Practically Classics Forum

I've a lot of time for the P4. They are just so well engineered cars, and the only real gripe in day to day use really is that the steering is both pretty heavy and low geared so can be a bit hard work around town.

This one hasn't been in regular use for a while. The last MOT looks to have been in 2010 and it's done all of a couple of hundred miles since then. We know it was dismantled to some extent for some bodywork and a respray and never really got put together again until recently.

There has been a fair chunk of work done to it on the brakes, fuel system, a new brake servo, negative earth conversion, and I believe an ignition system overhaul. However it's never really been given a proper shakedown and put back into regular use.

I've only driven around the block so far and can see that there definitely are some adjustments needed to both the brakes and steering, but nothing really too alarming.

First port of call will be the cooling system though. The hoses are...well...see for yourself.



Yeah, they're a bit crunchy. Helpfully a full set of new ones came with the car.



This was one of the first things I swapped out on my previous one, so retreading familiar ground.

The fuel line between the filter and carburettor also looks rather sorry for itself with the outer sheath having disintegrated.



A replacement for that has been ordered. The vacuum line to the float bowl vent will also be changed for some hose that I know is fully ethanol safe. That's actually not a huge worry on this car as many this age all the factory fuel lines are either metal or nylon.

A bit of a cooling system bodge had to be made on the evening before it was due to be collected when the seller poked a hole in a metal elbow between the bottom radiator hose and the water pump. Again I'd be planning to replace this as both of the metal cooling lines on my last one were paper thin. It was shoved back together using a bit of intercooler piping that the seller had to hand to allow it to be run safely for loading etc.



Replacement correct elbow has already been ordered.

Also on the way are a set of sill mats as those are all missing.

A new lens for the offside tail light which has clearly taken a knock at some point.



Replacement for the badly clouded grill badge. Yes it's a tiny detail in the grand scheme of things, but it's one that really draws your eye because it's so prominent. I don't have a good photo of that yet.

Replacement for the rear cabin grab handles as they have pretty much completely disintegrated.



I think there were a few other bits and pieces in the order as well that I've forgotten and just general service items like oil/air filters and such. Just things I spotted that I needed after a quick walk round that I didn't already have in the boxes. These new furflex seals for the doors are in those boxes waiting to be fitted. I'm sure that won't be at all fiddly.



The original radio is in those boxes and I'll be looking forward to revival of this beastie.





Though there is a definite case of "WHY?!?" already.



If you remove the single flat head screw from it that cable just unplugs from the back of the unit.



Not the end of the world by any means but does make you roll your eyes a bit. The car having been converted to negative earth likely will complicate things in the audio department, but I don't think it will be insurmountable. Just will need a bit of thought - vintage electronic restoration is one of my old hobbies though so that doesn't put me off at all. As far as the radio itself goes, few new capacitors and replacement of the broken cord for the tuning knob and it'll probably just work. Contrary to what a lot of people think valve era stuff like this really is surprisingly dependable. Nothing looks to have melted down horribly in this one at a glance so I'll bet it will go again.

Electrical hackery is definitely evident in a few areas of the car already, so that's something I'll just need to address as I find it. Immediately obvious is that the fuel gauge is inoperative (the sender unit has been replaced), as is the brake warning light on the dash. I'll need to investigate what type of gauge the fuel gauge actually is. I'm hoping it's a thermal one as that would mean it won't care at all about the polarity change - if it's a moving coil or moving iron gauge though I'll need to do some wiring tweaks to get it going again. The gauge itself is getting power though it seems as switching it to oil level mode does bring it to life - albeit immediately reading full scale when I know full well the oil level is actually a little low.

I'm not surprised that the brake light isn't working given that I know that one of the terminals on the reservoir should have two connections to it (I had to fault find on this on the last one too), and one of those is clearly missing on here. There's also a conspicuous bare wire just floating around in the neighborhood...hmm...



What would you say the odds on these being related are?

