Shed ahead... 75
Discussion
Here she is, my first foray into shedding. As it turns out, there's a lot of cars out there and you can get a lot for your money. I've had this a few months now, piling the miles on it and generally using and abusing it. Today it got a rare wash, so decided it was time to introduce my shed, my Rover 75 Tourer.
Bought for peanuts, it's a 04-reg, one of the last pre-facelift cars. Because it spends most of its time on the motorway, I went for the 2.0 CDTi engine with an autobox, slightly less frequent visits to Shell. It has a towbar bracket and electrics, but no actual tow neck - anyone got a spare one?
Otherwise it wafts along, it has a diet of V-power which returns me 44mpg at the moment. Recent expenditure included four brand new Goodyear Efficient Grips, some wiper blades, a headlamp bulb and a Renault 5 thermostat stuffed in the top rad hose.
Good points:
- comfy
- practical
- no rust
- everything works
- cheap to run, ish
Bad points:
- stone chips to die for on the front
- scratched side windows
- tailgate leaks somewhere
- a few rattles
- rear washer jet is akin a gnat having a piss
One of the best features; opening rear glass
Currently approaching 100,000 miles, planning to run it into the ground/200,000 miles. If it makes it as far as 200k, I'll keep it anyway and see if I can stretch to 250,000+.
Usually it's not so clean....
Will report back
Bought for peanuts, it's a 04-reg, one of the last pre-facelift cars. Because it spends most of its time on the motorway, I went for the 2.0 CDTi engine with an autobox, slightly less frequent visits to Shell. It has a towbar bracket and electrics, but no actual tow neck - anyone got a spare one?
Otherwise it wafts along, it has a diet of V-power which returns me 44mpg at the moment. Recent expenditure included four brand new Goodyear Efficient Grips, some wiper blades, a headlamp bulb and a Renault 5 thermostat stuffed in the top rad hose.
Good points:
- comfy
- practical
- no rust
- everything works
- cheap to run, ish
Bad points:
- stone chips to die for on the front
- scratched side windows
- tailgate leaks somewhere
- a few rattles
- rear washer jet is akin a gnat having a piss
One of the best features; opening rear glass
Currently approaching 100,000 miles, planning to run it into the ground/200,000 miles. If it makes it as far as 200k, I'll keep it anyway and see if I can stretch to 250,000+.
Usually it's not so clean....
Will report back
stewjohnst said:
I do need a shed/dog car and need something like this that I could not care about and not get attached to, something different to a V70 or SAAB 9-5 too.
I drove one once as a hire car (saloon) and it did feel like I was peering out of a letterbox, felt the windscreen was too small somehow.
I looked at V70s and 9-3 Sportwagons, both seemed to have their drawbacks, the V70 of similar age had a dreadful turning circle. No regrets with the 75, I'd have another. I drove one once as a hire car (saloon) and it did feel like I was peering out of a letterbox, felt the windscreen was too small somehow.
Interesting comments regarding the windscreen, I find the 75 screen raked more steeply than my previous and more modern daily, certainly catches more road grime and uses more screenwash. I suppose when it was designed in the 90's, this was the norm though.
davebem said:
Yeah these are gathering a following, this is the 3rd or 4th on here recently and a lot of love developing, they also seem to be surviving well and coming out the woodwork in better condition than Mercs. BMWs and Alfas of similar age.
There appears to be an active owners club, this and the MG ZT-T. I've been able to get parts easily through them, very useful given that main dealers are a thing of the past with this car. Not sure whether the current MG brand has anything to do with the MG Rover era in terms of parts or servicing. SebastienClement said:
Nice to see another Rover owner on here!
I’ve had plenty of these, most of which have been documented here. In my opinion they are a fantastic car - the sort of car that Rover should have been building. The design was signed off in 1993 (pre-BMW) and then BMW got involved with the underpinnings - I think that combination has really worked.
As a car they are generally robust, and as someone else mentioned, they seem to age well with regards to maintenance. It’s rare to see a disastrous MOT fail sheet with one of these. Of course they have their niggles; water ingress into the boot being common (but sortable), eating droplinks and top mounts (heavy car!) etc... But they are solid, and they don’t rust... much.
As for mileage, I’ve had 2 diesels (one auto, one manual) that have both seen north of 250k with clean MOT sheets - and they were still good to drive. I’m doubt you’ll have problems seeing those mileage’s if you keep on top of basic maintenance!
