It's been a while since I updated this. Here are a few updates.
It's had its new exhaust fitted at last, and my, it sounds fantastic now, especially on my little road trip that I went on with some mates, as I will explain shortly.
The four new Firestone tyres are now fitted, resulting in much quieter cruising and an awful lot more grip in corners.
The carb has been rebuilt, and the timing fiddled with a lot, and now, the car runs really rather well with an enormous improvement in fuel economy!
The front brake pads have been replaced, and a new brake-light switch fitted at the same time, as for a couple of days, I had my brake lights on a seperate switch, which made for amusing cross-country runs.
Also, a new oil pressure switch has been fitted, as it was intermittantly flashing the oil light, and was losing some oil at the join.
I've also sourced a lovely new flatpleat interior in black leather, which I shall be buying very soon.
Anyway, the car was finally ready for the road on Monday night, at about 10 o' clock, and I was going to be leaving for my tour of the Lake district on the Tuesday morning at about 8. I checked all of the fluid levels in the morning and realised that I'd lost some brake fluid overnight, which was hardly reassurance given some of the roads I'd be tackling. So I had a quick look, and discovered there was a weep at the bottom union, so I tightened that up, topped up the reservoir with more dot 4, and thankfully, there have been no further problems!
I arranged to meet up with my friends in Keswick at half 10, but, due to a slight incident involving my door mirror becoming detached from the door of my car, I was slightly late. It transpired that the previous owner had made a very poor attempt to screw it into the door. So, I pulled into the first lay-by, and ran back to collect my mirror. Obviously, the glass was smashed, but the holder was intact, so I went into an ironmongers and bought some rapid dry araldite, and some self-tapping screws. Shall we say that the araldite does rather more to hold the mirror than the screws do.
Anyway, one of the MGBs suffered a slight electrical issue on the M6, so at least I wasn't the last to arrive. After a spot of lunch we headed up into the hills, heading up around Buttermere, stopping at the Kirkstile inn, then up Honister, with an impromptu stop there, due to a slight overheating issue, involving a yellow P6.
After it had cooled down, the coolant was topped up, some checks were carried out, and there was no damage. At the same point, I decided to alter the timing a little, as it was still missing slightly, and thereafter, the car drove much, much better!
We then headed down the other side of Honister, before joining the main road to Keswick briefly, and then turning off again, to head to Patterdale, to the Youth hostel where we'd be staying overnight. On the bigger cross-country roads, the Rover had no trouble keeping up with the MGBs, and after a long day, I still felt very comfortable in the Rover, it really is a great cruiser! We unloaded our cars at Patterdale, went for another short drive, and then parked them up for the night, before walking to Glenridding for a good pub meal.
The next morning, we woke up to rather heavy rain, which was a pity for photos, but in some ways was an advantage as it meant the roads were a lot clearer, and we could do more miles.
We set off from Patterdale, up Kirkstone pass, before going down the struggle, with no brake fade, and stopping in Ambleside for a cooked breakfast, and a read through classic car weekly. After that stop, we then headed for the steep passes, Hardknott, and Wrynose, which seemed like an interesting idea, given my car's overheat on the previous day. However, we set off up into the hills, and I had no issues! Luckily the passes were clear, so I could keep my right foot planted the whole way up, Kenlowe on full, heater on, and some good tunes blasting out of the radio. After a bit of steering one way, and then the other, in rapid succession, we'd reached the summit, with no side-effects, and no overheating, although I'd had to pop the auto 'box in 'L' to lock it in first gear for the final climb. After all of those passes, we decided that some lunch was in order, stopping in a nice pub in Broughton for a meal. Then we went to one of my fellow classic driver's houses, where we had a look round his classics, before we headed to Coniston, did quite a bit more driving, stopped at a friend's house, and then headed home.
I was very, very impressed with the Rover's behaviour, and its performance has drastically improved over the course of this tour. It certainly had to work hard, but it excelled and seemed to attract a lot of attention.
Naturally I took rather more photos than I meant to. Here are a few.
Sorry for so many pics!
Paul, that sounds like a pity as regards that 2000. I must admit, I do drive it at normal speeds, keeping up with modern traffic, but it's not thrashed. 
The one I've bought, unseen, is for a manual, despite me asking the seller specifically for an auto front pipe. This is very annoying, as I've spent a huge amount of money, a lot more than intended, and I can't even drive the thing at the moment, which is a real pity, especially given the lovely evenings we've had. I really hope I'll get it back soon, not having it makes getting around rather trickier.
Tonight, I shall be leaving the hall light up while I sleep and my Teddy Bear will need to be there, just in case the black Jaguar creeps in............
