My new toy

Post by **Punx0r** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 12:09 pm

Behold!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %3AIT&rd=1

Not going to be able to collect it for a fortnight though, and I need to hire a trailer too!

Post by **Marty** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 12:26 pm

I banger raced one of them a couple of years back

did not rearlise they where makeing good money

BrackenFox · Post by **BrackenFox** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 12:34 pm

GSITURBO2002 wrote:I banger raced one of them a couple of years back did not rearlise they where makeing good money

Banger... Raced... An... SD1... Vitesse...?

*twitches*

Post by **Punx0r** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 12:47 pm

Lol, good pic

You should have seen the black one posted in the ebay section a couple of weeks ago. I had my eye on that but it went for over a grand in the end!

rnash2002 · Post by **rnash2002** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 12:49 pm

Looks a good one mate

Post by **Punx0r** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 10:39 pm

Thought I'd update this, seeing as I've now had the car a few weeks. Still haven't run it yet though

The car is not rotten at all and requires no welding/panels. It does have a fair few patches of rust starting to bubble though. That's going to need a weekend of rubbing down with wet'n'dry, corrosion treating and painting. The car will need a whole blow over at some point, but I'm undecided whether to do this before I sell it or not.

I can't keep this car forever due to the running costs and mostly because I don't have a garage for it to look after it properly.

Interior is in very good condition. I thought the headlining was supposed to drop onto your head in these cars but this one looks absolutely normal. Boot lock was siezed.

Changed the oil and flushed the coolant system. Replaced dissy cap and rotor arm, reconnected all the plugs leads. Removed the fuel and drained the tank. The petrol was still very flammable but stunk like thinners. A horrible slug of thick rubbery tar also worked its way out of the tank. Battery was quite a few years old and was down to 1.5v! Topped up the cells and recharged it and amazingly it's back to good health! Enough current to turn the engine over and has held charge for several weeks now.

Fuel pump was siezed solid. Â£150+VAT for a new one so decided to strip the current one even though it clearly wasn't meant to be taken apart (crimped case). Stripped, cleaned, oiled labouriously reassembled, it then leaked when tested. Dissassembled it and applied globs of sealent and it now works.

Electrical feed for the fuel pump is dead and I cannot find any kind of fuse for it, or reference to one anyway. wiring seems to go straight to an ECU in the footwell. I'll probably have to run a new ignition live for it if all else fails. Running it directly from a small 12v battery at the moment.

Disconnected fuel filter in the engine bay and pumped some petrol through. decent quantity but not really any pressure, probably normal. Having oiled the bores and spun the engine over on the starter it was time to fire the V8 up

Alas not, turns out that 7 of the 8 fuel injectors plus the additonal cold-start injector aren't squirting. Remove the injectors, fill them with carb cleaner, connect to a compressed airline from the car's tyre, tap 12v across them and away they go.

Refit them all to the car, crank her over and nothing! None of them squirting. Check for fuel at the filter and nothing! Disconnect pipe from pump outlet and run pump, fuel gushes out. So either the pipe from the pump to the engine bay has suddenly become blocked, or the pump has suddenly decided it can't lift the petrol the whole 2ft upwards

I'll hopefully get her started this weekend

I'm thinking that pump may be shafted though. Then the siezed rear wheel cylinders need replacing, front calipers stripping/cleaning and the brakefluid changing. Some goodrridge braided flexies are being added while that's going on.

The gas struts on the bonnet need replacing as they have an interesting habbit of dropping the bonnet onto your head. It also took me about 5 minutes to open the bonnet the first time after finding the release cable (inside glovebox under steering column) - forgetting that the bonnet opens from the back

mach1rob · Post by **mach1rob** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:02 pm

I used to like you once!