I love that green on the tourer - it looks just right! Looking forward to keeping up to date on this one
I've just seen your thread on yours, going to get a coffee and have a long sit down and read through it! I’ve had plenty of these, most of which have been documented here. In my opinion they are a fantastic car - the sort of car that Rover should have been building. The design was signed off in 1993 (pre-BMW) and then BMW got involved with the underpinnings - I think that combination has really worked.
As a car they are generally robust, and as someone else mentioned, they seem to age well with regards to maintenance. It’s rare to see a disastrous MOT fail sheet with one of these. Of course they have their niggles; water ingress into the boot being common (but sortable), eating droplinks and top mounts (heavy car!) etc... But they are solid, and they don’t rust... much.
As for mileage, I’ve had 2 diesels (one auto, one manual) that have both seen north of 250k with clean MOT sheets - and they were still good to drive. I’m doubt you’ll have problems seeing those mileage’s if you keep on top of basic maintenance!
I love that green on the tourer - it looks just right! Looking forward to keeping up to date on this one
I agree regarding the colour, for a long time now I've had a soft spot for dark green on large British cars, it's almost the "correct" colour in my eyes. This one cleans up well, although I'm considering fitting front mudflaps to help keep the sills a little cleaner - we live down a a road not much more than a farm track.
I've settled on servicing every 5000 miles to keep it in line with my other cars, a little more frequent than suggested but it's good to keep on top of things. Does yours suffer the roof spar vibration around 1800rpm? This is the one annoyance this car has, will be dropping the headlining and fixing as soon as the weather warms up a bit.
sinbaddio said:
One thing that always intrigued me on these - what if you need a replacement rear number plate?
Great car OP!
There are a few places online which specialise in specialist shaped number plates. There are actually a surprising number of cars out there with non-standard shape plates, including the 75 there's also the S-Type, X-Type, RRS, Chrysler Crossfire, RR Phantom to name a few. They're not too expensive either, but in my eyes they look wrong with a standard oblong-shaped plate fitted to the back. Great car OP!
Update on the 75....
Had it about 4 months now, almost 6000 miles in that time and currently no breakdowns... Touch wood.
Although it was serviced just before I bought it, I decided to do an engine service on it at 95000 miles, as with a fleet of cars with varying service intervals it's easiest to stick with one conservative interval for all, so I've gone with 5000 miles. Possibly overkill but I want the car to reach 200k miles!
Service included..
- new genuine oil filter and fresh Castrol GTX
- new air filter
- new PCV filter
- new fuel filter
- JATCO autobox fluid change
- new Viton intercooler seals
- top up of screenwash
- level check of PAS fluid, coolant (newish anyway as I've recently done the R5 thermostat mod), brake fluid.
I also decided to take the front bumper off to get better access for the intercooler seals, while I was at it I gave the headlights a polish. They're known for going yellow thanks to UV over time, I wet sanded using 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 and eventually 2000 grit to get the smoothest possible finish, before applying a wet polishing compound and finally giving them a thick coat of carnuba wax to finish off.
End result:
While the bumper was off, I noticed the radiator fan wasn't actually attached to the car anymore, it was sitting loose against the fan motor/crash bar! I whipped the crash bar off to get access to the centre nut, peeled off a sticker in the centre that revealed it had simply un-slotted itself from the motor hub. A 15mm socket stopped the hub rotating while I reattached the fan. A couple of small drops of locktite to help it stay in position hopefully will be enough to stop it coming free again.
Loose fan as found below:
You can also see in that picture above the fruits of Project Drive, the mission by MGR to cut costs during production of later cars. One of the results of PD was to remove the high-tone horn from the dual-tone horn setup, leaving just the low-tone FIAMM unit on the nearside. Some people add the high-tone unit back in as per original design brief, I can't be bothered currently!
With that all done and dusted, I turned my attention to an irritating cabin vibration. Common problem on the CDTI Tourer models is that the roof spars between the headlining and roof skin separate away from the roof skin, which then vibrate when the engine reaches approx 1800rpm. This is due to a natural resonance at that frequency, unfortunately this equates to 60mph with the autobox so particularly annoying!
Solution is to source which spar has separated by pressing the headlining up in different locations while the resonance is present and see when it stops! Luckily for me it was occurring quite close to the front, between the front headrests in fact. I took the interior light console out and removed both sun visors, then using a long screwdriver I delicately shoved a load of old microfibre towels back between the headlining and the roof skin. I used the screwdriver to stuff some material between the roof spar and roof skin, so far not a single noise. Nice cheap (free) fix, 2 minutes and didn't need to drop the headlining.
