Practically Classics Forum

First job for today was to basically finish putting things back together.

Oil & filter got changed. Which was timed well as I got it done right as a rain shower started, so I was glad to have the bit involving crawling around under the car done.

Reconnected this little linkage which attaches the throttle linkage to the carbs. Getting the little spring clip back on was fiddly. Glad I didn't persist in trying to do that while I was tired yesterday. I'd probably have pinged it off into oblivion never to be seen again.



Coolant was refilled. Using OAT coolant as that's what came out. I'd rather see this using old school glycol coolant, and will probably switch back to that when I change the coolant properly. It's quite murky so definitely wants flushed out at some point soon, this job had only drained about half the radiator, so I was just refilling like for like for now.

Changing the spark plugs didn't happen. Simply because the ones I'd picked up were the wrong size. So I just cleaned up the ones I'd got.

Then reconnected the HT leads, having had the forethought to mark number 1 before I took things apart. Rotor rotation is clockwise.



Before I actually connected the coil I did crank the engine over just to make sure we didn't have any noises coming from anywhere and actually had even sounding compression - which we did. No big obvious skip when it was turning over.

Fast forward a couple of minutes...

https://youtu.be/Ufev94gmCH0

This isn't actually the first start - there's a couple of minutes run time already on there. I didn't have anywhere where you'd have been able to see anything I could have wedged my phone, and I didn't want to miss something important because I was concentrating on recording video.

We did have a couple of coolant leaks initially, one from the lower heater hose and one from the top radiator hose. These are quite old hoses so I needed to ensure the hose clamps were lined up where they used to be. A new set of hoses is on the to do list.

What we also had was a hell of a lot of smoke from the exhaust manifolds. I knew I'd spilled some oil, coolant etc on there while the heads were being removed and the block cleaned etc. However I was quite surprised by the sheer volume of smoke that was generated while it burned off.

Proof the car has moved under its own power again.



Which allowed me to retrieve the things I'd dropped while working on the car. One washer from a carb base, a thousand old exhaust manifold gaskets, and the bolt from the dipstick support. Not bad.

We did a quick bumble round the block. So, so much smoother as you'd expect. Though seemed very hesitant on a light throttle after a minute or two.

Ah.



Initially I figured this was my leak from the top coolant hose having returned, but quickly realised this was actually petrol pouring out of the bowl vent from the offside carb. Yep, that would explain the lumpy running. This is why it's really important to ensure the drain tubes on those ports are properly fitted as it meant this harmlessly drained down onto the ground rather than dumping it over the top of the engine.

Gently tapping the fuel inlet to the carb in a highly technical manner with a screwdriver handle has restored it's continence for now, but I figure they're both probably going to really want a proper inspection and clean. In fairness that carb has been sitting upside down in the boot for the last couple of weeks so it's well within its rights to be a bit grumpy.

Idle speed is quite high, but running a lot smoother now.

https://youtu.be/-oyIrmG-uhc

I'll be doing a little more testing etc over the next couple of days.

After a few heat cycles we will go back and recheck the head bolt torque as things settle.

First trip to an actual destination more than a mile away will be to get the tracking sorted. Currently there is a ridiculous amount of toe out, and that needs seen to!

Hopefully it's onwards and upwards from here.

Great stuff, I love a P6. Only ever owned one, and that was a lesser 2200 TC but I loved it.

Sadly despite being the smaller engined job it still wasn't good for much above 20 miles to the gallon and as I was a poorly paid British Rail worker, getting married, and taking on a mortgage at Interest rates that would really make eyes water these days, things were tight. Then the Gulf war of 1990 / 91 kicked off and sent petrol prices climbing so a sad day saw it swapped for a nasty diesel Astra van ... you could hardly give a P6 away back then... Ah well, at least I got to enjoy one for a while even if it wasn't the more desirable 3.5.

Anyway, fond memories of the P6, less so the Astra van which blew the core plug that resided behind the injector pump while on Honeymoon in Torquay, and had to come home on an AA wagon. Happily the van had a Metro shunted into the back of it one day while sat in traffic resulting in being written off and a nice little whiplash claim, every cloud and all that I don't mind admitting I have a little P6 envy going on just this minute

Started straight up today...and promptly started pouring fuel out of the *other* carb.

Service kit for both has been ordered. Probably just need some slime cleaned out of the float needles, but I'll at the very least need bowl gaskets if I open them up, and it would be maddening to realise I needed something else 90% of the way through putting things back together. I really need carb to manifold gaskets anyway as the head gasket kit didn't come with them.

I'll swap the fuel filter at the weekend as well in case it's breaking up internally and shedding stuff into the system.

Yesterday was the first time I'd been aware of this issue, but if it's been ongoing for a while this could go a long way to explain the ridiculous amount of fuel contamination we had in the oil when the car arrived here.

I do appreciate Rover/SU having made a really good effort to provide a safe drain in case of a sticking float rather than just dumping it over the engine. Something which really shouldn't have been needed in normal use, so they could have just had the vent left as it was, but no they were nice enough to put a line running well clear of hot areas before dumping the fuel.