That's about where we are now. Looking forward to getting a chance to actually spend more than ten or so minutes looking at it.

Did fix the first fault though - nearside front indicator wasn't working. This turned out to just be because it wasn't plugged into the loom. That was a ten seconds fix!



If only they were all going to be that easy!

One of the first items on the to do list to investigate on the car was the lack of any action from the brake light on the dash. Lifting the float out of the fluid reservoir however brought the light on correctly.



As this car has single circuit brakes I am considering this warning light to be a very safety critical component. Especially given that the reservoir is a metal one so there's no way to check the level without taking the cap off and peering into it. So the odds of spotting a level drop in passing is slim to none. If there's a suitable master cylinder for it a dual circuit conversion is something I would definitely consider as a long term upgrade for peace of mind. Quite simply I Do Not Like single circuit braking systems. Especially on a car as heavy as this, and one which despite the looks is going to be quite happily howling along keeping pace with modern traffic.

One question which springs to mind is whether anyone recognises the colour. It's clearly not original to the car, it was originally a significantly darker shade - which is still visible in a few areas, like the door hinges and under the bonnet.



Sadly as we have no history on the car aside from a couple of 15 year old MOT certificates, I've no idea whether this is a Rover/BMC colour at all and if it is, which one. Tahiti Blue isn't a million miles off but I think is a bit too cyan heavy. I know the purists might not like it, but I do really like the colour and am going to be completely honest with you in that that was something which really did draw me to the car in the first place. Blue and chrome is a particular favourite of mine.

I will be needing some.paint both for inevitable touch ups, but also because the boot lid really needs to be done over from scratch. I don't know quite what the story there is, but there seems to be an absolute tonne of filler on there, and either that or the paint has shrunk as it's cured.





This is an aluminium panel (I think they called the exact alloy Birmabrite) and they're known to be really easy to dent - so I'm guessing they've been dressing it up to cover a dent. Personally I don't mind a few dings here and there on a car this age. My intention with this car is to preserve, maintain but USE it, so getting this sorted in a way that's sensible and not going to start doing nonsense like this again six months down the line will be the order of the day. It won't be babied though. That's a fair ways down the priority list though. I do need to try to figure out how to reassemble the latch for the boot lid though. I *think* I have all the bits of it at least.

Electrical issues are going to be a recurring theme I reckon until I've gone through the car pretty much end to end.





I'm suuuuure those areas aren't going to cause me issues, they're fiiiiine...

Apparently I need to glue the window guide on the driver's window back in place. This dropped out while I was backing into the drive and it just about scared me to death.



While shuffling into the parking space (yes, the steering is just as bloody heavy as I remember from the last one, that really is the one black mark against them) I noted that there was a really obvious buzz/rattle from the exhaust towards the back of the car.

Ah, yes. This won't be helping in that regard.



On the plus side at least the mid and rear sections of the exhaust at a glance look to be stainless. The missing fastener there wasn't hard to replace either. Washer is a bit too big and the bolt is too long but it was just what I had on hand. It doesn't rattle any more though.



Those poor springs could do with a clean and grease though.

A full set of hoses for the cooling system came with the car. This is nice as the ones on there are...well a bit on the crunchy side.



Some have obviously been changed, but a fair few look to be ancient. I can't just do a straight swap of them all yet though as I also need to change the thermostat housing because someone has put one from another model on which means the top hose is coming out pointing in the wrong direction. Sure this is doing wonders for coolant flow.



That hose should be coming straight up off the thermostat housing. I have a new one (and a thermostat) on the way.

A few goodies have already arrived.



A replacement for this very crispy bit of fuel line between the sediment bowl and carb being probably the most safety critical.



Glad to see that the replacement one from Wadham's is made from the good stuff, so this should be properly fit and forget.



The reason I included a new badge is pretty obvious. How hazy and crazed this is really sticks out because it's so prominent on the front of the car. It actually looks worse in person than in the photo.

.

This hasn't actually been swapped yet as I haven't figured out how to get the old one off yet.

