rich. wrote: ↑Sun Jun 09, 2024 7:58 pm
As sludge is coming through are you going to get the tank out and clean it out?
The tank is going to need to come out one way or another anyway. The gauge sender is dead and the return line needs to be properly sorted longer term and the issue there is the fitting going into the tank itself is clogged. As Rover in their infinite wisdom combined this all into an assembly that goes into the bottom of the tank, that's a tank out job to sort anyway. So at some point that will indeed need to happen.
The amount of crud that's come through so far isn't enough to alarm or worry me, just a little bit of gritty residue in the bottom of the filter - I've seen far worse from the lines and such from a car that's been sitting and have it settle down after a short period - but it's definitely going to need to be monitored. The tank when I got the car was basically full so I'm hoping that's saved it from a lot of condensation damage you might otherwise have seen. Given how many orders of magnitude easier this would be with the car on a four post lift this may well end up being a job I farm out to a garage, as discovering exactly how much fuel I failed to drain from the tank when it pours in my face as I go to disconnect the fitting which then probably rounds or shears off just doesn't sound like my idea of fun.
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Some considerable number of months ago I pulled the cylinder heads off a certain Rover P6. This resulted in my garage ending up looking like even more of a disaster area once I was done than usual. TPA had been all but buried and walking past her to gain access to the rear of the garage had started to involve an ever increasing amount of mountaineering. Owning to the garage being so narrow it's just annoying enough to squeeze in past a car parked in there that instead putting things away properly to just pile items up on and around the rear end of the car that's parked there. Especially as the paint is in such a state that scratching it really isn't high on the worry list as you'd never notice anyway. The intention is always for this to be a transitionary state of things and that you'll go back later to tidy up properly...However that keeps not happening. My garage is an absolute disaster at the best of times and it makes my teeth itch every time I even think about it - but I've just never had enough time in a single block available to get a skip in and pull *everything* out to ascertain what needs to stay, what needs to go, to get a LOAD of shelving installed at the far end, then to put everything that should stay back in. This had originally been planned as the big summer project for 2020 - but then 2020 happened instead.
Knowing that relocation is something that's at least on the horizon nowadays also kind of damps the enthusiasm to make a start on the job as well, especially as the lofts are in a similar state. I'd just as soon have a skip on hand to sift the junk into between the house and the van when we're moving stuff out of the house rather than have to move it all out to just put it back in again. Especially as I'm still going to be trying to fit a quart into a pint pot at the end of the day as this house just flat out does not have enough storage for the four of us.
I wouldn't say that today I actually tidied up, but I did bring some order to the chaos and mostly unbury the car to allow for this to happen.
Which made it far less of an uncomfortable job to reinstate the fuel pump as I wasn't trying to do the job all but laying on the roof as I was when I "borrowed" it for the Rover.
I really do need to pull that top fuel tank strap and put the closed cell foam strip I bought to fill out the of a gap at the top in there, that "I'll get back to that next week" bit of cardboard has been in there for something like four years now I think. I mean, it's doing the job just fine, but it don't half look sketchy and bugs me every time I open the cover. Unfortunately every time I then close said cover I then forget about it again after about 60 seconds until the next time I go to put fuel in or do a fluids check!
Really do want to have a proper crawl over the car before she actually goes on the road this year anyway and she's due a service anyway. I'll plan on getting that foam installed as part of that set of jobs.
As she was rolled back mostly out of the garage though, it would have been rude not to at least confirm whether the battery needed to be charged and if the carb was going to protest at being ignored for the last nine months.
Of course she only started first time and idled as though she was parked yesterday. Was left running for probably half an hour or so to get everything nicely warmed through while I ferried a lot of the tools and such like that had slowly migrated out of the garage over the last few months back to where they actually live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_nx6ymGN4g
Hopefully actually get her out on the road again this week.
The Rover - somewhat to my surprise - hasn't yet dumped large amounts of fuel all over my driveway. Not sure if I dare let it know I've noticed...
For I think the first time in my ownership the pump looks to be completely dry after sitting overnight. Kind of at the point where I need to actually start test driving it to see if it's going to continue cooperating. Which fills me with a certain amount of dread given its record so far for appearing to work perfectly right up till the point where I start relaxing and thinking the fuel system is behaving before deciding to NOT work very suddenly. It's not going to get any more reliable just sitting on the driveway though. That said, sorting the oil leak from the filter housing absolutely needs to happen before any real distance is covered on the road. That's not a difficult job...Six (I think) bolts, remove, clean up, replace gasket, prime oil pump, reassemble.
However access looks absolutely awful so I've been putting that off as I know it's just going to be one of those jobs which ends up testing my patience. Given how critical doing the job properly is to the oil pump actually working, it's really not one that you want to be doing with a frayed temper either.
The whole car also really needs a deep clean as there's moss growing basically everywhere.
A task which I'm sure is going to do a great job of reminding me how much of a small car that a P6 is not.
Oh, and I need to finish my investigations into what was going on with the Trabant before turning this pile of bits back into an engine.
Well I can't claim I'm not spoiled for choice on what to work on this week! The Partner is due an oil & filter change too.