Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[FrazzleTC]

This summer I made a decision to buy a classic car. I looked at most of the usual suspects for younger owners, but didn't find anything that was what I was looking for. My parents have a Triumph 2000TC, and although I quite fancied a Triumph, I thought I'd try a Rover 2000, as they were a car I'd always been interested in, and my father had had a few in the past, so I thought it'd be a car he could help me with. After getting insurance quotes, I realised that a 2000SC was the only one they'd insure, so I set about my search.
Anyway, after a month or two of searching I stumbled across and advert for a yellow Rover 2000, with a brief description and no photos. I phoned the seller requesting photos, and, after seeing them, asked a P6 expert to look over the car for me. His verdict was promising, although it needed a few little bits and pieces done, but nothing too worrying.
The car was in Essex, which is quite a distance away from me, so one evening, jokingly, I asked one of my friends if they wanted a trip to Essex to see, and collect, the Rover. A plan was hatched, and on the 21st of August, the two of us set off for Essex. We arrived in Chelmsford where the car was, at about 2 o' clock. After arriving at the seller's house, we had a look around the car, and he said he'd take us for a run, and once we were on some quieter roads would let me drive it. Unfortunately, after a mile of him driving, he braked for traffic, and a rear brake jammed on. This was caused by a badly fitted pad, which had slipped and jammed the caliper solid, and damaged the caliper. As a result, the seller agreed to knock a small amount off the car's price, and I had to get the car recovered on my breakdown cover as part of my insurance. However, it transpires that the breakdown cover doesn't start immediately after the insurance starting, so that was a no go. Thankfully, my friend had his AA relay card, so the car was recovered to his house in Lancashire, where we arrived back at 2 in the morning. Eventually my breakdown cover brought the car up here on the Tuesday night. At this point the car went to my local garage where the caliper was replaced, and a new de dion gaiter was fitted at the same time.
After about a week of driving the car around, my exhaust burst quite badly, and after inspecting it closely, I found that there wasn't an awful lot of exhaust left. So, I decided, that a stainless steel exhaust would be the way forward, and got one made locally. This stainless exhaust is pretty awful though. I asked for it to be made to original spec, using the old exhaust as a template, but they don't seem to have stuck to the original design and as a result the exhaust has a myriad of problems which they will need to rectify when I take the car back to them.
Anyway, about 2 days after the stainless exhaust was fitted, the car blew a head gasket, which was bad enough, but, on closer inspection it transpired there was far more to do than merely swap a gasket over.
Instead, the garage discovered that someone had filled the car with a substance to stop coolant leaks prior to me buying it. This had then blocked all of the engine's waterways, filled the engine with lumps of debris and caused the head gasket to go, warping the head in the process.
As a result, I had to find another head, which was given to me free of charge and was from a 33k mile car, and I had to buy some new sideplates, a new chain tensioner, new gaskets and some other little bits and bobs. Due to the complexity of this job, I sent the car to my local garage who are fantastic with classics, who did my car when they had time, which meant that it was off the road for a while, but the job has been done to the highest standard, so I'm happy with that side of things.
In addition to all of the aforementioned work, I've fitted two new sealed beams, connected the Kenlowe so that it cuts in and out automatically, fitted a new interior light, spent a lot of time cleaning, and sorted out the windscreen washer with new pipes.
Anyway, here are some photos of the car, both inside and out, and some of the parts fitted and removed.
Leaving Chelmsford

Car back home, photos taken after some pretty extensive cleaning.







A couple taken after even more cleaning


Some interior photos taken after I'd cleaned it all and fed the seats with leather feed a few times.



Some photos of the head gasket breakdown




The new head

New sideplates

Old sideplates



Finally, the car back home on Christmas Eve

Sorry for the really long post, so well done if you've got this far!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

[Rick]

Looks like you turned up a very nice car there, I enjoyed reading the story so far! I remember buying (well swapping for) my Austin Somerset maybe 10 or 11 years ago, and most of that journey homewards being made courtesy of the AA

RJ
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[badhuis]

Fantastic colour for a P6. Car looks very nice.
These early P6 are the nicest I think. Good luck and the more pics the better.

[Phil Lincoln]

Nice car, I have just aquired a 1970 2000sc manual to sit next to my P4.its been in a barn for 10 years so it will be a while before it hits the road.Lovely cars.
Best regards to all Phil.