One of the other white boxes contained parts needed for another quick and easy improvement.

Before:



After:



If only everything would be that quick and easy!

When the car arrived the fuel gauge was on the non operational items list. Though the gauge itself was clearly getting power as the oil level check function worked and they both derive power from the same source. The switch just selects which of the two sender units the gauge is grounded through.



The sender in the tank is new - and a bit of quite testing revealed that while power was getting to the gauge it wasn't getting to the tank.



In we go...



While this looks horribly complicated at first glance it's actually a lot of very simple circuits just bundled into a fairly tight space - and the bit we're interested in is easily accessible on the side nearest the camera.



59 is the fuel gauge instrument itself. 60 is the changeover switch to select whether you're reading fuel or oil level. 71 is the oil level sender, and 72 is the fuel level sender. It didn't take long to figure out that the primary issue we have here is that the switch is dead. It was also wired up backwards. The switch will need to be replaced (or repaired) in the long term, but for now I've just employed an old fashioned jumper wire to hook the fuel gauge up directly.



This appears to be over-reading a bit if the fuel level reported by the seller is correct. Though that was also the case with my previous car - and I've not checked whether the voltage stabiliser for the fuel and temperature gauges is actually working. If it's feeding in straight system voltage rather than dropping it to the right (10V from memory) level it would indeed read somewhere in the region of 20% high.

I haven't actually had the engine running long enough to see if the temperature gauge works, though I'm pretty sure I have seen it at least come off the stop so most likely does.

A definite appointment lays in the future of this engine with a bunch of degreaser and the pressure washer as it's really quite a slimy mess. On the same note a set of valve cover gaskets is already in stock to hopefully reduce the amount of oil loss. Given I had to change it on the previous car there's also an inlet manifold gasket in stock just in case.



A very obvious error that someone has made was refitting the front indicators and sidelights the wrong way around. The indicators should be at the top. I did look into getting this righted yesterday but it quickly became apparent that this wasn't going to be the ten minute job I'd hoped.



That's an *ideal* connector for an area that's going to get blasted with road spray isn't it?



I guess on the plus side the wires are actually secured rather than just twisted together as under this mass of tape. That all leads back to this mess.



Who needs grommets where wiring passes through metal panels? Seems like overkill to me...Yeah, I'm just going to chop all that mess out and do the line from the lights to the main loom from scratch I think. While I'm at it given that they're fairly inexpensive I think I'm just going to replace all the light fittings while I'm there. Out of the four three of them have major corrosion, are missing their rubber boots and at least one the lamp holder is pretty much being held together by the tape. Just changing them seems like it's going to cause by far the least long term headaches. Plus the sidelights aren't actually the correct type for the car anyway.

-- -- --

Target today was the cooling system as this replacement part arrived this morning.



The original has seen better days.



That was discovered the day before the car was due to be collected, cue some bodgery to get the system water tight to allow the car to run. A piece of intercooler ducting they had floating around was pressed into service.



By the standards of "get-me-home bodges" this one is actually pretty sturdy. It was properly fluid tight and I've definitely spent a week or two commuting with things held together by willpower far worse than that.

I had been kind of dreading tackling the bottom radiator hose though. Primarily as the bottom hose was utterly welded onto the outlet stub on the radiator. Access to this isn't great as it's buried a long way down in the engine bay (which is really deep on this car) and there's no access from underneath because there's a huge cross member in the way. I was about five minutes from pulling the whole radiator in that case when I eventually managed to get it free.

This one thankfully just came apart without any real protest. So this corner was sorted in a matter of minutes.



The eagle eyed of you might have noticed something amiss with the engine bay in general (aside from the kinked top radiator hose, I have the part inbound to sort that hopefully tomorrow, and the dayglow red HT leads which look madly out of place).



Yes, someone has been meddling with the heater hose routing. That hose vanishing under the air cleaner roughly centre frame should actually be hooked up to a rigid line that runs above the exhaust manifold - which also should have a little heat shield attached to it to protect the distributor. Demonstrated nicely by this photo from my previous 110.