Oil and coolant levels were exactly where they were left yesterday at least which was good to see.

Those HIF carbs seem particularly prone to flooding, I experienced the same problem on my 2200SC and on a Princess 2200 I used to own. You might as well do the full overhaul, it's not that expensive and together with a decent quality in-line fuel filter should cure the problem permanently.

Or you could fit
https://www.mecatechnic.com/fr-FR/kit-c ... riEALw_wcB

Dick wrote: Sun Oct 08, 2023 11:36 am Or you could fit
https://www.mecatechnic.com/fr-FR/kit-c ... riEALw_wcB

Nah! These carbs are pretty bomb proof once cleaned out and set up right. Thing that always surprises me with SU carbs is the absolutely horrendous state they can be in and still working. Not necessarily working *well* but working nonetheless. Reckon with a good clean and if it's worn a new metering needle these will be fine.

Especially compared to the price tag on that page!

Something I do need to have a good think about is tyres.

These need to be changed before the car is put properly into use.



If I'm reading that correctly, that's a 1992 date code. Plus the nearside front has some very pronounced shoulder wear from the car being driven with the tracking way out of whack.



One of them (offside front) is newer, dating from 2018, but that has very visible ripples in the sidewall in several places.



The problem is that there's not a massive selection in this size - 185SR15 - so 185/80 R15 in modern labelling terms. These being the main contenders.



There are a couple of budget offerings from Ovation and Hi-Fly as well. The latter actually came fitted to the P4, and while they're okay, especially on a fairly boaty car like the P4 I've not been massively impressed. They feel like a very hard compound, backed up by it being really quite easy to lock up the brakes on a wet road, and the brakes on the P4 really aren't grabby at all. With something a bit more set up to actually handle like the P6 (and with twice the power), I don't reckon they would fare so well. They're also built like a typical modern tyre with quite a stiff sidewall which is never going to help the ride.

I also fully admit that I just have an inherent distrust of budget tyres after having a couple of sets earlier in my driving career (when I was chronically broke) which were frankly lethal. I know they've come a massively long way in the last 20 years, but it's hard to shake doubts based on actual experience, no matter how outdated it may be. Which is why all of my cars generally wind up on Uniroyal tyres where possible.

Most likely it will end up fitted with the Vredstein Sprint Classics, but I'm going to do some further reading and research before making a decision.

Yesterday I swapped out the old fuel filter as I'm not entirely convinced it wasn't starting to break down internally.

Don't have one the same side as the original one in stock so had to improvise a bit and ended up with something of a lash up. It's not going anywhere though or going to rub out on anything.



When I get some larger diameter filters in I'll return that to it's correct location. Going to see if I can find some with a right angled outlet as there would have been a right angled union on there originally. Also rerouted the hose from the fuel pump a little as it was curved backwards before and was virtually touching the exhaust manifold. You could see the fuel in the lines quite vigorously boiling off for several minutes after the engine was switched off, which it doesn't seem to do half as much now.

After an hour or so of run time, including a few circuits around our block (trying to get the kickdown cable adjusted properly as I was an idiot and didn't note where it was set before I took it to bits - rookie mistake), the filter still looks like this. Nice to see the fuel in the tank is clear and doesn't seem to be dragging debris through at least.



Of course today the carbs behaved impeccably, now the service kits have been ordered!

When I was working on those fuel lines it became immediately apparent that I could very easily spin the line at the carb end of the filter section - and indeed easily pull it off as the hose clip had been put too far from the end of the line so it wasn't gripping the hose fitting barb. That could have got "exciting" if it had let go. Now sorted.



A hunt around revealed one pretty significant vacuum leak at the brake servo. The loose zip tie pretending to be a hose clamp had a lot to do with that.



Replacing that with a proper hose clamp sorted that. Though that line really wants replacing as it's a good few inches too short really and has an unused T halfway along which has been blocked off with a screw.

While trying to tighten that hose clip I totally lost a screwdriver and spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out what I'd done with it. This isn't out of character as I have a true talent for misplacing tools. It turned up later in the day...



Note to self: Check down there next time you lose something before dismantling the entire work area looking for it.

Reason I wound up down there though is that we've developed a pretty noticeable oil leak.





This appears to be seeping out from the gasket between the oil filter housing and oil pump. A new gasket has been ordered - though looks like a couple of those bolts will be somewhat fun to get to.

Speaking of fun to get to, I'm scratching my head slightly on how to adjust the toe angle on the steering on this. I wanted to at least get a look at the adjusters to see what the odds of them cracking loose when I come to get it sorted were. However there were no visible adjustable links where I expected there to be.





I'm guessing based on that that the adjustable section must be on the centre link, presumably at the steering box end, which I can't see without getting right under the car.

Nothing to report today aside from giving the seats another couple of applications of leather feed, which is definitely starting to do something now.





Further down the line I may look in to whether we can get some dye to restore the original colour a bit as they have faded quite a lot.