While the sunvisors were out, I made a quick washer from a bit of plastic and superglued it to the inside of the main shaft on the drivers side, as the visor kept falling into my lap every time I drove into sun. Again a free fix, less than 10 minutes and will never fall out again.
Next job was to fit a 12v accessory socket. All cars came with a cigar lighter in the centre console but they're not beefy enough to run phone chargers and so on from on a permanent basis. Rover originally offered a 12v accessory socket which was in the centre armrest cubby, however unfortunately mine didn't have one. I wanted to run a dashcam (don't worry, I'm not a DCW!) but didn't want to hardwire it to the car, plus fitting a 12v socket seemed useful should I ever need to charge a phone etc.
I bought a genuine MGR 12v accessory socket from Rimmers, fitting was relatively straightforward. To fit the socket itself just involves cutting the blank out of the plastic inside the cubby, luckily it comes out with two T20 torxs so can be done on the bench. Once the socket it in position, live feed was taken from the designated socket in the fuse box under the glovebox. An earth was run to the earth point about 6" away behind a piece of trim in the front passenger footwell. The cable was run behind the footwell carpet, then tucked under the centre console trim, past the handbrake mechanism and up into the cubby box, all neat and tidy. There are two 12v accessory socket fuses available, one is constant live feed and one switched live feed with the ignition. I used the latter as the primary use for the 12v socket would be feeding a dashcam which I didn't want running 24/7.
All finished with USB adapter and camera cable:
Apologise for lack of pictures during the installation, there was much swearing going on due to the human body being contorted in unusual ways to access the fuse box! Next was to install the dashcam, I wanted to try a front/rear setup so googled "best dual dashcam under £100" and the Aukey DR02 turned up with positive reviews for £99. Actually very happy with it, very much a plug and play and forget about it type system.
Ideally the rear camera would be mounted to the rear glass, however with a split tailgate the wiring would have been a nightmare, so instead I opted for the lazy option and stuck the rear camera to the boot light cover. I may fabricate a proper mount in the future but for now it'll do. Wiring tucks up under the headlining and reappears at the front camera - can't stand these lazy camera installs with wires hanging about all over the place!
A browse on the Bay returned a new roller parcel shelf, I already had one but this one had a cargo net - much better at keeping the woofers out. If anyone wants the old roller parcel shelf...
Future jobs include a replacement rear badge and also a repair to the tailgate-body gas strut mount, which have a habit of failing:
Top tip though, with one gas strut removed the tailgate won't stay open, however if you open the glass first then tailgate... You counterbalance the whole thing while you take pictures to post on t' internet...
Also I am replacing the wheel bolts as the original 17mm bolts are more like rusty 16mm now, so they've got a date with the bin and also the wheels themselves, I'm keeping an eye out for a second set to wear winter tyres next winter. I will also fit new front drop links soon, I'm a bit suspicious of my existing ones so I'll swap them out and see if that improves the occasional clunk that I'm getting.
That's about it for now, have a pair of chrome mirrors off the Bay hopefully turning up soon, other than that it's just slogging it out on the motorway. A diet of only V-power is returning me about 46mpg to a tank, that's with tyres all on 33psi a corner. Not too bad given it's a big, heavy old car with an autobox.
Had it about 4 months now, almost 6000 miles in that time and currently no breakdowns... Touch wood.
Although it was serviced just before I bought it, I decided to do an engine service on it at 95000 miles, as with a fleet of cars with varying service intervals it's easiest to stick with one conservative interval for all, so I've gone with 5000 miles. Possibly overkill but I want the car to reach 200k miles!
Service included..
- new genuine oil filter and fresh Castrol GTX
- new air filter
- new PCV filter
- new fuel filter
- JATCO autobox fluid change
- new Viton intercooler seals
- top up of screenwash
- level check of PAS fluid, coolant (newish anyway as I've recently done the R5 thermostat mod), brake fluid.
I also decided to take the front bumper off to get better access for the intercooler seals, while I was at it I gave the headlights a polish. They're known for going yellow thanks to UV over time, I wet sanded using 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 and eventually 2000 grit to get the smoothest possible finish, before applying a wet polishing compound and finally giving them a thick coat of carnuba wax to finish off.
End result:
While the bumper was off, I noticed the radiator fan wasn't actually attached to the car anymore, it was sitting loose against the fan motor/crash bar! I whipped the crash bar off to get access to the centre nut, peeled off a sticker in the centre that revealed it had simply un-slotted itself from the motor hub. A 15mm socket stopped the hub rotating while I reattached the fan. A couple of small drops of locktite to help it stay in position hopefully will be enough to stop it coming free again.
