Practically Classics Forum

Since my last update, the Xantia has been sold back to my brother who had far greater need of it than I did. I was after something smaller and petrol powered and a browse of Gumtree resulted in a last-minute purchase of something that should be far more dull than it is and which I'm completely smitten by. The following is a selection of my adventures with my new purchase.

20th July 2015



It was an extremely short notice thing. My brother and I were browsing Gumtree and ringing buyers of cars who had sold their cheapy vehicles or had scrapped them and were just about to give up. Then we spotted this one for £275 with MoT until April next year (and a clean sheet with no advisories!). It was a 2 and a half hour drive away but we took the chance on it.

The drive home was entirely uneventful. It might only be a 1.4 kettle but by crikey it's surprisingly brisk. Did about 130 miles on under £20 of unleaded.




I am VERY happy with it.



Toys include:

- electric tilt and slide sunroof
- electric front windows
- remote central locking (one door doesn't really work)
- factory alarm immobiliser that does work, as I found out in the service station
- Remote boot and fuel filler flap release
- Adjustable steering column
- Xplod CD player but the original Rover radio and code too, happily


It's not perfect, and I wouldn't expect it to be at £275. In its favour is an MoT until April next year which had no advisories at all which always bodes well. It does need the wheels balancing as they're a bit jiggly at 65mph but not terrible. It may need the tracking doing. Brakes are very good, clutch can drag a bit below 10mph so that's either in need of adjustment or replacement, I'm not sure which yet. One electric mirror is broken, one door doesn't work properly on the central locking and the wheel trims are vile. There's lacquer peel everywhere, it looks like a skin condition. Interior is reasonable but not perfect.

The car has done 107,000 miles but doesn't feel like it, the whole thing still feels solid and tight. It's incredibly comfortable for me, it's actually the right shape, and the overall dimensions of the car are pleasant too, it's very easy to live with around town in a way the Xantia isn't.

Tomorrow I'll get some fresh pictures and show some of the things I will be putting right. The car has the right feel to it, like it's a car I'll be happy to invest time and money in. Everything about it is just how I want it to be. I might lower it a bit and put some interesting wheels on it, equally I might leave it standard and get some decent Rover trims for it instead.

21st July 2015


It has some rust, nothing serious and all sortable.


This is the worst bit, it needs a couple of about 3" patches let in. Someone has bodged it when it was a tiny bleb by the looks of things and while it looks ugly it's arrested further rust development.


The roof looks like post-sunburn peeling skin. I'm considering painting the roof gloss black.


Lacquer peel on the bumper and fade on the plastics. Considering smoked rear lights here too just to smooth things out a bit.


Coating on one of the rear window trims is lifting. Not sure how to resolve this just yet, don't really want to take it back to shiny metal, I'd rather it be all black.


Really minor bubbles on the rear drivers door. This is also the door that the central locking doesn't properly work on.


More lacquer peel, the photograph is really flattering to it.


The bonnet is buggered complete with lacquer peel and a dented corner. I'll probably replace it with another red bonnet. I hate the grille, I want to kill it with hammers, just not quite yet.

It has the best interior, really comfortable and in reasonably good order. Grimy in the usual places and in need of a Vulgalour. It feels a lot like a modernised Montego inside.








Top corner of the front driver's door card corner has collapsed, not sure I can repair it so I might need a new door card.


Spectacular repair to the passenger electric mirror which doesn't work and shows me an excellent view of the road just to the right of the car and nothing else.


Looks a bit tired, but then so would you after 107,000 miles and 21 years.


Those wheel trims! More hammer time, I think. Could do with losing just a bit of arch gap too, and maybe some nice period alloys.


The future of practical classics right here.

22nd July 2015
Spent a couple of hours today giving the Rover its first wash, which it very desperately needed. It will need two or three more washes to really get it properly clean and get all the fiddly crevices done. It also badly needs a machine polish for the scratches in the paint. That said, today I got everything above the bumper line clayed and cut back to shiny paint, a little effort will see the last imperfections dealt with nicely. Then I sacked off the miserable wheel trims so I'm now rocking miserable steel wheels for a bit instead.





I hate the facelift grille on these. I hate it so much I'd rather drive around with the car looking like this.