That rigid line, bracket and heat shield are all missing. Which obviously caused a problem for me when I came to fit the new hoses as we had a bit of a gap.



However this is me. So there's a pile of random "stuff" in the back corner of the garage which I deliberately haven't binned because they are things which likely will be useful one day. I went shopping in that corner and soon dug out a bit of metal tubing that was exactly the right diameter.



It is really thin walled but will do fine for now until I can track down something better.



If nothing else I'll paint it black so it blends in a bit better.

This side of things went pretty smoothly. The other side of the engine bay however was an absolute fight and ended up taking well over an hour of cursing.



The lower heater hose (you can just see it between the rear crankcase breather and the blower motor) runs down to a fitting attached to the rear of the inlet manifold and then carries on to a fitting roughly halfway along the underside of the inlet manifold.

This caused a lot of swearing. Because whoever assembled it clearly put the hose clamps on *before* attaching the fitting to the rear of the manifold. Then they rounded off the bolt that holds the bracket on. I just about managed to get the top one off and changed after a lot of faffing around.



The bottom one however was having none of it, the hose clamp was totally seized up. Plus you couldn't get a screwdriver properly on to it because it's directly behind the throttle linkage.



Eventually I managed to cram on a metric ring spanner that was one size too small onto the bolt and got the bracket off, so I could pull the whole lot off and attack the hose clip off the car.

This probably would have been easier if I'd taken the intake duct off but I was being stubbornly lazy and refusing to do that. Despite it probably being all of about five minutes work.

These were definitely past due for replacement.









You can pretty clearly see why I really didn't want to drive the car anywhere before I changed them.

The package with the thermostat housing in should be here tomorrow which will let me get the top hose changed as well, getting rid of the kink in that. I think that will get us to a point where I can actually go for a test drive without worrying that the cooling system is going to spectacularly fail at any moment.

The last thing I checked today was the voltage stabiliser on the dash - and confirmed that it is doing absolutely nothing. So that would explain why the fuel gauge is reading ~20% too high. The temperature gauge will be doing the same. New one ordered.

-- -- --

Spot the difference.



That is the reason the top radiator hose was horribly kinked.

Much better.



I think pulling it apart to change the thermostat anyway was probably a wise call.



The jiggle pin both is installed so it's not at the highest point and was also blocked solid with rusty slime.

I have run the car up to temperature (confirming the gauge does work), and *think* I've got most of the air out. There are no proper bleed points on this system so it's a bit of a faff.



There is however zero flow through the heater core. The linkage to it though is bent (most likely because the valve is jammed) so I'll need to sort that as well. The valve isn't actually that expensive so I'm not going to waste too much time on it if it won't free up without undue levels of violence. I'm expecting the core itself to be absolutely chock full of mud like the last one.

There is no bypass on this heater setup so when the valve is closed the system is just dead headed - with a lot of thes being occasional use cars which are rarely out aside from in the summer it's not surprising that the heaters tend to sludge up. That and we forget how much coolant technology has improved in the last 50 years (when people even bothered to use antifreeze at all - see also why my previous 110 had a huge crack in the side of the block). The whole system will absolutely be getting thoroughly flushed anyway, but I'm really wanting to get the car back to a point where I can take it for a proper test drive with a reasonable level of confidence that it's not going to explode in a giant cloud of steam at the side of the road. I reckoned that driving it with the hoses as they were was just asking for pain.

-- -- --

The paintwork on the car is generally not bad. The one exception is the bootlid where there have plainly been lashings of filler involved. Given how easily these panels pick up dents I'm guessing that someone has gone rather overboard trying to get it totally smooth. They've used so much that as it's cured it's shrunk, and the paint has split as a result. This panel is definitely going to need stripping back and repainting no matter what we do or it will always be the thing that draws your eye.