Loose fan as found below:
You can also see in that picture above the fruits of Project Drive, the mission by MGR to cut costs during production of later cars. One of the results of PD was to remove the high-tone horn from the dual-tone horn setup, leaving just the low-tone FIAMM unit on the nearside. Some people add the high-tone unit back in as per original design brief, I can't be bothered currently!
With that all done and dusted, I turned my attention to an irritating cabin vibration. Common problem on the CDTI Tourer models is that the roof spars between the headlining and roof skin separate away from the roof skin, which then vibrate when the engine reaches approx 1800rpm. This is due to a natural resonance at that frequency, unfortunately this equates to 60mph with the autobox so particularly annoying!
Solution is to source which spar has separated by pressing the headlining up in different locations while the resonance is present and see when it stops! Luckily for me it was occurring quite close to the front, between the front headrests in fact. I took the interior light console out and removed both sun visors, then using a long screwdriver I delicately shoved a load of old microfibre towels back between the headlining and the roof skin. I used the screwdriver to stuff some material between the roof spar and roof skin, so far not a single noise. Nice cheap (free) fix, 2 minutes and didn't need to drop the headlining.
While the sunvisors were out, I made a quick washer from a bit of plastic and superglued it to the inside of the main shaft on the drivers side, as the visor kept falling into my lap every time I drove into sun. Again a free fix, less than 10 minutes and will never fall out again.
Next job was to fit a 12v accessory socket. All cars came with a cigar lighter in the centre console but they're not beefy enough to run phone chargers and so on from on a permanent basis. Rover originally offered a 12v accessory socket which was in the centre armrest cubby, however unfortunately mine didn't have one. I wanted to run a dashcam (don't worry, I'm not a DCW!) but didn't want to hardwire it to the car, plus fitting a 12v socket seemed useful should I ever need to charge a phone etc.
I bought a genuine MGR 12v accessory socket from Rimmers, fitting was relatively straightforward. To fit the socket itself just involves cutting the blank out of the plastic inside the cubby, luckily it comes out with two T20 torxs so can be done on the bench. Once the socket it in position, live feed was taken from the designated socket in the fuse box under the glovebox. An earth was run to the earth point about 6" away behind a piece of trim in the front passenger footwell. The cable was run behind the footwell carpet, then tucked under the centre console trim, past the handbrake mechanism and up into the cubby box, all neat and tidy. There are two 12v accessory socket fuses available, one is constant live feed and one switched live feed with the ignition. I used the latter as the primary use for the 12v socket would be feeding a dashcam which I didn't want running 24/7.
All finished with USB adapter and camera cable:
Apologise for lack of pictures during the installation, there was much swearing going on due to the human body being contorted in unusual ways to access the fuse box! Next was to install the dashcam, I wanted to try a front/rear setup so googled "best dual dashcam under £100" and the Aukey DR02 turned up with positive reviews for £99. Actually very happy with it, very much a plug and play and forget about it type system.
Ideally the rear camera would be mounted to the rear glass, however with a split tailgate the wiring would have been a nightmare, so instead I opted for the lazy option and stuck the rear camera to the boot light cover. I may fabricate a proper mount in the future but for now it'll do. Wiring tucks up under the headlining and reappears at the front camera - can't stand these lazy camera installs with wires hanging about all over the place!
A browse on the Bay returned a new roller parcel shelf, I already had one but this one had a cargo net - much better at keeping the woofers out. If anyone wants the old roller parcel shelf...
Future jobs include a replacement rear badge and also a repair to the tailgate-body gas strut mount, which have a habit of failing:
Top tip though, with one gas strut removed the tailgate won't stay open, however if you open the glass first then tailgate... You counterbalance the whole thing while you take pictures to post on t' internet...
Also I am replacing the wheel bolts as the original 17mm bolts are more like rusty 16mm now, so they've got a date with the bin and also the wheels themselves, I'm keeping an eye out for a second set to wear winter tyres next winter. I will also fit new front drop links soon, I'm a bit suspicious of my existing ones so I'll swap them out and see if that improves the occasional clunk that I'm getting.
That's about it for now, have a pair of chrome mirrors off the Bay hopefully turning up soon, other than that it's just slogging it out on the motorway. A diet of only V-power is returning me about 46mpg to a tank, that's with tyres all on 33psi a corner. Not too bad given it's a big, heavy old car with an autobox.