I did at least want to try and fill the gap, if for no other reason than to keep the radiator protected. Had a scout around the scraps at the unit and found an Alfa Romeo stainless steel sill trim which had seen better days. Luckily, two of the fixing holes lined up perfectly and after some trimming and fine tuning I have a rudimentary grille. The fit isn't the best and I don't mind because this is very short term.  I can use the bonnet properly and it looks marginally tidier.




The boot lid has been resprayed at some point in slightly the wrong colour. It has got evidence of cats climbing on it judging by the scratches. It should all just machine polish out. I spent a bit of time removing some foam Os from the rear screen, no idea what they were for.


It's not a huge difference in the pictures, the phrase 'Resale Red' comes to mind with how photogenic this colour is even with the utterly ruined bonnet. I'm definitely going to un-facelift the front, like I did successfully with the Xantia. I've even had a pre-facelift car in the same colour pointed out to me on eBay that's being broken so I've dropped the vendor a message to see if I can get grille, bonnet, wheel trims and rear bumper for a decent price. The rear bumper on mine needs a fair bit of cosmetic work, if I can just put a better one on it will save me a lot of grief. I've got access to my brother's old 216SLi (hatchback rather than saloon) which is the same colour and has many of the parts I need so I've been quite lucky really.

Made an attempt to carefully take the lacquer peel back on the roof to see if it could be re-lacquered. It couldn't. The non-lacquered red was so thin there was nothing to work with and it was too easy to go through to the undercoat so I took that as a sign to buy some gloss black paint.






I really like that. It needs a couple more coats and a polish to really make the best of it. Already it looks smarter than what was there. I'm waiting now on a bit of time and a couple of payments to clear before I go and buy some more bits and pieces to continue the spruce up.

24th July 2015
Got the roof flatted back and the second coat on, one of the gutter trims doesn't want to go back on properly so it's off for now until I sort that. Irritatingly, just as I finished putting the last bit of paint on a big spray of water went all over it so I have to flat it back a third time and put a final coat of paint on. I switched to Rustoleum paint because I couldn't get the Wilkinson's tin (half the price) as they were out of stock. I'm glad I did too, the Rustoleum is far easier to work with and gives a much better gloss finish.


Turned my attention to the interior which was mostly pretty clean. Usual toothbrush action needed on the stalks and this time on the A-pillars too so I could get rid of the Sid-and-Doris easy access grease marks. Not entirely sure how to clean off the stains on the sunroof blind, I'd like to remove the blind to clean it but I suspect that's going to be way more hassle than it's worth.


The rest of the interior came up well really quickly. I've only done the plastics, I'm yet to deep clean the carpets, seats and parcel shelf. I've got to check the front door switches too, they don't always want to operate the interior light unlike the rear doors which do.


Steering wheel was really clean which made me disproportionally happy.


Best of all, the annoying Sony Xplod has been removed and the original radio reinstalled. Not only does this look better, it produces far more volume at a greater quality. It has also highlighted that the rear speakers are just about dead. Great that I have a spot to keep my cassette tapes too, but I would have liked to have been able to see which ones they are, a minor design issue there.


Last of all, I got the badges off the boot to tidy the rear end up. I'm leaving the Vikings where they're fitted and will source one for the bonnet. I think I'm also going to get in touch with DMB Graphics to get a pair of reproduction dealer plates as I quite like the design of the rear one and the front is just a generic replacement, both are pretty tired.


I also did the exterior plastics and rubber which has come up a treat. The front bumper soaked up loads of vinyl and rubber treatment. Didn't bother doing the rear bumper as I'm getting a replacement tomorrow morning.


Now that I'm starting to get the car really properly clean its starting to get noticed in a good way. I never thought I'd have another car I was as excited and happy to own as my old Polo and it turns out the Rover is the car I wanted the Polo to be. With this and the Princess I'm as happy as a pig in muck, I feel as though I may have achieved my own personal old car Nirvana.

25th July 2015

Got back and found I've just clocked up 400 miles in the Rover. I'm pretty knackered too because this is about four times the mileage I normally do in a week, let alone 5 days.

First stop today was Bradford Auto Spares in, predictably enough, Bradford. Super little place unfortunately located at the other end of Bradford traffic. Picked up a reasonable rear bumper, pre-facelift front grille and a set of early wheel trims. The young lad that was part hunting was really knowledgeable and interested in the 414, breath of fresh air that.


