Shedding with a Rover 45!!!!!

[Bobberoo99]

So I've been a long time lurker and finally decided to actually join in and give you guys something to laugh at/along with!! I'm no driving god or powerfully built company director, so we'll get that out the way at the start!! I've always been into cars and have been fortunate enough to have been in some nice toys (friends toys) but the most exciting thing we've ever owned was a mildly modded Onion Injection Ghia!! Still enough of the intro and down to reason for your amusement!!
We came to a point earlier this year where we needed a second car to run alongside our daily ( Focus 1.8 TDCI Ghia) so with a HUGE budget of £1000 of your English pounds we went a looking..................................
There's some SERIOUSLY tired and abused cars out there in that price range, and some very deluded people selling them!!!!! But we ended up buying this.....................


£650 of Rover 45 1.8 Club SE, 11 months MOT, just under 97k, a load of major engine work the previous year (head gasket, water pump, liners shimmed, oil pump ETC!) yes it had issues but it was tidy, WAY better than the other stuff we'd looked at and well within budget!



Quite how you manage to reverse into something damaging the bumper, boot lid AND spoiler WITH functioning reversing sensors i have NO idea!!!
The idea was to just buy a functioning, half decent, sort of reliable car for wifey to drive when needed...................................

yep that didn't last long!!!!!!!!!

First off when we bought it we knew that the central locking was borked, the wash/wipe was a button on the dash and the horn yet another button the dash, it had a gear change that can only be described as "stirring a bowl of porridge" , the high level brakelight was dangling, and one of the headlights a very catching opaque!!!!
So a quick play with the brakelight resulted in a small bracket to repair said brakelight (no pic sorry) a quick wet and dry/polish/tooth paste and we have a matching pair of head lights and a whole £29.90 for a nifty gear linkage upgrade (thanks bay of E)and we now have gears!!!
It was at this point i tried, REALLY tried to think "hey it's jst a second car leave it be, it's only there for when wifey needs it".....................
But oh dear god the audio was truly awful, only one thing for it, back to the bay of e!!!! Where a massive spend of £27 netted me a rather lovely Pioneer USB headunit which i duly fitted!!!



Ok i thought enough!!!
HHHHMMMMM maybe some better speakers, yeah quick look on the bay.............

£26 well spent right there!!!!!!
Oh well i might as well carry on now i've started, quick roam around Gluggle revealed that the non functioning central locking, weird wash/wipe and strange horn button were a common thing, a very nice man called Paul from a Technozen popped up and a deal was done for the SCU to be repaired with upgraded relays and a new fob case and battery for the princely sum of £65 delivered back to us so orf it jolly well went!!
And back it jolly well came all betterer!!!! So now it was time to re-instate the wash wipe, easy bit of rewiring, and the horn, not so easy cos no matter what i can't get the fing thing to work off the steering wheel buttons!!!!
Oh well wifey says i should be happy with an 80% success rate, we now have working central locking, dead locking, the locking activate on the dash now works after i reconnected it and the front and rear wash wipe work off the stalk as they should!!!!
After yet another troll around the bay of E i managed to find a good condition parcel shelf for a whole £20 delivered cos ours has seen better days.......

should be here by the weekend!!!
Next on the list of "bits that need doing!" is an annoying rattle on the cambelt end at around 2000rpm that i can't trace and a complete brake overhaul with brake fluid change some time in the next couple of months!!!
We ll i hope i haven't bored anyone to death or driven them to drink, well maybe driven some to drink i mean who doesn't like a beer while they read!!
If anyone's interested i'll keep it up to date as i fix/break/fail to achieve anything!!!!

[veccy208]

This is the exact reason I worry about buying a shed. I'll buy it off you next year when it's concourse.

[Bobberoo99]

thanks for the reply Veccy, yeah it started out as "it's just a car" and is now "OOOOOH I'll just fix that bit!!" LOL!!!

[99t]

Nice shed!

I know these don't get much credit in PH land, but I had one for a week in about 2003 as a courtesy car when my M5 was in the garage, and it was a perfectly pleasant way to get around, comfortable, quiet with well controlled NVH and easy to live with.

Hope it behaves for you!

[Bobberoo99]

99t said:

Nice shed!

I know these don't get much credit in PH land, but I had one for a week in about 2003 as a courtesy car when my M5 was in the garage, and it was a perfectly pleasant way to get around, comfortable, quiet with well controlled NVH and easy to live with.