Few more bits achieved today. Firstly replaced the original wheel bolts, it was getting to the stage where they were pretty untidy.
Secondly I replaced the rear badge
Lastly fitted some new mirrors. The adjustment motors in the original mirrors were beginning to fail, and this chrome set finish off the pearlescent green paintwork nicely compared to the standard body coloured set.
Secondly I replaced the rear badge
Lastly fitted some new mirrors. The adjustment motors in the original mirrors were beginning to fail, and this chrome set finish off the pearlescent green paintwork nicely compared to the standard body coloured set.
Jakg said:
I sound like such an anorak...
You might regret this. The cheap shiny wheelbolts don't stay shiny for long and corrode very quickly.
The very early cowley / pre project drive wheel bolts are black and injected with some kind of oil that makes them barely tarnish forever. Much better long term solution.
I will watch this space. The car is from the later stages of PD so I suspect the bolts I've removed are basic parts bin bolts, I'll keep a look out for some Cowley era bolts. It's always possible to stick those shiny plastic covers over the bolts if I wanted to keep them looking fresh I suppose. You might regret this. The cheap shiny wheelbolts don't stay shiny for long and corrode very quickly.
The very early cowley / pre project drive wheel bolts are black and injected with some kind of oil that makes them barely tarnish forever. Much better long term solution.
Well with the summer well and truly over, time for a quick update on the shed.
Since January it's now moved itself 19k miles, most of which has been trouble free. The summer heatwave brought to my attention a lack of functioning air conditioning, something I half thought about getting sorted. However, it seemed easier to open a window and carry on, so that's exactly what I did.
Around August, a knocking noise from the front end really started to get loud, so I investigated further and discovered one of the front anti roll bar drop links was so perished it looked like it was about to fall to bits. These cars do seem to enjoy eating front drop links, the replacement parts lasted only about three months before the knocking returned.
So after a trip to the Lake District, another poke around underneath discovered that not only was one of the new drop links playing up, the wishbone bushes were also shot and the rear coil springs suspected of being broken, due to the angle the car sat. So all of the above was replaced and the car now rides and handles like a dream.
I also had a new exhaust as the back box sounded as if the baffles had all had decided to go AWOL across the UK motorway network. Next up is a can of BG244 through the system as I've started noticing a bit of smoke under hard acceleration, so in the next few days the plan will be to clean the intake manifold, EGR, check the hoses and make sure my viton intercooler seals haven't played up.
In the meanwhile, I have a nice new set of Dunlop Winter Response 2's sitting on freshly refurbed 15" Crown alloys ready to go on, as soon as the temperature drops.
So overall a fairly smooth summer with the 75, nothing major and only routine and preventative maintenance on a 15 year old Longbridge veteran, fast approaching 110k miles. Hopefully winter doesn't bring surprises, nor it's MOT in Feb...
ciege said:
Big love for them on here, are you in the club :-)
Mines been in the family since new, farther in law handed it down :-) at 108,000 now done 136,000
Lovely car!
I may be.. To be honest I'm a member of so many various car clubs I can't actually remember Mines been in the family since new, farther in law handed it down :-) at 108,000 now done 136,000
Lovely car!
I have zero experience of the saloon versions, always been Tourers in my family. How do you find it?
Well overdue an update about this...
About 15 months since the last post and a few things have happened. The car is approaching 130k miles, having been to the West Country, Wales, Lake District, across the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, Normandy and Brittany.
Last winter the car went on to winter tyres, 4x Dunlop Winter Response 2 in 195/65r15 format. Each tyre brand new for about £60, each fitted to a set of refurbished alloys I acquired from the Bay for less than £50.
February snowfall provided a good opportunity to test them, both on roads and off road. There is a fair old debate on PH as to whether it's worth having winter tyres or not, my experience I wouldn't do another winter without them. For a majority of the time there's no huge difference, dry cornering does feel a tad more "sloppy" but as soon as the white stuff falls, you're laughing.
With temperatures climbing towards the tail end of February, the winters where removed, thoroughly cleaned inside and out, treads cleaned out, pressures pumped up and the whole set stacked at the back of the garage. I decided I preferred the ride quality of the smaller 15" to the 16"s that the car came with, so I sourced another set of 15s and put some new Pirelli rubber on them, selling the original 16s on eBay.
Next was to sort out the tatty steering wheel. The leather dye seems to flake off after 15 years of use, luckily there's a chap who provides kits to re-dye your wheel. After a few hours, I had a fresh sandstone wheel again...