After figuring out just how to get the rear bumper inside the car I tootled over to Krujoe's (chap from another forum) place. A couple of people tried to drive into me in Bratfud and then the radio randomly conked out completely (this I would later learn was just the fuse). Temperature gauge was a bit high in traffic, combated by turning the heaters on. We think the radiator fan has stopped working so it's possible that there's a blown fuse for radio and rad fan. Shall investigate later. No oil or water has been consumed and the car performed faultlessly. Just wheel trims have improved things no end.



I was going to drop the early grille on to see what needed adjusting. Plenty of trimming and fiddling to do and either a replacement or modified bonnet release handle. If BAS still have the bonnet latch on their breaker I'll see how much it is to post.

This is the post-facelift latch.


This is the pre-facelift latch as seen on Krujoe's Rover.


There are extra brackets for the early grille still present on the facelift car, they accept some additional screws.


This front indicator is scuffed and cracked, so we replaced it.


Many, many things were then done at Krujoe's with the swapping of parts and finding of niggly bits and pieces between my car and the ex-Chompy Rover. I'll do a full report tomorrow or something when I'm more awake. Here's some pictures of KruJoe driving my Rover.




On my drive home I had a little mini-break and saw a couple of lovely old things in the car park, one being a Sunbeam Rapier and the other a Bristol 403, both cars I admire the styling of greatly.

26th July 2015
Day 6 of ownership and all the rough bits are dealt with and I now own a really nice looking and driving car. This is the fastest turnaround of any car I've owned and one of the cheapest. From Krujoe and the ex-Chompy Rover I got these things:
- pair of headlights
- pair of under headlight trims
- 200 series hatchback spoiler (in two parts and with rusted out bolts)
- one door handle
- on interior roof handle end cap
- full set of gutter trim clips
- pair of gutter trims
- under bonnet soundproof panel
- steering wheel
- gear knob
- bonnet
- rear door small Viking badge
- passenger side electric door mirror
- driver's side manual door mirror. The casing on the SLi is different to whatever spec the electric mirror donor is.
- front driver's side indicator.
- probably something else but I can't remember what beyond a massive pile of nuts and bolts and screws and things.

Combine that lot with the pre-facelift grille (in white), early wheel trims and rear bumper I picked up from Bratfud the same day and I have everything to make the car look great. The other thing to arrive was some "Fly Eye" perforated vinyl tinting film which was a tiny fraction of the price of buying a pair of smoked rear lenses.

GAME ON.

First job was to remove the rear lights and get them all cleaned up. Someone on another forum did mention they thought this car should be on the later rear lights and I wonder if it was because behind cluster number one was this little reversed-into-a-post dent, typical giffer damage really.


Suspicions of them being the wrong type of clusters is sort of backed up by the typical Genuine Scrapyard Parts yellow marker.


Not to worry, they work and the bodywork isn't in need of anything really as you'll see later in this update. Got the lenses all cleaned and de-mossed before setting to with the Fly Eye film. This stuff is nicer to use than regular film because there's plenty of spaces for the bubbles to escape out into. It's also a good amount more flexible and can deal with tight curves and odd shapes much easier. Best of all, it doesn't reduce the light output significantly unlike a heavier conventional film tint. I'm won over by it as a tinting medium for the rear lights. £5 for this or £30 for a pair of factory smoked lenses. I know which I'd rather go for.


On the car, with the manky old bumper still fitted at this point. Really, really happy with that. Turned out better than I'd imagined it might.


With that done, Chompy appeared and we headed over to the unit in part to find out what on earth was wrong with his Xantia and so I could get the Rover properly sorted. Got the rear bumper off the car to find the brackets on my old one are in better condition than on the replacement. I did take some comparison shots and the camera appears to have eaten them. The replacement bumper brackets aren't brilliant, the lower bolts on both are sheared and I was nervous about undoing the bolts that hold the brackets to the bumper in case those shear too. Instead, I'll take the old one apart to see how to repair the new one at a later date. So, what horrors were hiding behind the old bumper then?