I didn't realise quite how MUCH filler was involved though until I looked closer at it today with a view to reattaching the latch. At which point I was briefly confused by the fact that the pin didn't seem to be long enough - that's because there's probably about 1/4" of filler in the way!



So to get this fitted I basically had to cut a hole in the filler for the handle.



It'll need to be sorted properly longer term, but at least it latches closed now. I know these are finicky to get adjusted right anyway.

I ran out of patience with not having done a proper test drive today, in spite of it being way too hot for me. Wasn't a long one but I did go for a ten or so minute bumble just around the neighborhood. Definitely have a few things that need some attention.

[] Steering.

There's a good 1/4 turn of slack in the at the straight ahead position - which given with how heavy and vague it is in these cars to start with feels quite unnerving. Especially when you're straightening up after a junction - you end up having to go past where you're aiming for then about half a turn back on yourself. I'll need to borrow a helper to investigate where that play is - there are something like eight ball joints in the system so *plenty* of opportunity for play to creep in, and the steering box may well need adjusting itself.

[] Brakes.

There's a buuuuunch of dead travel, so the pedal is basically here before you get meaningful retardation of your forward momentum.



Which in a car this heavy is moderately unnerving. The brakes DO actually seem to work reasonably well, the pedal travel is just far too long before anything happens.

I know there has been a bunch of work done on the brakes in the not too distant past, so may even be they just need properly bleeding and adjusting. One of the rears is definitely dragging a tiny bit as well.

[] Throttle pedal.

Conversely this needs a little *more* free play in. It doesn't quite return fully to idle sometimes at the moment and the lack of any deadzone makes it really twitchy and makes pulling away smoothly without ending up with way more revs than you need or kangarooing quite difficult. I'm sure with practice you can master it, but you shouldn't need to!

[] Speedometer.

The cable and/or the trip/odometer gear train need cleaning and lubricating as it currently bounces and wobbles around comically.

Rear suspension is distinctly creaky from somewhere. Not really a problem as such but will be investigated and remedied as necessary. I know the springs are terribly dry so that may be all it is. At least it does seem to *have* at least some semblance of rear suspension unlike the last one where it was all but solid.

All in all, it currently drives like I think a lot of people assume cars from this era were all like. Kinda awkward, vague and under braked. To be honest I probably would have expected it to be pretty much like this if I hadn't already owned one that was despite being very worn out, was pretty well set up.

I'm not 100% sure we don't have some head gasket issues. There seems to be a lot of gurgling that you can feel through the top hose and top of the radiator, though given how much of a pain it can be to get the last bits of air out of the system on these I'm not going to raise too many red flags there until it's been fully cycled a few times. Not worried either way as it's not a huge job, and at some point I'd want to pull the head anyway to deal with what is commonly known as That O-ring.



It sits between the head and water pump housing. The pump studs apparently like to snap for a passtime when disturbed so pulling the head is usually considered to be the safer option. It's certainly masses less hassle than dealing with snapped studs in the front of the block.

I would like to change the inlet manifold gasket as a precaution - and because I do appear to have a drip from somewhere towards the back of the engine there. Stripping that off the head, cleaning the surfaces up etc would be a thousand times easier with the head not attached to the car. Particularly as the rear of the mating surface on the head is a fluffing long way away from you when you're trying to remove goodness knows how old gasket and I remember my back really didn't enjoy it last time round.



I'll get everything needed to pull the head in stock anyway then it's there if I decide to go down that road. I'd rather have it on the shelf and not need it than the other way about.

Oh, and the horn doesn't work. The relay clicks but no sound. I've added it to the list.

This may all come across as sounding really negative, but it really really isn't. I knew this was a car that hadn't been in regular use for a long time so there was absolutely going to be a bunch of fettling involved before it was ready to be chucked into day to day service. Nothing I've found here scares me. Once these things are all sorted I reckon we'll have a nice driving car. These will always be a bit heavy in the steering department, and aren't the sort of car you chuck round corners and roundabouts like the Trabant. However they shouldn't feel actively wayward and the brakes when set up properly are every bit as good as anything made up to the point where ABS and such started to become the norm.