Me? jealous? never! Have an extremely soft spot for SD1 Vitesses and one day when missus can't stop me I will have another

Keep us informed on progress, be great to hear the old girls burst back into life again

Oh and come on forgetting bonnet opens forwards! Look! He was even kind enough to show you

600_Nutta · Post by **600_Nutta** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:12 pm

It will definatley turn heads, once complete, rare as rocking horse $h1t
Nice find and a good price for a v8 vitty

might cost a bit to complete but will be well worth it

hoody · Post by **hoody** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:52 pm

did vitesses not have twin plenums?

xr4x4 · Post by **xr4x4** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 12:05 am

hoody wrote:did vitesses not have twin plenums?

some of them did.. i think they are even rarer..

clarkson moded one of these in one of his videos.. 4.3 i think he bored it out to. he raced VBH in a 2L nova.. in the wet.. you can imagine how much fun that was in a SD1...!

mach1rob · Post by **mach1rob** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 12:23 am

Yeah the twin plenums are rare as and worth a fortune now, as it was the upgraded homoglation model for the ETC, only made last year or two of production before the 800 came in to replace the SD1

Post by **Punx0r** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:08 pm

That's correct about the twin plenum, I think only about 500 at the very most were made. It has two throttle bodies rather than the single body on mine and makes an extra 20HP. The single plenum being 190HP.

Twin plenum parts do crop up on ebay so you can upgrade an engine. They do fetch decent money though - Â£200-Â£300 from what I've seen.

There's just so much you can do to these engines in terms of tuning. 4.6 blocks aren't exactly rare. I saw a set of forged, low compression pistons failing to sell for Â£180 on ebay, they had only done dyno-time. I like the way you can change the exhaust manifolds and get a noticable power increases (the standard ones look awful).

Loads of spares available thanks to landrover.

It should be a hoot in standard form though. I'm going to have to learn how to go around roundabout sideways

It will be loud when it starts up - there's several holes in the Y part of the downpipe

BrackenFox · Post by **BrackenFox** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:55 pm

Would be nice wo get a vid of her first firing up!

Nothing like the sound of a good old Rover V8.

My brother had a red SD1 Vitty a couple of years back, was rather nice to realise that his old Rover got more attention than any Ferrari, Aston, or whatever he pulled up next to.

Absolutely classic car, and one of my favourites of all time.

Git.

Squaddiemodo · Post by **Squaddiemodo** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:57 pm

I would love one, but rach has said she would divorce me first lol

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:02 pm

I'm going to have to learn how to go around roundabout sideways

I have to say as a passanger in one its great fun!

i would love a vitesse twin plenum. Red or black though!

BrackenFox · Post by **BrackenFox** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:05 pm

I so, so nearly bought a nearly mint black one a few years back, and I've kicked myself ever since.

Squaddiemodo · Post by **Squaddiemodo** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:07 pm

Unfortunatly with petrol being a pound a litre here, just running the damn things is a luxury

hoody · Post by **hoody** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:51 pm

hi had a 1985 3500 vanden plas and what a car it was once i got used to steering with an egg shaped steering wheel,the engine still lives on in a tr7.looks a good one mate,have fun and get it fired up as brackenfox says one of the best sounds around.

mach1rob · Post by **mach1rob** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 3:52 pm

http://www.rt2468abcd.r8technology.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=55527

Rest my case

Post by **Punx0r** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 5:17 pm

I did get a little done yesterday with my old man after work. There was a partial blockage in the fuel pump to engine bay pipe which was cleared with carb cleaner and a foot pump. Once reconnected the pump happily pumped fuel up into the bay.

The injectors were refitted into the fuel rail and the engine turned over, but no fuel was squirted. 4 of the injectors were swapped for spares and the fuel railer checked for flow in various places, but still nothing. I got the multimeer into a couple of the injector connecters and got nowt (previous testing had showed pulses of 0.8-0.9v).

After a bit of head scratching we realised the problem - we'd removed all the plugs to allow the engine to turn over much easier and disconnected the LT side of the ignition coil - as is good practice. The odd thing about this fuel injection system is that it uses the coil and distributor to measure engine speed and control the injectors! Coil reconnected and we have 8 squirting injectors.

The engine does have what looks like a crank sensor (single peg) on the crank pulley but it seems to be just wired to the diagnostic sensor.

The injectors are fired in two groups of four (serious batch mode!), Left and Right banks together. They also fire twice per cycle which doesn't seem ideal. The cold start injector works from -20*C to 35*C which may explain why ours didn't seem to be working.

I have also discovered something interesting about the fuel pump whilst trawling google - the air flow meter is a spring loaded plate that swings open in the air streaming through the inlet system connected to a potentiometer. When the engine is off the plate shuts and breaks the contacts for the fuel pump relay. Meaning the fuel pump will only run during cranking and engine running. Very unlike MEMS, which is what confused me.