No horrors, it was really tidy. There's a few really minor bits on the driver's side that I want to address when I swap the bumper brackets in the future but no rot at all and plenty of paint still in good order. When clearing out the boot I found a proper giffer trinket. It's just a branch with a highly polished end and a perished rubber foot at the other, it also inexplicably has a rubber band around the top of it. This was hiding under the carpet just where you see it.


Original toolkit intact and still with stickers, probably never been used. The plastic wheel that holds the spare in place has snapped off so that will need replacing but the boot floor is otherwise pristine.


Your first look under the bonnet at my lovely kettle. Under bonnet soundproof mat courtesy of Krujoe. I'm after a few of the fixing buttons if anyone has any up for grabs, I think I need 7 in all.


Chompy also diagnosed the issue with the suspected inoperative fan. We isolated the fan and tested it to find that it was working perfectly fine but wasn't being told when to come on. There's sign of historic bodge in the sensor that goes into the radiator (which is weeping from somewhere) and it turned out this was the fault so I'll replace both. For the very short term a jumper was fitted so that the fan comes on all the time. It being Sunday I couldn't get out to grab a radiator and sensor as everywhere was shut.

Now for the cosmetic, which is what I really enjoy. The bonnet I got from the ex-Chompy car had been sat in a field for two years under a tree and it showed.




With just soap and water it all came up clean. Chompy LOVED his old Rover and cleaned it sometimes 3 times a week, it was a very, very pampered car but the rust and parts availability put an end to all that love because he had driveshafts made of unobtanium. All that love made my life so much easier on the cleaning front. Didn't get a dry picture because most of today it has just rained and rained and rained. Minor realignment was needed as Krujoe and I had fitted the bonnet a little too far back, because I CBA fiddling with it in a field.


One of the other things that were liberated from that Rover was its boot spoiler and this is one that I'm really please Krujoe went HMMM about when he saw it. I thought the 200 and 400 had a different profile to the rear end, but much like the rear lights they're actually identical. I fancied a spoiler on the 414 but not any of the factory ones. A 200 spoiler painted satin black looks surprisingly like a little rubber ducktail and is ideal. Rather than bolts it's fitted with Sikkaflex and so far so good on that too.


When I cleaned up the replacement bumper I discovered it wasn't black plastic but grey! That was very annoying because it now meant I had to repaint it before fitting it. I also found that the chrome strip in my old bumper was in better condition than the new one and since that had to come out to paint the plain plastic bit properly anyway that was swapped over too. What a difference though, worth the effort!


I mean really, I'm totally in love with this thing, it's amazing.

27th July 2015
Lunch time tinkering was had. First up was to sort out the spoiler that had fallen off. It was awkward to split it back into its two halves because the Sikkaflex had glued them together really well, shame it hadn't glued it so well to the boot lid. It was necessary to split the spoiler down again because I had to put the three good bolts I had back in the best holes so that it would clamp to the boot lid properly. Mike drilled some holes - because I have very little confidence in that sort of thing - and then had to actually tighten the nuts up because I couldn't get my massive spade hands into the tiny space they now needed to live in. A bit more Sikkaflex to rebond the outer shell of the spoiler to the inner shell that was now firmly attached to the car and careful application of gaffer tape to keep tension on with newspaper to protect the fresh black satin paint. Miraculously, I didn't peel any red paint or lacquer off when this was removed. The spoiler has also not yet fallen off, so fingers crossed we got it right this time.


While that was setting the radio was investigated and it turned out the fuse in it had blown which was a really easy fix. Interestingly, the new fuse also seems to have repaired the apparently blown rear speakers which are now perfectly fine so perhaps it was just a dodgy fuse all along. Classic FM I think for you this time, very Rover 414 that.


Another job while waiting for the spoiler to set was the rear window trim. We think the rear screen might be a replacement, there were little cubes of glass in the boot under the carpet and there's signs that the trims have been fiddled with here and there. Removing the old trim was fairly easy, it just slides off the fixings. There were 5 fixing clips underneath and quite a lot of black sealant which didn't look right with the way it was just blobbed all over everything so I cleaned it all up and reduced the clips to three. The clips themselves snap into three pegs fixed to the D pillar so I'm not sure why there was a need to fit 5, I've kept the two I removed just in case they are needed later.


The trim then had the damaged plastic coating cleaned off, a few kinks taken out carefully and generally tidied up before being given a fresh coat of satin black and slid back into place. The end result is really tidy, a very satisfying little job that.