On the plus side, the gearbox is far quieter than on my last one, and we seem to have working syncromesh on the three gears we should have (haven't tried overdrive yet, but the seller has indicated it does and I've no reason to believe otherwise). Clutch while I think could do with a tweak adjustment wise is smooth. There are orders of magnitude less squeaks, creaks and rattles from the car in general than the last one. The engine pulls well and smoothly and save for wanting the valve clearances set sounds healthy. Oh, and yes without the silencer on the intake it does indeed sound as epic as I remember when you crack the throttle open. On the subject of sound, the exhaust on this one is definitely louder than the last one was. Not that I'm going to be one to complain about straight six noises! The car seems to track straight and aside from the fact that the steering wheel isn't straight, the car itself seems to track nice and straight.

I reckon with a bit of elbow grease and patience it will be a nice driving car. At least I do feel that I've got something resembling a to do list now rather than a bunch of question marks and that makes my brain happier.

That looks like a nice old bus! What happened to the old one, is it still running?

Despite me having expected it to end up as a parts car given the condition and (relatively) low values of P4s making restoring it make zero sense financially, it is now apparently undergoing a full restoration. I was sure it was either going to wind up as a parts donor or ending it's days on a banger racing oval. I'm glad to be surprised this time.

First job today was to try to reattach the fuel pump to the Renault. Who knew the hose I was trying to replace is a different size at one end to the other. Decided to walk away from that before I wound up setting fire to it.

Back to the Rover.

We needed to do something about the indicators/sidelights.



They were the wrong way around (indicator should be at the top) and the sidelights are the wrong type (they're from a P5B I think), and looked particularly goofy viewed from the side.



This is how that corner *should* look.



You can see from the side that everything sits at the same distance from the face of the car now.



I know it was a small thing but it really was bugging my OCD. I wouldn't have minded keeping the chrome backing plate, but the diameter is too small to allow the indicator lens to fit, its own surround fouls on the backing plate.



This is the other reason I wanted to change things: The state of most of the lamp holders.



While that was working it clearly wasn't going to continue doing so for all that much longer.

I confess that the sidelights aren't actually connected yet - I realised halfway through the job that I didn't actually have any bullet connectors in stock. Oops. The indicators I didn't need to worry about that as they came with the looms already attached so just plugged into the connector blocks straight out of the box. I did reuse the indicator lenses as there's nothing wrong with them and the moulding is better quality than the reproduction ones.

Electrical issues are pretty widespread on this car, so I've decided to tackle some of those.

The over reading gauges should be a simple one - just replace the voltage stabiliser. It's the obviously shiny new thing attached to the back of the instrument panel, roughly centre frame below.



Undo the nut holding the old one on, put the new one on and connect the B and I terminals back up as they were before. Five minute job. It looks to have worked too.



The fuel gauge is now showing just a touch below full - it was pegged off scale high before. It probably is still a touch on the high side but far more reasonable.

While I was in there I took a look at the non working dash illumination. Unsurprisingly this was just because the rheostat was dirty. A bit of contact cleaner sorted that out.



A new bulb and some cleaning of the fuse holders got the front courtesy light working.



Similar story with the number plate lights - cleaned the bulb holders and they sprung back to life.



The reversing light was actually working but it got the same treatment.

I have figured out where this black gunk is coming from.



It's the electrical tape that's dotted all over this car which has turned to goo. It's horrible stuff which is like sticky black paint. Rear ones don't work because nobody reconnected the wires to the switches, so they're floating around behind the panel somewhere. That's a job for another day, have removed the bulbs for now so that can't ground itself out and drain the battery (assuming there's anything attached to the lights themselves).

The clock has now been reconnected - and still doesn't work.



Not really surprised, had fully expected it to need servicing.

The main beam indicator has been resurrected. The bulb had escaped from its holder and was rattling around inside the speedometer.