However I'd been keeping an eye out on the bay of fleas for a second hand walnut steering wheel, at a reasonable price. Some seem to go for £150, which I didn't really want to pay. Typically, the evening I finished re dying my existing wheel, I found a walnut wheel for £40.. The leather needed work but hey, I'd just become a self-taught expert (read: hash artist) at re dying wheels. Plus the walnut wheel had far less leather than the standard wheel, so I should be able to sort it out with the remains of the dye and sealant I had left over.
Before
After
Fitted
Seeing as money was being spent on the aesthetics, I decided to keep an eye out for a set of halogen projectors too. The standard headlights are very average in my opinion, typical of late 90's design in reflector halogens. Eventually I came across a set of tidy looking projectors from a ZT, which were duly bought with the cash from the 16" wheel sale.
In my opinion they suit the car far better than standard reflector lenses. I put Phillips Racing Vision bulbs in for upgraded performance, avoiding the idea of HID - I can't be bothered with the added complexities of HID with ballasts, washers and so on, not to mention MOT time.
While all these various Rover upgrades have been going on, the legendary Jules has had a couple of visits this year too. The mechanicals so far this year include a lower arm, Meyle front drop links, handbrake adjustment, AC recharge, a replacement injector, some welding to fix the tailgate gas strut mount, gearbox oil change and the retrofitting of cruise control.
The rear nearside passenger window stopped functioning too, although only via the drivers main window switch panel. It was duly removed, dismantled, contacts cleaned, reassembled, reinstalled and hey, working electric windows again. I do love an easy fix!
All in all so far, the car has easily eaten it's way through far more money than either was paid for it or what it's worth, however these old retro English barges get under your skin. The old girl wafted across 2,000 miles of French roads this summer, no problem at all.
About 15 months since the last post and a few things have happened. The car is approaching 130k miles, having been to the West Country, Wales, Lake District, across the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, Normandy and Brittany.
Last winter the car went on to winter tyres, 4x Dunlop Winter Response 2 in 195/65r15 format. Each tyre brand new for about £60, each fitted to a set of refurbished alloys I acquired from the Bay for less than £50.
February snowfall provided a good opportunity to test them, both on roads and off road. There is a fair old debate on PH as to whether it's worth having winter tyres or not, my experience I wouldn't do another winter without them. For a majority of the time there's no huge difference, dry cornering does feel a tad more "sloppy" but as soon as the white stuff falls, you're laughing.
With temperatures climbing towards the tail end of February, the winters where removed, thoroughly cleaned inside and out, treads cleaned out, pressures pumped up and the whole set stacked at the back of the garage. I decided I preferred the ride quality of the smaller 15" to the 16"s that the car came with, so I sourced another set of 15s and put some new Pirelli rubber on them, selling the original 16s on eBay.
Next was to sort out the tatty steering wheel. The leather dye seems to flake off after 15 years of use, luckily there's a chap who provides kits to re-dye your wheel. After a few hours, I had a fresh sandstone wheel again...
However I'd been keeping an eye out on the bay of fleas for a second hand walnut steering wheel, at a reasonable price. Some seem to go for £150, which I didn't really want to pay. Typically, the evening I finished re dying my existing wheel, I found a walnut wheel for £40.. The leather needed work but hey, I'd just become a self-taught expert (read: hash artist) at re dying wheels. Plus the walnut wheel had far less leather than the standard wheel, so I should be able to sort it out with the remains of the dye and sealant I had left over.
Before
After
Fitted
Seeing as money was being spent on the aesthetics, I decided to keep an eye out for a set of halogen projectors too. The standard headlights are very average in my opinion, typical of late 90's design in reflector halogens. Eventually I came across a set of tidy looking projectors from a ZT, which were duly bought with the cash from the 16" wheel sale.
In my opinion they suit the car far better than standard reflector lenses. I put Phillips Racing Vision bulbs in for upgraded performance, avoiding the idea of HID - I can't be bothered with the added complexities of HID with ballasts, washers and so on, not to mention MOT time.
While all these various Rover upgrades have been going on, the legendary Jules has had a couple of visits this year too. The mechanicals so far this year include a lower arm, Meyle front drop links, handbrake adjustment, AC recharge, a replacement injector, some welding to fix the tailgate gas strut mount, gearbox oil change and the retrofitting of cruise control.
The rear nearside passenger window stopped functioning too, although only via the drivers main window switch panel. It was duly removed, dismantled, contacts cleaned, reassembled, reinstalled and hey, working electric windows again. I do love an easy fix!