Only problem is that it's made the other side look appalling by comparison, so I'll have to do that one next.


28th July 2015
Collected the new clutch kit today and my new radiator arrived. Typically it was the wrong one, and unusually it was my fault not ECP's. A correct radiator has been sourced elsewhere which I shall collect tomorrow and I'm sorting out a refund from ECP. The currently fitted clutch is feeling very, very dead so I'm hoping to find some time outside of artwork and the C-Max I'm sorting the paint out on to get it done this week.

While out getting stuff today spotted and got some red Duck Tape to do the same to the Rover as I did to the Xantia and got all the chrome inserts wrapped. The door inserts were replacements made from sticky-back chrome that was slightly too long on two of the doors. I trimmed down the slightly too long inserts, wrapped them and then refixed the door trims with more Sikkaflex so they don't go anywhere. The bumper trims have moulded clips that push into slots and while I had to get our neighbour Simon to push the last four clips in because my hands said no, it was otherwise trouble free going. The end result is very satisfying.







I *really* need to get that front grille and bonnet sorted out now because they're letting the side down badly.

29th July 2015
Today I got the proper radiator and my refund on the incorrect one. I've been at the unit sorting out a full length key-strike on my housemate's brother's Ford C-Max. Really, really nasty thing to repair and has taken me a lot of the day to get close to sorted. In between paint drying sessions I determined to sort out the Rover.

I've done radiators before, normally they're not too much hassle. For some reason, on the 400 you have to remove the air filter box and battery to stand a chance of getting to the lower pipe and it's a bit of a faff to get it out. What few wires the engine bay has get in the way as you do this and one even runs over the top of the battery clamp bolt. Pretty annoying but eventually the old rad came out mostly in one piece.


The water that came out was mostly okay. It's been run on blue, and while some K-Seal has been put in it doesn't appear to be the usual twelve bottles worth. No amount of K-Seal was going to help the radiator that came out though. There's no signs of head gasket failure either so we're hoping the K-Seal is just for the radiator.




That old radiator was comprehensively ruined. The bottom rail came off with the fan. I'm glad I decided to do this first as that radiator was definitely going to cause me problems pretty quickly. Double checked all the various bits on the new one were in the right place, swapped the rubber feet and top brackets over from the old one and installed the new fan sensor. Because the fan sensor is on an interference fit rather than screw in or similar, I also put a tie wrap around it to make sure it doesn't fall out (I later learned there should be a plastic clip for this which is missing and doesn't come with the new radiator). That's probably just paranoia but I'd rather be safe than sorry, I had expected there to be some sort of clip to hold it in place but there isn't.


Before refitting the system was flushed as much as it would let us until it ran clear. For the short term I'm running on plain water and doing a weekly flush until as much old blue antifreeze and K-Seal remnants are out of the system before putting fresh coolant in. Everything buttoned up fairly easily apart from a bit of faff with the air box clips. One thing I did find out is that the previous owner probably has changed the oil and filter not long before selling the car, both look really good and the oil filter looks fairly new in the engine bay so those are at least some things I don't feel I need to do.


Last job after that was to bleed the system. Spent some time burping it in the conventional manner until I was directed to this little bolt (the little wet brown blob, this was just after undoing it) just to the right of the engine as you look at it from the front of the car.


Unfastened that and lots of air came whistling out followed by a little fountain of water. Topped up the water afresh and did it again to find only water coming out so I was satisfied it was as well bled as it could be. I was also advised to ensure the heater was set to hot while this was done so that the heater matrix would be bled properly too.

With that done we got the car running. As it reached 1/4 gauge we found that the small top hose on the radiator was leaking. This was fortunately just a bad clip and a new one resolved that. Then it was the waiting game because the temperature rose to 1/3 and just stuck there stubbornly. Took an absolute age to get to half gauge, the fan coming on all on it's own proving that the new switch was working properly.

Absolutely no issues presented themselves so we called the job done. Bit of a chore but a worthwhile one as it takes a big worry away. This weekend I hope to tackle the clutch, the brakes are okay for a bit as they still work perfectly fine so I'll do them when I properly have time to devote. I'm stretched a bit thin at the moment with work commitments so I need to find a couple of days of downtime somewhere soon.