Car Talk

[oldgregg]

Got out bid on one of those at an auction, later on I passed by as the new owner opened the boot to find self leveling cement, something in his face made me look over my shoulder as I passed, Oh thank you lord!

We had one. I think it was 7 years old when bought and while it wasn't a low-miler it wasn't crazy either.

It needed a head-off rebuild of the engine, with one of the inlet valves being bent and having to be replaced.

Of course these were pushrod engines (yes really) like on boats, so it was relatively easy.

Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

[OldBerkshireBoy]

Presume the hydrolastic suspension was ok on yours then. 

[vanessan]

Talk about going off topic! I’m not sure Clive will appreciate any of his boats being compared to an Allegro. 🤭

[Guest]

What the hell is an Allegro, Montenogo or an Ambassador??? 

[stumpy]

On 12/06/2019 at 14:46, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Now that was one stupid idea! Sadly not the only stupid idea from BL.

Oh I dunno - I had a selection of SD1s with the semi-square wheel, if you whipped the bottom of the wheel with butchers string you could steer with you left knee while rolling a fag. (I was told)

[SueH]

55 minutes ago, Jayfire said:

What the hell is an Allegro, Montenogo or an Ambassador??? 

The Allegro, apparently was thought to be one of the worst cars Austin ever built.  The Ambassador was another one of theirs, ditto the Montenegro I think.  Such a young sprog you are Jay!

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, SueH said:

The Allegro, apparently was thought to be one of the worst cars Austin ever built.  The Ambassador was another one of theirs, ditto the Montenegro I think. 

Ahh thank you Sue for your information, that helps a lot. Now just one more thing... who is Austin??? 

33 minutes ago, SueH said:

Such a young sprog you are Jay!

Well you've met me numerous times Sue, don't let the weathered ugly mug mislead you 

Hope you're all well Sue 

[oldgregg]

14 hours ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Presume the hydrolastic suspension was ok on yours then. 

Yeah it was, and the car was used for towing a Caravan for a couple of years.

I remember just how slow it was up Hawkshead Hill (before the engine rebuild and in reality probably after though we didn't try it again) with the 'van on the back. To be fair, anything other than second gear is overrated anyway, right? 

It was changed a couple of years later for the gold Cavalier CD, though. Now that was a car!

[ChrisB]

I had a MG Montego Turbo in 1985 and for it's day it was rapid and in the 18 months I had it it never had a fault. I remember with our Austin Rover fleet discount it came in at a fraction under £10K.

[BrundallNavy]

I bought a Rover 420 GSI in 1999, it was £18500 when new and I bought it at 11 months old for £8495. I had the car for 4 years and took it to France a few times and had no major problems and never didn’t get me home unlike the Alpha Romeo GTV that failed its 1st mot with severe rust requiring a new sill brake lines and welding to seat belt mounts constantly broke down but was brilliant to drive went it did go.

[annv]

I think a lot of reliability issues rust aside are down to how it is driven a classic example was the Viva HA which if you kept your foot on the clutch when stationary would wear the small thrust bearing which then allowed the crankshaft to move forward and tip the pistons which then caused bore wear and high oil consumption and then engine failure, leaving front wheel drive vehicles on full lock caused gaiters to split then wear to the joint. John

[LondonRascal]

Following from posting a video of the roundabouts on the NDR - separate thread - I noticed how nicely the engine note had been captured on the footage.

Before dinner I popped out again to film some acceleration runs, and this was the result.

 

[oldgregg]

There were quite a lot of Honda bits on the nineties Rovers, so they weren't too bad unless they had the dreaded K series in them... My brother in law had one of those 400's and had it years without too much trouble.

The Montego Turbo I have a feeling was not an EFI engine, bizzarely, perhaps due to complexity / budget? I wonder if it was therefore a bit more reliable as mid 80's electronics were not the best.

I do seem to remember they were not hard to blow up if thrashed, but then any high-performance engine is like that.

[addicted]

In 2002 we bought a Rover connoisseur estate. Within a short time it developed a rattle from behind the dashboard that drove us crackers. It turned out to be a loose component that Rover were aware of and there was a scheme in hand to deal with it that dealerships were apprised of. It then developed a roar that sounded as if the baffles had been removed from the exhaust . Numerous trips to the local dealership  failed to locate the problem. While at the annual motor show  I buttonholed a chap manning the Rover stand  who proved to be the National Sales director, He promised that after the show closed and he had time to deal with all that had cropped up there he would get in  touch with us and  see about getting our problem sorted. True to his word we had a call from him to take the car to Marshalls in Cambridge where he would arrange for a specialist mechanic to meet us.. The mechanic came as arranged and took the car out for a spin and on his return told us he had located the problem. It turned out to be  something loose between the head lining  and the roof! We collected the car next day - problem solved. We kept the car for 5 years in total and never had any other problems with it. We  occasionally still see it around locally looking immaculate and obviously still in good running order.

 

Carole

[ChrisB]

3 hours ago, oldgregg said:

There were quite a lot of Honda bits on the nineties Rovers, so they weren't too bad unless they had the dreaded K series in them... My brother in law had one of those 400's and had it years without too much trouble.