So hopefully tomorrow will reveal that manually operating the airflow meter will see 12v appear at the fuel pump

So tomorrow involves refitting the plenum and pipework and it should be good to go. Can't wait

xr4x4 · Post by **xr4x4** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 6:38 pm

i think you might find the airflow meter controlls the fueling too... well it does on the EFI rangies anyway.

but u prob new that.

Post by **Punx0r** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 7:26 pm

Yes mate, I found an excellent workshop style manual on google that lists how the whole lot works and also a great fault-finding section, testing parts/sensor, tracing air leaks and electrical faults etc

Podman · Post by **Podman** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 7:58 pm

Had a red c reg VDP as my 2nd car

wsa a great car, and correct me if I'm wrontg but I'm damn sureit was 4.2(or was at least bought as such). Used to much cluthces though

fuel economy was erm.....harsh but fuel wsa cheapish then so didn't matter, in the end my alternator died and I didn't realise. kept braking down and I didn't know why, also if it didn't o flat teh fuel pump would randomnly cut out too so in teh end I got rid, other than myfirst car which wsa a 2litre mk3 cortina it ws ateh most fun car I had. Hope all goes well for ya in the end.

Post by **Punx0r** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 7:09 pm

She runs!

Reassembled everything but she still wouldn't do anything, not a stutter a missfire etc. Checked for spark, but it was bound to be fuel really. Checked for fuel flow at the bay and got a rather sad trickle. Down at the pump outlet wasn't much better either. Pulled the pipe from the tank and petrol gushed out, so no blockage there.

I fished out my spare 800 submersible pump and stick the pickup sock into a pan of petrol and connected it momentarily to a battery and it squirted petrol several feet down the road. This was very different to the SD1 pump, even though both fuel inection systems run at similar pressures (35-40psi for the SD1).

After trying to carefully disassemble the 800 pump I took a hacksaw to the return pipe so I could seperate the pump from the rest of the gubbins and give me an outlet pipe I could attach a hose to. So with the 800 pump sat in a washing up bowl of petrol and the outlet connected to the SD1 pipework, I put 12v across it and dad cranked the engine over...

It didn't splutter into life at all, it span over a couple of times lifeless and then fired on all 8 cylinders

Smoke poured from about 4 different places on the exhaust including the tail pipe. It sounded fecking brilliant, loud but also meaty unlike most 4 cylinder lumps. It sounded like the gods were angry

Interestingly it would idle with an occasional throttle blip for about 30 seconds without the fuel pump running before it started stuttering.

The waterpump was squealing like a good'un so the radiator is currently out so that can be replaced. Just got to work out how the feck the viscous fan coupling is removed because it isn't obvious (and Haynes is wrong).

Unfortunatly I can't think of any reliable way to utilise the 800 pump permanently so I'm now after a secondhand SD1 EFI pump.

About fecking time to be honest, I was starting to get fed up with it! Does go to show how Rover 800's are just so useful

Edit: The 12v feed to the fuel pump is still alive afterall. Ignition on and poke the air flow meter flap and 12v appears at the pump.

xr4x4 · Post by **xr4x4** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:38 pm

cool..

bet your chuffed..

Podman · Post by **Podman** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:55 pm

Congrats !!!

Good luck on finding a 2nd hand pump for her

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 10:14 pm

good job!

we want a video (woth sound)

mach1rob · Post by **mach1rob** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 10:22 pm

Chop chop and get her sorted I wanna go!

Post by **Punx0r** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:21 pm

Yeah it was fun

Didn't get a video though, might try another time with my dad's camera phone.

The waterpump was removed today to reveal nothing obviously wrong with it, so it's being cleaned and refitted pending testing and noise tracing.

Also discovered why the windscreen washers don't work - the reservior and pump are in a cardboard box of bits in the boot. So that should be any easy fix for another potential MOT failure.

I was thinking about the Pod day in August, but don't think the car will be ready tbh, there's a fair bit left to do and it's not far off

Post by **Punx0r** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 11:21 pm

There has been some progress one the car

I bought a secondhand "Facet" fuel pump from ebay and the car now starts on the key every time (except for the weak battery)

The rear brakes have been stripped/cleaned along with new wheel cylinders as they were both siezed solid. The front calipers are in bits and a seal kit is on its way from Rimmer Bros. Unfortunately the pistons are a bit corroded. Rover cheaped out and used chrome plated steel instead of stainless

and the chrome has corroded through in places.