There is definitely something amiss with the headlight wiring. Which given it's running to a random extra switch on the dash doesn't surprise me. Main beam is fine, but on dip both dip and main filaments are lit, which isn't right and is asking to overheat wiring. The wiring in that area we've already established is a mess, so entirely likely could just be connected up wrong on the inner wing junctions. That's where we've left it today. Was nice to actually get an hour to do something when it wasn't ten million degrees and actually managed to achieve something.

As a fellow owner of a couple of Renaults I really understand how you feel about setting fire to them on the many occasions they start to get too irritating... Meanwhile looking at the photos of your rover wiring loom, is it possible to replace it with a new one.. probably less fun than chasing faults but less of a fire risk... ( I had a smoke coming out of the dash of a lorry once... The dogs water poured into offending area soon put it out and I managed to get back to the yard, but my then girlfriend wasn't impressed and soon became an ex

In theory yes, though a new loom is £500 and a bit of change. Not a fun job to fit either. Been there, done that, on a far simpler car with far less of it buried behind trim etc. It took what felt like forever and of course after much head scratching ended up having to modify the new loom in a couple of areas because different components had been installed in the car over the years.

I've not seen really widespread damage to it yet. Just a few bits of historic hackery and wear on the lighting loom on the inner wings where it always seems to, but is simple enough to repair. Likewise by the bootlid where the wiring for the number plate and reversing lights flexes. In behind the dash everything looked to be in decent shape at least.

I may well change my tune if I come across more serious nonsense in due course but fingers crossed I don't need to take quite such drastic action.

Isn't this a funky looking brake pedal arrangement compared to a modern car?



That rod heading out of frame to the left runs to the master cylinder, which is quite a chunky one. Hand for scale.



Underside in general at a glance from this corner looks really pretty clean. Well, not clean clean, but you know what I mean.







I believe there should be a shield covering the handbrake mechanism to keep the worst of the road spray off of it. I'll need to find or make one of those.



This is what was left of the rubber boot meant to be sealing around the handbrake lever where it goes through the floor.



This should do a better job at keeping the elements outside I think.



Though that's not going to do much given the gaping hole around the brake and clutch pedals.



There is supposed to be a rubber boot there which holds a felt "washer" in place around the pedal shafts. Unsurprisingly these had disintegrated.



To change these you remove the pinch bolt holding the pedal to the actuator rod and pull it off, pull the old boot out, and stuff the new one in from outside - *before* putting the felt pad in as you need all the flex you can get to get the thing into place.







I do need to tweak the adjustment of the pedal though - the rod should be level with the stop tab just by the boot in the above photo, whereas there's the best part of an inch of clearance at the moment. I suspect with that set right the pedal will feel a lot better - an inch here equates to probably well over two at the pedal.

Clutch pedal seal will be more of a pain to do as there's a chassis rail in my way. I will probably pull the brake pedal again and clean up the shaft a bit so it doesn't tear up the new felt seal in a matter of minutes (it takes less than a minute to remove so no huge loss doing it a couple of times) and do the same to the clutch while I have that out to change. Assuming those felt pads really want to be soaked in oil as well - the manual I have makes no mention that they even exist much less how to prepare them.

That looks complicated, at least it's designed so you can get at it to service things.. just re fitted starter motor on my Clio..

rich. wrote: Fri Jul 04, 2025 5:41 am That looks complicated, at least it's designed so you can get at it to service things.. just re fitted starter motor on my Clio..

It's not really any more complicated than the setup on a modern car, just laid out differently. The handbrake is maybe a little more elaborate as it's using a solid linkage rather than a cable, but it's not that complicated.

-- -- --

We now have a fully functional set of side and tail lights.





I still need to tidy up the routing a little, but the wiring on the inner wings is looking a bit better now I've properly repaired the couple of bits that had chafed. They still look terrible as the outer cloth covering has degraded in quite a few areas, but the actual insulation aside from those couple of spots looks to be in good shape.