The Montego Turbo I have a feeling was not an EFI engine, bizzarely, perhaps due to complexity / budget? I wonder if it was therefore a bit more reliable as mid 80's electronics were not the best.

I do seem to remember they were not hard to blow up if thrashed, but then any high-performance engine is like that.

Totally correct it had the biggest SU I think I have ever seen feeding the turbo. This gave the car a bit of a funny trait. If you dropped a cog or two to set up for a corner  as the revs rose the car would accelerate for about a second, I think it must have been some sort of residual fuel and the turbo thinking it was wanted.

My following car was a Rover 825 Stirling which was a really lovely car for it's day both took me down to Port Leucate twice effortlessly

[Paul]

4 hours ago, oldgregg said:

There were quite a lot of Honda bits on the nineties Rovers, so they weren't too bad unless they had the dreaded K series in them... My brother in law had one of those 400's and had it years without too much trouble.

The Montego Turbo I have a feeling was not an EFI engine, bizzarely, perhaps due to complexity / budget? I wonder if it was therefore a bit more reliable as mid 80's electronics were not the best.

I do seem to remember they were not hard to blow up if thrashed, but then any high-performance engine is like that.

Not as many as a lot of people think. There is a lot of Daffodils shuffled around the internet about the K series engine. In fact it was very good, which is why it found it's way into such legendary cars as the Lotus Elise and Exige, Ariel Atom, GTM Sabre and the FSO Polonez. OK, there has to be an exception to every rule. They were very revvy and offered great performance and economy for their time. A lot of people drove around in Rovers thinking they were driving a Honda engined car when in fact they had a K series. It was fun looking at Autotrader ads saying "Honda Engine" when in fact the model in question was only ever fitted with K series. I had three cars down the years with K series engines, never a problem with any of them. They were generally very reliable as long as they were serviced properly. 

The MG Montego used the Austin O series, a development of the B series introduced in 1950, so very old tech but it was developed and upgraded, and as you suggest it's simplicity helped with reliability. It did eventually get 16 valves, and Lucas electronic injection. With 150bhp and 0-60 in under 8 seconds it was quicker than a Golf GTi. Just a shame that bits kept dropping off it. 

[oldgregg]

No I don't think there was much Honda on a K series! But if you got one of the models that had a Honda engine (complete with VTEC) they were sound.

Actually I think with a proper rebuild and upgraded gaskets / cooling system then the K series can be sound as well.

[ChrisB]

I always thought FSO Polonez used out of date Fiat lumps. That was another car I had for a while a Fiat Supermirafiori twin cam Sport. Like someone said about their Alfa! When it ran and was on tune it was fantastic. Sadly that was not too often.

[PCL023]

O series for the 2.0 litres, S series for the 1.6 litre. The O series came from the Sherpa  Van and was also used in the SD1 2000. Think it was the short lived 1.6 R series used in the first Maestro’s that we’re a derivative from the B series before these were changed to the S series? The bottom end of the O series was used for the base of the T series 2.0 16v twin cam used in the Rover 820. Not sure the O series was ever 16v? (It was a long time ago).... 

[SPEEDTRIPLE]

12 minutes ago, PCL023 said:

O series for the 2.0 litres, S series for the 1.6 litre. The O series came from the Sherpa  Van and was also used in the SD1 2000. Think it was the short lived 1.6 R series used in the first Maestro’s that we’re a derivative from the B series before these were changed to the S series? The bottom end of the O series was used for the base of the T series 2.0 16v twin cam used in the Rover 820. Not sure the O series was ever 16v? (It was a long time ago).... 

I think you need to get out more  

[PCL023]

Too true.... I guess that’s what came of cutting my teeth after leaving school working on these things at a Rover dealership. Funny how you remember things, that are no use to no one . Things are a lot different now, I can boar most folks to tears with container refrigeration and shipping.... 

 

[Chris1986]

I’ve had 2 cars with the K Series engine, an MG F and and MG ZS, head gaskets went on both ☹️

[Maxwellian]

There is no getting away from it BL and Rover in the later part of their existence were rubbish compared with the competition. 

[oldgregg]

Indeed. With the exception of the 75, they were not good.

That model is something of an oddity and borrows heavily from the BMW design studio as well as their parts bin; I mean why else does it have a transmission tunnel when it's front wheel drive.

They also did it a massive favour by giving it the 2.0 BMW M47 diesel then deliberately detuning it so that it didn't compete with the 3 series - Less power but more reliability, as you'd expect.

[imtamping2]

8 hours ago, oldgregg said:

Indeed. With the exception of the 75, they were not good.

That model is something of an oddity and borrows heavily from the BMW design studio as well as their parts bin; I mean why else does it have a transmission tunnel when it's front wheel drive.

They also did it a massive favour by giving it the 2.0 BMW M47 diesel then deliberately detuning it so that it didn't compete with the 3 series - Less power but more reliability, as you'd expect.

Sorry I have to disagree with the last statement, having had many rover cars and knowing my way around them like the back of my hand......you would have to go somewhat to beat a rover 420gsdi (with the L series diesel engine)for its reliability ,spec ,fuel consumption and comfort  on a pound for pound basis.......

Just my two pennies worth