I must confess to not being too well up on the subject as my P6 is a 4-pot, I thought the correct tyre size for a V8 is 185/80 x 14. You must have non-standard wheels, so 80 profile tyres are giving an increased rolling radius and are making the speedometer read low. What about 70 profiles? The excellent Classic Rover Forum will be able to advise you better. You are correct about the toe-in adjustment, I can access mine from under the bonnet, might be more difficult on the V8.

You are of course correct. I'd completely missed that the wheel size doesn't match that listed on the car...



Will need to do some further digging there then!

I was waiting for a telephone consultation with my GP this afternoon (which never happened...have only been trying to speak to someone about this since the end of March) so was just picking away at little things.

The plastic surround for the gear selector has at some point been broken into three pieces. That got glued back together so it no longer falls to pieces every time you put the car into park.



Not perfect as you can clearly still see the cracks, but at least it's one piece now. This is the sort of random thing I'll keep my eyes open for down the road as it's hardly a major issue.

Similarly on the "completely pointless but visually annoying" list was the rusty end covers on the dash.



Never got a good before photo of that, but on both ends the black paint was coming off in sheets.
These have been rubbed down and given a coat of hammered finish black paint.



Still very slightly tacky so I'll refit them tomorrow. Not perfect, but shouldn't draw the eye any more at least.

A very obvious issue with things since the carbs have more or less woken up from their slumber and seem to have quit peeing fuel everywhere is that the idle was ridiculously high - nearly 1500rpm in neutral once warmed up fully. I had a feeling that and the initially sluggish feeling throttle response were most likely linked. Sure enough, the left hand carb was near enough 1/4 open by the time the right hand one started moving. Probably the best part of 1/3" of slack taken out of the linkage between the two. The throttle stop screws were then also tweaked on both sides allowing the idle to come down to a slightly more sensible 600rpm.



When fully warmed up the engine was quite reluctant to turn over, in the sort of way that suggests to me that the timing was too advanced. The tendency for it to pink quite loudly when it did kick over further confirming that to me, so I set about checking it.

That would do it...having 26° of advance won't have been helping anything. A value I suspect someone has read from the under bonnet data plate - 26° is the DWELL angle, not the advance setting! Definitely explains why it was trying to spin itself backwards while being cranked over.



Interestingly that is actually about the only piece of routine maintenance data which isn't printed anywhere on the car, so I had to go check the handbook to find it.



I went back out and split the difference between those figures as I usually run on 99 Octane fuel where possible and dialled in 3°.



I can tweak that further either by ear or based on feedback as needed. It's almost amusingly easy to adjust on this engine - finding a 12V source for the timing light being by far the most difficult part. For now though it seems far happier. In the dark while what feels like half the country's population of midges are trying to eat you is not the time to be trying to find tune timing.

I'm fairly certain that at idle we were running pretty much entirely off the left hand carb before. They do want to be properly balanced and that will happen later on, but between them actually being synchronised so they're both contributing and the timing now being in vaguely the right ball park the engine sounds a lot happier at idle. Hard to describe, but it sounds more like a V8 now if that makes any sense. Idle does maybe want to come up just a touch as it will stumble a little in gear with the lights on if presented with an additional demand for power such as turning the steering sharply.

The engine bay fuel lines in the vicinity of the fuel pump I think may benefit from some thermal insulation (or seeing about rerouting the supply metal line which runs along the side of the engine between the block and exhaust manifold) as this is visible in the filter at idle when everything is fully up to temperature at idle.

https://youtu.be/30ZVgxIzIJk

This isn't air being drawn into the line - the fuel is actively boiling off. It continues bubbling for a good five or ten minutes after the engine stops. The fuel outlet on the tank on this is from the bottom - so any holes in the fuel supply result in all your fuel exiting the vehicle rather than air being drawn in.



This is one of the design features of this car I'm not such a fan of as it makes working on the fuel system a pain. I discovered that the hard way when I initially went to rebuild the fuel pump - fuel came out with a great deal of enthusiasm as soon as I loosened the inlet connection (I hadn't established that the tank was basically full back then either). This is also why I haven't investigated the non functional fuel gauge any further yet. There are 15 gallons of fuel on top of it!

The oil leak noted yesterday has been vastly, vadtly reduced by nipping the bolts up a bit - at least three were noticeably loose. It is still weeping very slightly, but we're talking a small drop every minute or two with the engine held at 1500rpm when fully warm rather than a drip or two every second we had yesterday. Gasket has been ordered though and it will be replaced as time allows.

Pretty sure that this is the adjustment point for the steering toe angle I was looking for.



So I have started to liberally dose that in PlusGas with a view to getting that adjusted properly sooner than later. Hopefully being relatively high up in the engine bay rather than right next to the wheels means it's less likely to be totally disinterested in moving.

Going to do a few (a lot) more runs round the block to test things first, but if they can fit me in to look at the wheel alignment, this might be the P6's first very careful, very nerve wracking run tomorrow all being well.



3.3 miles. We've already done more than that going round in circles. However never being more than 500 yards from home! Going somewhere actually out of our neighborhood seems a lot more scary!

They're good guys over there though, and I'm sure they'll give me a chance to have a good look underneath it on the ramp which will be really useful.

Good luck mate! Lots of pics please