Those moments

Those moments like

1. Why am I doing this and
2. You know that's not bad at all!

The first one came to me when I was lying on a cold concrete floor with my hair in the dust whilst fighting propshaft nuts and bolts on the 2000. Not one of the greatest times in my life but satisfying when it's finally done.

Then removal of the speedo cable, wiring to the reverse switch and overdrive. Just about to get the front wheels off when it was time to call it a day.

Here is PMW ready for the engine and gearbox to be dropped out next week if all goes well. At that point it will be possible to start swapping the rebuilt engine over before it all goes back in.

Off side boot floor - solid by the looks of it

Then there's moment 2 - "You know that's not bad at all!

For the first time since collection I had a look at my Rover and, yes, it's not bad at all. I reckon if I had hundreds of hours and thousands of £ it would be a very good car indeed. As I don't have either it will still be another good solid addition to the fleet.

Here's a few photos with captions

Nearside boot floor - not bad at all

Interior in the front - wood and leather - nice!

 

The view from the captain's chair of the Starship Enterprise!

Not the Christmas Meal 2013

Last weekend was the NTXM 2013 and I have just about recovered.


Another really great night that carried over into the early hours!

40+ there and it gets better each year. This year's theme was the "Wild West" as you can see in the photos

Steve Thompson receives his award as P&P champion attender

My Movember tash worked well for my Mexican bandit outfit!

Bryce Greenwood receiving award as P&P's Competitor of the year

Dodgy gang

Just a little bit silly?

I have gone and bought another car. This really must be the last one!

It's just that a few months ago I came across a motor show car with only 17 miles on the clock for sale on ebay and had to bid on it. Glad I didn't "win" because I bid £4000 which is very rich for me and my car collecting habits.

The car? A Rover SD1. That got me into wanting one and I missed out on a sound (allegedly) rolling shell at £500 which is more my financial territory.

Well having a bit of time off work is a terrible thing and that left me surfing again and this time I have bought one and collected it today - a big thanks here to Bryce yet again for helping me out here.

It's a 3500 EFI Van Den Plas first registered in March 1987 which makes it one of the last built. Interestingly it was a 2600 originally but apparently when the cam seized the owner at the time paid for a professional conversion by Rovertec (now V8 developments) to the EFI 3.5 V8 engine.

Today it's solid, runs, nearly everything is there (!) and it looks very cosmetically challenged.

Having said all that I am well pleased as I have a 190 BHP car that could take 4 people all round Europe at high speed in comfort - potentially.

And the cost? Even less than £500.

A lovely big pair

Here we have a lovely pair of 1 3/4" Stromberg carburettors from a TR4. Dazzer reckons this is the way to go tuning a 2000 so I have taken his advice and bought this pair; they are in good condition and less than £40 delivered from ebay.

That's a pretty good buy I reckon - certainly cheaper than 3 DCOE Webers!

MOtivation

Away from the car front I have been taking part in Movember in support of men's health, in particular prostate cancer.

Here's my attempt at a moustache which I rather like - don't tell SWMBO, but I may well keep it.

If you would like to know more and maybe make a donation here's the link
http://uk.movember.com/mospace/

Meanwhile, I haven't been completely away from tinkering with Triumphs.

I have over the last two weeks finally managed to get all the lights working as they should on UNJ - even the headlamps pop up when "flashed". Getting the switch panel back in to the dash with everything working and intact took some doing but has been achieved.

I have entered Club Triumph's 10CR and UNJ will be the car I use so it will get more attention from March on and will eb the one I use when I return to driving so that hopefully it will be reliable on the event itself.

Once more into the breach

Been a full week again at work so not at maximum enthusiasm level this week.

Then having to rely on buses and trains doesn't help. 2 hours for a journey that would take 45 minutes tops in a car is not funny.

Anyway, with Bryce's help PMW was moved into a place where the engine can be removed as seen in the photo.

I am going for the method in the official workshop manual which is dropping the front supsension and pulling the engine and gearbox out from under the front of the car on it's subframe.

That should make mating the engine and gearbox up much easier and I can swap bits over from one engine to another while it's out the car too.

All went OK removing bits in the engine bay - carbs etc and disconnecting the starter motor, clutch slave cylinder. Thanks to Andy Pearce and Tim Bancroft for giving me advice on how to remove the overdrive gearknob which is obvious when you know how. With that off and the gear lever shroud removed as well I needed to lift the car; disconnect the speedo and overdive cables/wiring before then unbolting the propshaft.

After that it's onto dropping the front suspension.

To be honest though, I ran out of motivation at that point and I think a break for a week or two wouldn't go amiss.In December I'll return to the attack and no doubt it won't take long for the engine and box to be out.

I am looking forward to the arrival of the next Club Torque though so I can get my entry in for 2013's 10 Countries Run. Mind you, I'll be using UNJ (the TR7 DHC) so that will need an MOT and taxing in March/April whcioh will probably mean a stop to work on PMW.

A bit of a race really to see what I can get done to PMW before March.

Engine built up

After today's work on the engine there is very little left to do other than fit and swap ancillaries over - oh and get it running of course! Easy then.

This is where I started today. The front timing chain cover needed cleaning and the oil seal replaced with a "heavy duty" leather one I had bought rather than the standard rubber type.

Once that was done it was just a case of fitting it whilst making sure the timing chain tensioner was kept in the right place, which is yet another thing I hope I have done right.

I had painted the rocker cover but actually preferred the scratched one fitted to PMW so got hold of that and at least made some attempt at cleaning it before fitting.

I would then have done the last job listed in the original workshop manual and fitted the distributor pedestal with it's shim gasket. Unfortunately, that little gasket has gone AWOL so I'll leave that until I find more bits needed which I am.bound to do once we start fitting the engine to the car. At that point I'll order the gasket with the other bits like hoses etc.

So, calling it a day this is what a built up 2000 engine looks like.