All in all so far, the car has easily eaten it's way through far more money than either was paid for it or what it's worth, however these old retro English barges get under your skin. The old girl wafted across 2,000 miles of French roads this summer, no problem at all.
RazerSauber said:
I've quite enjoyed this thread, lovely car! I do wonder where Rover get their reputation for unreliability sometimes.
I think it's part related to the generic BL-era of British cars and partly the HG problems on K-Series engines, which I'm led to believe was to do with water pump failure more than the heads just going by themselves. Of course, a 75 is BMW-era Rover and the diesel is from their stable, same engine to be found in the likes of the E46 320d. Chain driven, low stressed, pre-DPF days, perhaps the best combination for big mileage reliability. I even know of a few with over 300,000 miles on the clock.
SamR380 said:
Technically, I think you're doing 'shed' wrong. I fully support everything you're doing though, you're even making me think about washing mine.
I think you're right. It's got under my skin and I can't but help myself trying to keep it in good condition, for nothing more than the perverse reason of improving condition with higher and higher mileage...Spinakerr said:
Really great stuff! Could you send me the link to the steering wheel redye kits? Ours has the look of a slightly worse-for-wear polecat at present.
The list of fixes there on a dark green tourer with Jules looks familiar!
I have also been considering a set of cheap 15s with winter tyres already on them, at the very least to try the ride quality. I think this has convinced me its a good idea, as our 75 is always the go-to car when the weather gets bad.
Onwards to 200k!
Indeed I'll try and find a link for you. The list of fixes there on a dark green tourer with Jules looks familiar!
I have also been considering a set of cheap 15s with winter tyres already on them, at the very least to try the ride quality. I think this has convinced me its a good idea, as our 75 is always the go-to car when the weather gets bad.
Onwards to 200k!
It's well worth going on to winter tyres in my opinion, given how cheap it can be to find a reasonable set of 15"s on fleabay for the 75 it's virtually a no-brainer. I used Dunlop Winter Response 2 on 195/65r15, 15" Crowns. Even with the autobox, the traction was superb. I went to an airfield with about 6" of fresh untouched snow on the runway, took it up to 40mph and it felt absolutely planted.
Finally some snow! This was taken the day after Storm Ciara, the day on which I was considering taking the winter tyres off as it's been so mild. This changed my mind..
It's this time of year that the MOT falls due, so a visit back to North Wales was booked in, to see Jules. Those who don't know, Jules is the go-to man with anything 75 or ZT related. It's a bit of a trek to his place but it's worth it, his knowledge of these cars is second to none and his hospitality is great too.
I figured that should it fail, then it was in safe hands with Jules to see about getting it through. I had a slight concern about the airbag light - a common issue with these cars, if the wiring connector under the seat is disturbed it can trigger a warning light on the dash. Given the seat was going to be moved for the test, there's a good chance the light would come on. Anyway, off to Wales...
You know you're in the right place when you're surrounded by Rover 75s! A quick check over revealed nothing obvious other than a brake flexi-pipe that had come adrift from a securing clip. Reattached, it was off to the test.
Regretfully it failed on two counts, one being the aforementioned airbag light coming on, second on emissions - well, it is a 17-year old pre-DPF diesel! It was only just over the limit so shouldn't be too hard to get through.
After pouring some neat injector cleaner straight into the fuel filter, it was noticed that the top intercooler hose was looking a bit past its best. They have a tendency to absorb oil and after 100,000 miles split. Seeing as mine was original and over 134,000 miles, we opted to replace it with a brand new hose.
Otherwise looking reasonably tidy under the bonnet!
The airbag light was fixed permanently by cutting the faulty connector out and crimping the wires back together. We headed back down to test centre, via a slight detour up to the next junction and back on the local DC, just to really work that cleaner through, blast any loose stuff from the exhaust and get everything nice and hot for the retest.
Pulling into the garage, it blew an indicator bulb... But anyway, it passed on emissions this time, an average of less than half the limit - which I was pleased about. So began the long drive home, fresh MOT certificate on the passenger seat, when the rear washer jet decided to empty its contents into the rear headlining...
TBC
Since I bought the car in Jan 2018, it had always suffered weak pressure at the rear washer jet, but now that I had a sagging purple headlining, wet boot carpet and no fluid at all at the jet, it was time to fix it.
The pipe routes up the offside D-pillar, so all corresponding trim was removed, including side carpets, tailgate trim removed and rear headlining dropped. The original pipe was cut half way up the D-pillar, as the trim here is easily removed so any future issues with the washer can be diagnosed without having to take the entire interior to bits. The old pipework from the pillar, under the headlining, through the rubber tubes into the tailgate, then through secondary rubber tubes to the opening glass hatch and jet were all removed.
