After a 360 mile round trip we made it home at about 6.30 last night!

The SD1 ran perfect all the way home from Merthyr, and is now tucked up in a
garage ready for it's MoT tomorrow.

The body is in fantastic condition - couple of rust scabs, but nothing
major. Engine runs perfect - carbs seem to be well tuned and quite refined.
The noise from the SS exhaust is simply amazing - driving through the
Newport tunnel on the M4 was pretty cool - even Nat commented when we
stopped who was following me in the Volvo It's got Gaz adjustable
dampers all round, with 30mm lowered springs, plus a polybushed front end
which makes it quite tight round the corners - although it's still not
exactly nimble.

Main issue as far as I can see is the front suspension - looks of
knocking/rattling on bumpy roads. Could well be the ball joints as the guy
thought, but he's given me 2 new lower arms/ball joints so they wont take
long to change. Other suspension parts seem quite plentiful and cheap
anyway. Gearbox is whiney like he said, but not as bad as I thought. Will
try and source a decent 2nd hand one to fit at some point. Speedo is also
annoying - the KPH speed is more or less the speedo you're doing in MPH,
which I need to look into.

Other niggly issues is the top dash cover has warped, one of the e/r/w don't
work, c/l doesn't work (if i had it?), adjusting the e/m sometimes resets
the clock and the PAS is far too light for my liking. So most of that I
should be able to fix without too many issues!

All in all I'm well happy, and I think I got a bloody good deal!

Couple of pics I took quickly:
http://www.carlgibbs.com/gallery/v/cars/sd1/
I think it looks amazing

Oh, and the Nova died yesterday just as we left - the n/s track control arm
as ripped itseld away from the front cross member. Joy!

--
Carl
--------------------------------------------------
1990 Citroen BX 16v - daily driver
1982 Rover 3500SE
1989 Volvo 360 GLT - for sale
1990 Vauxhall Nova TD
www.carlgibbs.com/gallery
--------------------------------------------------

In article <57uh2hF2e8trcU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>, cagmeister (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk
says...

RPM-meter with 5000 as redline? You haven't bought a diesel have you?
Throw in some piper cams, raise redline to 6500, bolt on a free flowing
exhaust and a new air filter. Oil change as precaution and you are ready
to rumble with about 30% extra power!

Very very nice, Mr Gibbs! You seem to have found a Rover which the rust
fairy has overlooked. Interior seems quite OK too.

Well done!

Tom De Moor

In article <57uh2hF2e8trcU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>,
Carl Gibbs <cagmeister (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote:
One tip is to get one of those ratchet luggage straps. The anti-roll bar
has to be sprung back into it's mounting in the lower arm and requires a
deal of force. A ratchet strap round it and the chassis leg makes it a
doddle.

You'll be lucky - perfect ones are difficult to find. And many 're-cons'
are noisy too. The expensive fix is all new later internals - but it's
still not a brilliant box.

That's because it's been converted using the wrong box. There are three
axle ratios used across the range with manual boxes and the boxes
themselves are physically interchangeable. *But* the speedo drive is
matched to the axle ratio. It consists of an external part easily removed
- and an internal gear which means partial stripping of the box to
change...

There's also a 4th axle ratio used on the auto Vitesse and EFIs. And no
speedo drive exists for the manual box which would be correct with these.
Although the gearing would be too tall anyway. So if converting a Vitesse
or EFI to manual you need to change the rear axle too. Fortunately the
required one (3.08) is also the most common - and the now surplus 2.85
will fetch decent money from the TR8 conversion boys.

New available from Rimmer. But that will warp too...

See earlier post

They all have. It's a weird system (if the later type) with no motor but
only a control unit in the drivers door, which looks identical to the
motors apart from having four wires to it rather than the two for the
motors. This sends out a timed pulse to the motors. I've got a spare if
this is the problem - but check it's getting power and an earth first,
obviously. You can try just powering up the two wire operating circuit
momentarily - one polarity makes them open, the other close. But only
flick the power on for about a second or so.