Hope it behaves for you!

Thanks 99t, we've only done about 800 miles in it since April, as I said it's a spare for when needed!! To be fair it's moderately comfy, goes ok when provoked and has more than enough toys to make it a nice place to be!!! Even has an fully functioning electric sunroof!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way reading your Elk thread and REALLY wishing I could afford/justify/bribe wifey into one!!!! Keep up the great work!!!

Edited by Bobberoo99 on Thursday 27th July 09:56

[Mr2Mike]

99t said:

Nice shed!

I know these don't get much credit in PH land, but I had one for a week in about 2003 as a courtesy car when my M5 was in the garage, and it was a perfectly pleasant way to get around, comfortable, quiet with well controlled NVH and easy to live with.

Hope it behaves for you!

They were really let down by the interior and general build quality towards the end but they are perfectly fine things to drive, even better in ZS form.

[MorganP104]

Top shedding, Bobberoo!

Just keep an eye on the overall spend... You can very quickly go from bangernomics to "chucking good money after bad". Keep in mind that a Rover 45 is never going to be worth anything, so the repairs you do should be with function in mind.

Trying to get a shed to look nice will send a man crazy!

[Bobberoo99]

Mr2Mike said:

They were really let down by the interior and general build quality towards the end but they are perfectly fine things to drive, even better in ZS form.

Thanks for the replies folks, would have loved a ZS but insurance and price were prohibitive! And yes the interior especially the seats isn't great but build quality to be fair seems ok!

Edited by Bobberoo99 on Thursday 27th July 11:58

[Bobberoo99]

MorganP104 said:

Top shedding, Bobberoo!

Just keep an eye on the overall spend... You can very quickly go from bangernomics to "chucking good money after bad". Keep in mind that a Rover 45 is never going to be worth anything, so the repairs you do should be with function in mind.

Trying to get a shed to look nice will send a man crazy!

Thanks MorganP104!! No chance of getting it looking nice too many scuffs/dinks/damage to even think that way , I just can't have a car with bits that either don't work or are bodged up!!! Hence the Fleabay usage, why spend more on a £650 car than you have too!!!!!!

[Bobberoo99]

Well to continue the thread if anyone's interested the new shelf arrived Friday so to celebrate i spent MORE money!!!! Good old ECP had one of they're many sales on that they seem to have so i bought all the stuff i need for a service seeing as the car has very little service history i thought why not treat the poor old thing!!

£45 not bad i spose in the grand scheme!! Sorry for the wonky pics!!
As some may remember the original shelf was "tired" (read as absolutely shagged!!!)

note the missing lug!!!! So i did what any sane bloke would do and bought another one as mentioned previously for the princely sum of £20, i set about today and cut the holes for the speakers, which by the way i lied about they were actually £23 not the massively over inflated price of £26 i said previously!!!

Only bit of damage i could find which i glued and duct taped for support!!

MMMMMMMM shiny new shelf complete with the rubber hangers too!!!!! I then thought ah sod it i might as well do some of the service bits so i changed the plugs, yep good job i did i they looked like they'd been in there for a while!!!!


Also found some rubbery/siliconey/gunky st around the coil packs, any thoughts anyone????

And i changed the air filter which to be fair didn't look too bad, started up and ran well so that's a good start, but did highlight an issue with a couple of stripped threads on the coilpack holders which i'll drill out tap and helicoil at a later date!!! Also picked up a few more bits a couple of weeks back which i forgot about, two of each of the following, trailing arm bushes, lower shock bushes, upper arm ball joints and upper arrn swivels all for the magnificent sum of £26!!!!!!

So total spend so far -
Car £650
SCU repair £62.75 inc postage and new fob case/battery
Gear linkage replacement £29.90
Head unit £27
Speakers £23
Service parts £45.50
Shelf £20
Suspension comps £26

Total = £884.15 of our original £1000 budget so i'm pretty chuffed so far it's a decent enough drive all the electrics work, yeah ok bar the fing horn, and as wifey said i have a project car to tinker with!!!!

[itcaptainslow]

Your horn/central locking etc issues will probably stem from a failed relay or three in the SCU-a new SCU and programming is silly money but if you search for Technozen on eBay he does a very reasonably priced repair service.

