I parked it up and I agree, it has aged well! Incidentally, I had a 1275GT once too.
I love my GT's and they do look good together!
lockhart flawse said:
Cracking job Joe. She looks great!
Much appreciated, I'm so happy with how it turned out. TRIUMPHBULLET said:
Top marks for keeping the old lady on the road chap,loved them years ago and had a few myself.
Turned to the dark side a few years back but its still got the rv8 in it.
Good to hear! I'm actually trying to source a TR7 for a friend at the moment, definitely the SD1's kindred spirit, the construction is so similar. Turned to the dark side a few years back but its still got the rv8 in it.
Joe
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