My 2000TC 'Minstrel' needs a lot of TLC..

Many thanks, Harvey. I have with your help found what I needed to know. My car will not need to have an MOT when the current one expires providing register the car as a VHI. Problem is my car has only been 'taxed' in the last month or so. I read that the car has to be registered as VHI when the car is taxed. I will have to look into this more. There must be a way to register Minstrel as a VHI before next June. Lol.
Thanks again, Harvey.
 
Good morning, folks. After much swearing and cursing I have finally managed to bleed the clutch system. I put a replacement master cylinder with new seals on as my original had developed small rust holes. Done the seals on the slave too. Replaced the over stretched piping that was on the system too. Got the pedal pressure working well too. Problem is it is still very difficult to get into gear. Won't go into reverse at all. When it does go into first there is a rattle from the gearbox. I thought the clutch plate may be burnt out but after talking to a couple of mates we think it is the travel of the pedal not pushing the piston down far enough to engage the clutch correctly. Can anyone give me any further advice regarding this, please? Many thanks guys. Your advice really is essential and I thank for all the help you have given me over the last 2 or 3 years.
 
Many thanks, Harvey. I have with your help found what I needed to know. My car will not need to have an MOT when the current one expires providing register the car as a VHI. Problem is my car has only been 'taxed' in the last month or so. I read that the car has to be registered as VHI when the car is taxed. I will have to look into this more. There must be a way to register Minstrel as a VHI before next June. Lol.
Thanks again, Harvey.
I think you will find that all cars now taxed and over 40 years old will be recorded as not requiring an MoT, only when you next tax it, will you then be required to declare VHI, then if you don't ,the record will then be changed to requiring an MOT . That's latest news from FBHVC
 
Good morning, folks. After much swearing and cursing I have finally managed to bleed the clutch system. I put a replacement master cylinder with new seals on as my original had developed small rust holes. Done the seals on the slave too. Replaced the over stretched piping that was on the system too. Got the pedal pressure working well too. Problem is it is still very difficult to get into gear. Won't go into reverse at all. When it does go into first there is a rattle from the gearbox. I thought the clutch plate may be burnt out but after talking to a couple of mates we think it is the travel of the pedal not pushing the piston down far enough to engage the clutch correctly. Can anyone give me any further advice regarding this, please? Many thanks guys. Your advice really is essential and I thank for all the help you have given me over the last 2 or 3 years.
Does reverse crunch when you try to engage it, if so your mates' advice is probably correct? The clutch pedal should be adjusted so that it's level with the brake pedal. Otherwise it could be the bushes in the linkage, if the lever feels sloppy.
 
Does reverse crunch when you try to engage it, if so your mates' advice is probably correct? The clutch pedal should be adjusted so that it's level with the brake pedal. Otherwise it could be the bushes in the linkage, if the lever feels sloppy.
Make sure you really have bled the slave cylinder fully. Unbolt it & hold it so the bleed screw is upwards, then bleed again. Unless you’ already done this, I bet it’s your problem.
 
but after talking to a couple of mates we think it is the travel of the pedal not pushing the piston down far enough to engage the clutch correctly. Can anyone give me any further advice regarding this, please?

Make sure that you have bled the clutch correctly and have got every last bit of air out.

Then here's how to set up the clutch:

Pull back the carpet and underlay and set the brake pedal height between the bottom of the pedal and the floor to 6 & 7/8"
Set the clutch pedal level with the brake. This is done on the threaded rod into the master cylinder (under the bonnet on the 3500S).
Push the clutch operating arm rearward until the release bearing touches the pressure plate and make sure the arm is one spline forward from vertical. Remove the arm and move it on the splines if it's not, and take care not to drop the nut in the bellhousing.
Pull back the slave cylinder boot. Adjust the pushrod so that the piston is about 1" away from the circlip. (Pedal at rest)
Wind the stop bolt all the way in. (Thats the one in the footwell.)
Then get someone to slowly depress the pedal as you look at the piston in the slave. What you need to get is the piston just touching the circlip when the pedal is on the stop, and you achieve this by adjusting the pushrod each time just before the pedal is depressed.
Once you get to the point that putting your foot on the clutch down to the stop makes the piston touch the circlip in the slave, lock the nut on the pushrod.
Then wind the stop bolt up one turn, and lock it with the nut.
Depress the pedal again and make sure there is at least 25thou clearance between the piston and the circlip in the slave.
If not wind the stop bolt up some more a turn at a time.

Also make sure that the gearbox has the correct amount of oil.
 
Does reverse crunch when you try to engage it, if so your mates' advice is probably correct? The clutch pedal should be adjusted so that it's level with the brake pedal. Otherwise it could be the bushes in the linkage, if the lever feels sloppy.
Yes. Exactly as you say. Struggles to get in first and grinds if trying reverse. The lever from the piston is pretty tight. Going to check gearbox linkage this afternoon. Thanks for the update, m8.
 
Yes. Exactly as you say. Struggles to get in first and grinds if trying reverse. The lever from the piston is pretty tight. Going to check gearbox linkage this afternoon. Thanks for the update, m8.
I have cured the clutch. The pedal travel was wrong. It needed to be adjusted about half an inch upwards. Now goes into gear fine. Going to turn the car around in a few minutes so keep fingers crossed. Changed my mind about turning car around. Going to do it at the weekend. I want to take it down the side of my house to pressure wash and clean her. Seagulls have been using Minstrel for target practice. Damn seagulls!!! LMAO!!
 