I discovered five separate splits in the old pipe, it's a wonder I had any washer fluid getting to the window at all! All old pipe replaced with new 5mm clear PVC stuff bought from B&Q for about £1.50, reinforced in certain areas at risk of rubbing on sharp edges -
I now had a powerful rear washer. While the boot sides were out, I took the opportunity to check for leaks from the exterior waistline chrome trim - these are known for leaking but all appeared dry on my car.
While I was at it fixing little niggles, I thought I'd have a go at the passenger door mirror. On the 75, these are permanently heated. On most cars with heated mirrors, they only function when the HRW is on, however for some reason this isn't the case with Rover. The spade connections to the back of the mirror glass are known to corrode, meaning the heating element ceases to work properly. Often cleaning up the contacts is enough to get them going again, on mine I decided they looked sufficiently manky to warrant replacement with new connectors..
Upon testing, it helped a bit but the mirror wasn't getting as warm as the fully functioning drivers side mirror, and only in one corner. It would seem that the heating element itself was on the way out, so a brand new heated mirror glass was ordered courtesy of eBay for the sum of £10.
I ordered one for a Rover 45 in the end, as early 75s had different mirrors to the later cars (such as mine), the latter of which were then sharing mirrors with the 25 and 45. To avoid being sent the wrong 75 mirror glass I played if safe and went for the one listed as a 45 mirror. Once arrived, plugged in and fitted, all working perfectly. It's better than the drivers side mirror now so I may order a new glass for the drivers side in due course.
So a fresh MOT, no advisories and a few niggles fixed. Next up will be a full service again over the next couple of hundred miles, that should see the car out of winter.
The pipe routes up the offside D-pillar, so all corresponding trim was removed, including side carpets, tailgate trim removed and rear headlining dropped. The original pipe was cut half way up the D-pillar, as the trim here is easily removed so any future issues with the washer can be diagnosed without having to take the entire interior to bits. The old pipework from the pillar, under the headlining, through the rubber tubes into the tailgate, then through secondary rubber tubes to the opening glass hatch and jet were all removed.
I discovered five separate splits in the old pipe, it's a wonder I had any washer fluid getting to the window at all! All old pipe replaced with new 5mm clear PVC stuff bought from B&Q for about £1.50, reinforced in certain areas at risk of rubbing on sharp edges -
I now had a powerful rear washer. While the boot sides were out, I took the opportunity to check for leaks from the exterior waistline chrome trim - these are known for leaking but all appeared dry on my car.
While I was at it fixing little niggles, I thought I'd have a go at the passenger door mirror. On the 75, these are permanently heated. On most cars with heated mirrors, they only function when the HRW is on, however for some reason this isn't the case with Rover. The spade connections to the back of the mirror glass are known to corrode, meaning the heating element ceases to work properly. Often cleaning up the contacts is enough to get them going again, on mine I decided they looked sufficiently manky to warrant replacement with new connectors..
Upon testing, it helped a bit but the mirror wasn't getting as warm as the fully functioning drivers side mirror, and only in one corner. It would seem that the heating element itself was on the way out, so a brand new heated mirror glass was ordered courtesy of eBay for the sum of £10.
I ordered one for a Rover 45 in the end, as early 75s had different mirrors to the later cars (such as mine), the latter of which were then sharing mirrors with the 25 and 45. To avoid being sent the wrong 75 mirror glass I played if safe and went for the one listed as a 45 mirror. Once arrived, plugged in and fitted, all working perfectly. It's better than the drivers side mirror now so I may order a new glass for the drivers side in due course.
So a fresh MOT, no advisories and a few niggles fixed. Next up will be a full service again over the next couple of hundred miles, that should see the car out of winter.
oobster said:
I like reading threads like this, lots of updates with pics and making the car better wherever possible.... how do you find tinkering with the car outside in the winter though?
Generally the winter months are quieter on the tinkering front, it's generally only routine servicing and replacing the odd blow bulb that needs to be done. Bigger jobs I clump together and have done in North Wales. SeanEP3 said:
how much did you pay for the car? looks a great car to be fair
£2k, 90k on the clock at the time. Perhaps a little on the high side at the time but the car has turned out to be a good'un so far. Since then good ones seem to be selling nearer £3k and sometimes even more for low mileage examples. You can still pick up tatty examples for a few hundred quid.
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