The current pads are completely shot and fitting new ones is going to put the damaged part of the piston back into the caliper. We shall clean them up as best we can and hope they don't leak, if they do then it's time for a rethink. New pistons are available for the very reasonable price of Â£12, but these are 4-pot calipers so we would require 8 of them

The siezed clutch turned out to be the slave cylinder siezed solid (it was holding the spring pressure of the clutch). That was a free fix as the cylinder was in good condition, so just clean and reassemble. Oh boy is this thing so much easier to bleed than a T16 rover! You just pump the clutch pedal and it squirts out the air - even when the tiny reservior ran dry and sucked air through the whole system.

I've sourced some good condition downpipes that need fitting. Still need a Y-piece, might get a new one of those if nothing comes up. After that it just needs a steering rack gaitor and investigate why the wipers don't work and it's ready for the MOT

All the washers worked ok with no complications (surprisingly).

We had the back of the car jacked up earlier testing the clutch and gearbox. I wanted to take a photo but didn't have my camera

While checking all the lights I did notice a small amount of smoke coming from above the instrument cluster! Not good and I'm sure it'll be fun investigating...

I've also been getting insurance quotes which hasn't been much fun. I thought at first that we could get a nice cheap classic policy since it is a second car and will only do a few thousand miles a year. Most quotes have been over a grand

Regular insurance hasn't been much better either, cheapest so far is Â£650 for the both of us (TPFT), which is bizzare because it's almost 2.5 times what I pay for the 800 vit, and doubly so because a couple of years ago I got a quote and it was cheaper than the 800 vit. I swear I didn't image it

Probably won't get much done this weekend, but me and dad are planning to go to the motor museum in Warwickshire on sunday. They've got a 30th anniversary thing on for the SD1, so might see some nice cars

xr4x4 · Post by **xr4x4** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:18 am

cool... nice going... got quite a bit done then.

be great to see it finished and runnig..

it was my goal to have one of these when i was younger, i loved em.

Squaddiemodo · Post by **Squaddiemodo** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:21 am

so are we going to be seeing the old girl at Pod then

Tom™ · Post by **Tom™** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:05 am

cool! made for interesting reading, amazing work there

Post by **Punx0r** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:19 pm

If you mean the 13th August RWYB day then sadly not as it won't be legal and ready by then, but if any events happen when it is roadworthy then it'd be daft not to go along

I got a bunch more insurance quotes last night and I'm down to Â£400 now, which is a bit more realistic, but still not ideal so I'll keep on trying.

The bodywork aspect is a bit depressing tbh. The car is comletely solid, but I just keep seeing a little crack in the paint with rust here, and a bubble here, most tucked away in crevices and seams. It's going to take a lot of work to get rid of it all otherwise it'll become serious rust in a few years.

Post by **Punx0r** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 7:45 pm

I changed the very badly split steering gaitor (it was in loads of pieces), which wasn't too hard at all. That's one more MOT-failer done. I also took a quick look at the wipers - I'm getting power to the motor but no movement, so it's time to remove the motor, which I started but ran out of time. Looking at the weather forecast, I don't think I'l get to do anything on the car tomorrow.

The last time the car was run I put a multimeter on the alternator and found that it wasn't charging. I refitted it today having cleaned everything up. Annoyingly the alternator belt kept slipping despite my efforts to bolt the altlernator up with it tight. I didn't faff about with it, better to wait until I've got a second pair of hands which will make it a 5 minute job.

The car has developed an interesting habbit: it won't start! There's a short pipe that joints the airfilter to the air flow meter/throttle body. Removing the pipe (in order to poke the AFM to check the fuel pump) causes the engine to start. I can only guess that when cranking the flap in the AFM isn't opening and activating the fuel pump like it should. I would blame this on a blocked airfilter but it looks very clean and new.

I'm going to leave the pipe off and see if the car starts ok next time without manually priming the fuel pump.

I also took a short (1.3Mb) video of starting the car, unfortunately the alternator belt started squealing

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b389/ ... start2.flv