That gunky crap is either a cheap rocker cover gasket that has melted (they're metal with a coating on them to seal-quite often the non-genuine copies are awful) or someone has bodged a load of silicone sealant around to try and stop the spark plug wells filling up with oil.

Top tip-a set of MG ZS 1.8 springs & dampers will tighten up the handling no end whilst keeping a reasonable ride quality...

[Bobberoo99]

itcaptainslow said:

Your horn/central locking etc issues will probably stem from a failed relay or three in the SCU-a new SCU and programming is silly money but if you search for Technozen on eBay he does a very reasonably priced repair service.

That gunky crap is either a cheap rocker cover gasket that has melted (they're metal with a coating on them to seal-quite often the non-genuine copies are awful) or someone has bodged a load of silicone sealant around to try and stop the spark plug wells filling up with oil.

Top tip-a set of MG ZS 1.8 springs & dampers will tighten up the handling no end whilst keeping a reasonable ride quality...

Thanks Captain, already had the SCU relays replaced, as you said Technozen's Paul is a top chap, but it appears that a previous owner had had some, shall we say, interesting repairs/work arounds done!! Everything except the horn is now back to stock, I just can't seem top find the correct fuse for the horn to check if that's what's stopping it from working from the steering wheel or if the wiring has been disconnected elsewhere!! Thanks for the tip re the shocks and springs I did wonder if it was a simple swap??

[Mr2Mike]

Bobberoo99 said:

Thanks Captain, already had the SCU relays replaced, as you said Technozen's Paul is a top chap, but it appears that a previous owner had had some, shall we say, interesting repairs/work arounds done!! Everything except the horn is now back to stock, I just can't seem top find the correct fuse for the horn to check if that's what's stopping it from working from the steering wheel or if the wiring has been disconnected elsewhere!! Thanks for the tip re the shocks and springs I did wonder if it was a simple swap??

Also the upper wishbones are swapped side to side on the ZS, i.e. right hand fitted to left hand and vice versa (the ZS parts were exactly the same but had stickers placed over the stamped 'R' and 'L' in the wishbones!). This increases castor and is part of the handling improvement on the ZS.

[Bobberoo99]

Mr2Mike said:

Also the upper wishbones are swapped side to side on the ZS, i.e. right hand fitted to left hand and vice versa (the ZS parts were exactly the same but had stickers placed over the stamped 'R' and 'L' in the wishbones!). This increases castor and is part of the handling improvement on the ZS.

Thanks Mr2Mike, not sure SWMBO will let me get into these swaps, but I did just find a full set of ZS shocks fitted with lowering springs for £149.99 on the bay, now all I have to do is convince wifey we need them..........................................

[CornedBeef]

Bargain motoring mate, it looks very tidy! But for the love of god, go easy on the exclamation marks

[Bobberoo99]

CornedBeef said:

Bargain motoring mate, it looks very tidy! But for the love of god, go easy on the exclamation marks

SORRY! !! !! !! very new to forums first one I've ever joined!

[SloppyClock]

Cracking car. Unbelievable value for money these things. I keep looking at ZS's, always wanted one after owning my TF for 3 years.

Seeing a couple of names of this thread I recognise from the MG forums (captain slow/technozon).

Watching this one closely (and now opening another tab to look at ZS's....)

[Bobberoo99]

SloppyClock said:

Cracking car. Unbelievable value for money these things. I keep looking at ZS's, always wanted one after owning my TF for 3 years.

Seeing a couple of names of this thread I recognise from the MG forums (captain slow/technozon).

Watching this one closely (and now opening another tab to look at ZS's....)

Well a nice ZS would have been my preference in the lovely V6 180 guise, but we've been sharing a car for a number of years so wife's no claims had expired so that was ruled out quite quickly!! To be fair I've been a Ford boy all my life and we looked at several cars in our budget, this was by far the best for the price, it's nicely specced too, electric sunroof, electric windows X4, central locking(now working), ABS, electric mirrors, alloys ETC and it's ok to drive so long as you have low standards!!

[Mr2Mike]

I had a ZS180 saloon for a year or two. It was really nice to drive, and I got all enthusiastic and spent loads of time and money on it (sounded epic with a Piper exhaust!) but I got fed up with the performance to economy ratio, it used more fuel than my Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo!

[Bobberoo99]

That looked a bit nice Mr2Mike and absolutely the right color, but that fuel consumption sounds down right scary!!!!