Once I've got things routed properly I'll get some new wrap on there to stop the outer loom from disintegrating any further at the ends. It's never going to look pretty, but short of replacing the whole loom that's always going to be the case.



I will add a heat shrink sheath to where the wiring goes through the wing - I've deliberately left things like they are at the moment as I know I need to do fault finding on the wiring to the headlights, so being able to see what's left of the coloured sheathing will make that easier for me to follow.

I'm not totally sure why these side lights came fitted with 21W bulbs...that's total overkill. I'll grab some 5W ones shortly which is far more reasonable.

The horn currently doesn't work. I can hear the relay clicking when you press the horn ring on the steering wheel but there's nothing in terms of sound. Thankfully the original horns are still present.



Hopefully they just need a service and will be brought back to life soon. Most likely just the points gummed up from years of disuse. I did wonder if the negative earth conversion might have caused issues here, but apparently this style don't care about polarity. It's still going to be a right pain to work around for the clock and radio though. I really should put a couple of prominent labels in the engine bay and by the battery showing the car is negative earth now to prevent anyone making expensive mistakes in the future. It's not something I would have done myself, but it's already done and swapping back would mean rebuilding half the ignition system.

-- -- --

Today I've done a little detective work on the headlights.

On that note, does anyone have a good 110 wiring diagram? The one in the manual I have is tiny and quite hard to read. Colour would be even better, but I'll take what I can get. Trying to search on Google just gets me about 50,000 Land Rover 110 results. The wiring in the 110 is quite fundamentally different to the other P4s so it really does need to be the right one. It's not the end of the world, and I could probably just spend an evening redrawing the one in the manual in a more user friendly form if it came to it.

The way the lights *should* work on a P4 is as follows.

This switch on the dash when flipped to the right turns on the parking lights, and to the left turns on the panel illumination, side & tail lights.



Flicking the rearmost stalk on the right hand side of the steering column down should then energise the dip/main circuit.



The one nearer the steering wheel is the indicators.

Main/dip is toggled by the foot switch to the left of the clutch.



The instrument panel illumination can be adjusted using a rheostat that looks just like a switch on the other side of the instrument panel.



There has at some point obviously been an issue in this car. While the park/side switch works normally, the dip switch has been disconnected and replaced by this one down by the choke. This turns on the dip/main circuit irrespective of the position of the park/side switch.



However looking closer at things I don't think they have just interrupted the feed to that switch, as if you look closely when you turn that switch on, both main and dip filaments are lighting at the same time when on dip. Something ain't right.

The wires to the dip switch should be red/blue and blue. A little digging behind the instrument panel, sure enough I found these floating around not hooked to anything.



I had expected this switch to be dead - but it tests absolutely fine. 0.2 ohms when closed, and no ground faults.

There definitely has been some hacking going on in here as expected.





That brown wire taped in is one of the ones that goes to the added switch, the other is jumping power from a permanent live on park/side switch.



I'm 99% sure that the three connections in question are the connections to the disconnected switch and the missing one which should hook up where the brown one is on the park/side switch. It's actually easier to see the colours in the photos than in person - one reason I took them.

I just want to get a better diagram so I can see what exactly they have done (and document it!) before I go and change anything. It wouldn't be the first time I've gone and reversed mods like these and things have *just worked* afterwards, leaving me completely at a loss as to why things had been hacked around, and questioning what was going on for ever more.

It's also possible that the dip/main issue is entirely at the headlights themselves as well, they have been replaced - they could just be wired wrong and it's nothing to do with what's going on behind the dash. We'll figure it out. It's not a complicated electrical system at the end of the day.

The torrential rain this morning has also identified that there's some water getting in on the driver's side of the windscreen.



Hopefully a bit of Cpt. Tolley's will improve that. I'd rather not have to faff around replacing screen seals. The rear windscreen doesn't seem to leak though as far as I can tell, which is definitely better than was the case on the previous one I had.