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Make sure you really have bled the slave cylinder fully. Unbolt it & hold it so the bleed screw is upwards, then bleed again. Unless you’ already done this, I bet it’s your problem.
Think I may have to take your advice as I am sure there is some small air bubbles still in the slave cylinder. Thank you for your advice.
 
Good afternoon on this great day for English football. I am ecstatically pleased to say I have finally got Minstrel running really well and also the clutch working almost perfectly. I couldn't have done without the help of some really great friends and of course, you guys on this forum. After replacing the plastic piping between the Clutch Master and Slave Cylinders because the plastic pipe would not seal efficiently, I managed to bleed the clutch with my friend. I reverse bled it first then done a normal bleed. I just had to do a small pedal adjustment to get the piston pressure right. Took the car around the village for a test run. She ran very sluggish and was 'hunting' quite a lot too. When I got back, I had a chat with my friend about it. He suggested to have a look at where the needle collar sits in the carburettor. He said it should be level. It was actually about 1/8" below the top. I adjusted the fuel screw accordingly. I also checked the timing which was slightly out too. I cured that by resetting the dwell angle which was about 7 or degrees out. Went to start her up only to find what I thought was a low battery. After trying a jump starter on her we determined that the starter motor was sticking. A lump of wood soon sorted that. Lol. Took her out again. Stooped at the garage and put some fresh fuel in her. Then drove her down our village bypass reaching a speed of 70 mph with comparative ease. There was no shaking or vibration from Minstrel. Dropped her down through the gears to slow her down. I am really happy with the way she performed today, especially considering the trouble I have had in the last couple of weeks to get the clutch sorted. The only things I have to do now is adjust the handbrake as it comes up much too far (about 8 or 9 notches). I like to have it come up only 6 if possible. And the other thing is sort the windscreen washer pump out. It was working until recently. It's a pity she wasn't ready yesterday as I had to miss Sotterley Fair today to get her roadworthy. Lol. The next major job on her will be to sort the wiring out properly for the lights. Looks like spaghetti junction at the moment. The end result today is she is running better than she has done since I have owned her and she changes gear quite comfortably too. Happy days. Thank you to all of the guys on this vital forum who have been there for me when I have needed them most. Forever indebted to you. Be good to meet up with some of you at the local rallies to say a personal thank you too.

My son, Shane, will be pleased. We can now concentrate on his 1991 Mitsubishi GTO when he comes home from sea. Now that is a challenge!! ;) ;)
 
Put a new windscreen washer bottle and pump on yesterday. Washer now working fine. Had a look underneath to check the clutch cylinders. Disappointed to say clutch is leaking again. I have found the problem. The seals are leaking on the slave cylinder! I took the slave off and dismantled it. I found the piston seal had a split init. This was the new.one I had put on last week. Must have pinched it when putting it on. Have ordered a new seal kit. Hopefully that will be here midweek. Will update further when all back together. Other than that, Minstrel started up moreorless first time and idled nicely after warming up. Still think she needs tinkering with as start up running still not right.
 
Firstly I wish to apologise to all who followed my project. Although I believe a lot of you have been following some of what I have said and asked on Rover P6 pages on Facebook. As you can all see I have been very lax in updating my renovation. Minstrel is still not finished as I still have to finish respraying him. I will when I get time (due to work commitments, I don't have a lot of time spare atm) update the renovation work. A quick update. I have now finished the welding (Or so I thought!!). Thinking I had sorted and repaired the rear inner wings I cleaned and painted inside the boot. I then noticed some fibreglass on the inside of both inner wings! When I cleaned all the fibreglass off I ended up having to weld quite a lot of plate on to repair what the previous restorer had covered up with bloody fibreglass. And most of that was just stuck on by the paint! Where the battery box is there was a piece of angle iron that was best described as a very dangerous spike that wasn't even welded on. It was held in place by badly applied fibreglass! To cut a long story short I removed all traces of the fibreglass and made repairs using proper plate metal. To give you an idea of what that spike was like...if someone had been sitting in the rear offside passenger seat and the car had been hit on that corner by another vehicle that person would have been killed or very seriously maimed! The rear inner wings are now finished and the boot looks good again. I have resprayed the front and rear valances, the rear decker panel, the scuttle panel and the rear wings. I am now trying to get hold of 2 fairly decent rear doors as the ones on Minstrel would take a lot of work to repair. If I have to repair them I will.

I was have major issue with getting the engine to run smoothly. One of the reasons was the fuel pump wasn't working properly. Then I found I needed to remove the tank and totally clean it out. Also I had managed to get some bad petrol from some where and that had messed up the carburettor. After cleaning the carb, tank and renewing the fuel pump I got the engine running reasonably well. Not happy with the way it was running or idling, I bought an analogue dwell meter. After adjusting the dwell angle and sorting the timing out Minstrel is running ok now.

I have removed, renovated and resprayed the heater. The fan was exceptionally noisy so taking Alexandra C Phillips advice I stripped the motor down and repaired that. The heater is now back in Minstrel and working great.

I am only having one problem at the moment and that is the reversing lights are not working. I need to clean under the car below the gear stick to check the switch and wiring. The wiring to the lights inside the car seem fine although I have not done a 'live' test on them.

I hope to add some more pictures soon so you can all see what's been done.

Again sorry for the lack of updates.
 
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