[imfinlay]

Lovely car, I do like those early ones. Do you mind if I ask what you paid for it? Ish?

[peter scott]

Welcome to the forum FTC.

Your Rover looks to be in very good shape. As others have said, it's a nice colour and the nice original shape too.

Those radiator leak sealers must be one of the most iniquitous products known to car enthusiasts.

Peter
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1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[Farmer John]

Well done on your purchase, it looks like you have a good example of a hugely underrated car.
First drove one in the sixties, and simply could not believe how good it was and why it had been kept secret. Probably because it's sophistication is way beyond most motorists. The steering, the ride, the balance, I have never forgotten. The perfect vehicle to drive long distance and arrive feeling as though you have been just sitting in your favourite chair, but for less than half the time.
Then there was the time that I was sent out to replace the battery in one, have to check the diagnosis, open the door, insert and turn the key and...
the glovebox fell open.
Rover people would never do that.

John

[FrazzleTC]

Thanks for all of the kind comments everyone! Mine was advertised for £1500. Since then I've spent a lot on it, but I don't want to add up my total bills to avoid worry.
As you say Peter, products like that are awful, and I wish people would stop using them.
I agree John, they are very much underrated and are lovely cars to drive, with excellent brakes, good handling, good ride quality, and it's very smooth. The seats really are superb too, very comfortable. As regards the glovebox issue, everytime I've let someone who's not used to these cars start it, they've locked/opened the driver's glovebox.
Fraser

[Richard H]

Welcome to the forum Fraser, nice P6 you've got there
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Richard Hughes

[Greg]

What a lovely car you've acquired, when you mentioned 'yellow' in the begining of you post I thought it might be a rather bright colour but it's a really nice shade of yellow, as mentioned previously a good colour that suits the car
I remember the Police using these, always remember the spare wheel on the bootlid as well
A very nice vehicle, best of luck with it,
All the Best,
Greg

[FrazzleTC]

Thanks for all of the positive comments everyone.
A quick update on the car. A few days after Christmas I went out for a run in the P6 and when pulling away from a junction, it spluttered and stalled. Thankfully it restarted, but it just wouldn't pull away in D2, but was ok in D1 with some coaxing. On the way home it spluttered quite a bit and when reversing the car to put it in the drive, it cut out again, and refused to restart. I did all of the usual checks, compression was fine which was a great relief, and I couldn't find anything wrong. The next day I had another check, and discovered that I wasn't getting a regular spark through the leads, and that a new condensor and rotor arm were on the cards. They've since been fitted. Prior to that I also fitted a new wiper arm on the driver's side, as the spring wasn't pushing the wiper onto the screen properly, so that now works perfectly. I have quite a few more jobs to do, but in the meantime it seems fine. I'm going to try to avoid using it much until the snow and ice clears a bit.
Here are a couple of photos I took before I fitted the new condensor and rotor arm.




Fraser

[Rick]

I was watching a John Wayne film set in 1970s' London yesterday, and it was a pleasure to see roads filled with cars of very differing colour schemes. So often today you see hordes of silver/black/white/grey cars, whereas a few years ago there seemed to be far more reds, yellows, blues, oranges and so on, not forgetting two-tone paintjobs. The P6 looks great in that yellow

R
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[Phil - Nottingham]

I agree cars were far more colourful in those days - now most seem to follow all the sheep and have silver coloured new cars - dealers even say bright colours are more dificult to trade-in.

Mid you post-war everyone had black cars or very dark colours!
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Rover P2
Rover P4
Rover P5 & P5B
Land Rover S2 & S3
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[Phil Lincoln]

Hi I forgot to add this.
Regards to all.

[img]V[/img]

[FrazzleTC]

Nice pair of Rovers there! I like the colour of your P6.
As I mentioned in my first post, my stainless steel exhaust I got made is awful, so on Friday I took it to my local garage who let me put it on their ramp so I could get some photos to show just how bad it is. Bearing in mind they had the original as a template, and I asked for an absolutely original spec exhaust, here are the pics. Also, it's far louder than it should be.











I think you'll agree that it's a horrific effort at an exhaust. As a result I'm going to try my best to get a refund, and then get an exhaust elsewhere which won't rattle off the bottom of the car, sound far too loud, and might actually last.