The snag with this system is that it can only be operated from the
driver's door. If you want remote operation etc it requires modification.
Mine is now heavily modified to get round other design problems. I'm
writing an article about it for the club mag.

The steering can be a problem as it depends on the make of rack fitted.
The most common is the Cam Gears which is also the lightest and has the
least feel. A smaller steering wheel will help matters. ;-)

Eggselent.

--
*Who are these kids and why are they calling me Mom?

Dave Plowman dave (AT) davenoise (DOT) co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" <dave (AT) davenoise (DOT) co.uk> wrote

Noted!
Damn. The change is very sloppy, but I got used to it after about 20 mins.
Much like a Pug 205!!
I was talking to the owner about it and he says it was converted using a
Vitesse box, so it now has an early (carb'd) auto axle with that box.

When you say speedo drive - do you mean the speedo drive in the box, or the
speedo drive in the actual speedo head? I'm so confused

What I really need is a knackered car which has the complete, decent
drivetrain available so I can just swap it all over so it matches
Probably an unlikely find though!

Another option I was thinking of was to modify the transducer thingy. I've
got a mate that's a bit of an electronics whizz - do you reckon it'd be
possible to get it accurate that way?

Not in blue though. Need to have a proper look when I get the car back to
see what I can do with it.
Yes, thanks for that! I think a spare regulator may have been included.
Again, I need to get the car back and check it out.
Interesting. It's something I'd definately like to get sorted so that'll
give me something to do one saturday!
Yeah, the steering has very little feel, and the wheel is huge. My first
thought was to get a nice Mountney wheel for it at some point, which as you
say, will hopefully improve things a bit. Also the bit of shiney metal in
the middle of the wheel reflects the sunlight into your eyes, which is
useful(!)

"Tom De Moor" <viperengine (AT) removethis (DOT) gmail.com> wrote

Yep, once some other jobs are done it'll be getting a nice Mountney one!
It's only putting out a lazy 155bhp. Although it seems to use that quite
well.

It's got the freer flowing exhaust, and I'll only need the one cam!! Lots
of money though, something which I dont have at the moment. Having just
looked at the website it's £372 + VAT for the fast road carb kit, which
supposedly gives an extra 24bhp with a 1500-6000rpm power band. Sounds
good, but probably also means getting the carbs retuned. Probably easier
just to look for an EFI kit and get an instand 35bhp increase!!
Yeah interior is good - couple of things to sort but nothing major.
Certainly nice and comfortable on the motorway and then the A-road blat I
did in it yesterday!
Thanks

"Carl Gibbs" <cagmeister (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote

Heh, even I quite like them for some reason :-)

Dannnng. Well played on the SD1 surviving the journey though! Went to look
at a VXT the other day ;-) But it was a bit overpriced, and no hardtop
(which I'd quite like), and to be honest was quite tatty. I know they don't
wear that well, but compared to others I've seen.

--
Dan

"Carl Gibbs" <cagmeister (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote

Well done - a third car bought on eBay in the past couple of weeks.

"Carl Gibbs" <cagmeister (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote

heh and people say my bm is restricted badly at 193bhp hehe i should stop
being a cheapskate and unlock the extra poke but i'm to lazy :-P

nice car though but why doesn't anything work on a rover? on my MK1 MR2 the
only prob it had was rust everything else worked but i guess thats jap crap
for you

"Vamp" <None (AT) none (DOT) com> wrote

"Iridium" <iridiumdan (AT) googlemail (DOT) com> wrote

you serious on the VX220 thing then? how much you looking at? i like them
but i could never decide if i could put up with it everyday.
i got wasted by one in my old MR2 turbo there just so damn quick! still the
MR2 was far more comfortable anyway which i'd rather have plus a higher top
speed which is pretty pointless these days as my licence found out