Penguin
Active Member
Hi All, been lurking for a while, this is my P6, i bought it blind as a breaker about 2 years ago, but once it arrived back at my workshop i realized it was far too good to break. im only the 3rd owner, and its covered a mere 38,000 miles! i cant remember how long the first owner had it, but it was something like 8 years and in that time it covered a mere 8,000 miles, before being sold to a rover specialist who used it until 2002 when it was parked up in a lock up garage.
with seized brakes we had to tow it off the breakdown truck, amazingly all i had to do to get it running was file the points and put fuel and a fresh battery in it. even more amazingly to get it driveable all we did was strip the brake calipers fit new seals and brake hoses, a couple of wiper blades a screen washer motor and i was able to put an mot on it, no welding required, not bad going for a car that had been parked up for 15 years! at this stage the plan was to sell it and make some money.
at this point i will come clean, i own Ely service Ely Service | Specialists in Classic Rovers so i get to drive quite a few classic rovers, and although i have always liked driving and working on classic cars, my personal interests are more around racing bmw's than having another classic of my own, added to the fact i dont like autos, keeping the car myself wasnt on the radar, then i took it for a drive round the estate, the driving experience was somewhat floored by flat spots on all the tyres,, but other than that it drove and steered really nicely, at the time i put that down to the PAS, on second thoughts the low mileage would of played a large part, its got 100,000 fewer miles than most P6's i drive.
at this point i decided to keep it! but thats as far as it got, it spent the next year and half parked up doing nothing, i collected a few bits along the way, a 24mm anti roll bar, tr7 lt77, and a 4.6 along with some other odds and ends, but that was as far as i got, there was far too much other stuff going on in my life for me to do anything with it and ive been in the fortunate position that business hasnt gone quiet enough for me to get the staff to work on it for something to do.
lately ive been thinking about changing my daily driver of 18 years, which is a 21 year old diesel passat with nearly quarter of a million miles on the clock, i fancy a late bmw 1 series, but cant bring myself to spend that much money on a car, especially given the passat still works and probably has another 100,000 miles life in it, we have a couple of loan cars i can use, ive also got a mercedes sprinter, my wife has a nice car, and the good old P6 is stitting doing nothing, so spending thousands on another car seems a bit pointless. At this point Tom Norman appeared, Tom being one of the founders of Ely service and owner of its predecessor Ely service motor company, which lead to a conversation about Bressingham, and the forthcoming Norfolk and norwich rover owners club show. That prompted me to put a battery on the P6 chuck a can of fuel in it, a few minute later i was driving round the industrial estate in it. at that point i realized it would cost me nothing to insure, tax or even mot (it doesnt need one but i dont believe in using un-moted cars) the only thing i had to do to put a ticket on it was change the wheels and tyres, the old ones being metric donovos which by now were well and truly square, because im not sure what i want to do eventually regarding wheels i just dug out a set of steel wheels and S wheel trims, i know its not an S and we do have normal trims but i like the look of the S ones better, checking my tyre supplier the only 185/14's they had were van tyres or eye wateringly expensive, so i opted for a set of budget 195/70/14, ok they are cheap ones, but better than having ancient tyres and they fit quite nicely and look right, so thats it we are pretty upto date, ive owned it for a couple of years moted it twice, 4 miles apart ( one lap of the estate at work is a mile) and tonight for the first time in 17 years it went on the public highway went i drove it home which was all of another 2 miles! tomorrow the real test we are going to go to the inlaws in it which is a round trip of about 80 miles, what there reaction to it will be i dont know, when they see a tatty old rover with dead flat paint they will probably assume we are on the verge of bankruptcy!
with seized brakes we had to tow it off the breakdown truck, amazingly all i had to do to get it running was file the points and put fuel and a fresh battery in it. even more amazingly to get it driveable all we did was strip the brake calipers fit new seals and brake hoses, a couple of wiper blades a screen washer motor and i was able to put an mot on it, no welding required, not bad going for a car that had been parked up for 15 years! at this stage the plan was to sell it and make some money.
at this point i will come clean, i own Ely service Ely Service | Specialists in Classic Rovers so i get to drive quite a few classic rovers, and although i have always liked driving and working on classic cars, my personal interests are more around racing bmw's than having another classic of my own, added to the fact i dont like autos, keeping the car myself wasnt on the radar, then i took it for a drive round the estate, the driving experience was somewhat floored by flat spots on all the tyres,, but other than that it drove and steered really nicely, at the time i put that down to the PAS, on second thoughts the low mileage would of played a large part, its got 100,000 fewer miles than most P6's i drive.
at this point i decided to keep it! but thats as far as it got, it spent the next year and half parked up doing nothing, i collected a few bits along the way, a 24mm anti roll bar, tr7 lt77, and a 4.6 along with some other odds and ends, but that was as far as i got, there was far too much other stuff going on in my life for me to do anything with it and ive been in the fortunate position that business hasnt gone quiet enough for me to get the staff to work on it for something to do.
lately ive been thinking about changing my daily driver of 18 years, which is a 21 year old diesel passat with nearly quarter of a million miles on the clock, i fancy a late bmw 1 series, but cant bring myself to spend that much money on a car, especially given the passat still works and probably has another 100,000 miles life in it, we have a couple of loan cars i can use, ive also got a mercedes sprinter, my wife has a nice car, and the good old P6 is stitting doing nothing, so spending thousands on another car seems a bit pointless. At this point Tom Norman appeared, Tom being one of the founders of Ely service and owner of its predecessor Ely service motor company, which lead to a conversation about Bressingham, and the forthcoming Norfolk and norwich rover owners club show. That prompted me to put a battery on the P6 chuck a can of fuel in it, a few minute later i was driving round the industrial estate in it. at that point i realized it would cost me nothing to insure, tax or even mot (it doesnt need one but i dont believe in using un-moted cars) the only thing i had to do to put a ticket on it was change the wheels and tyres, the old ones being metric donovos which by now were well and truly square, because im not sure what i want to do eventually regarding wheels i just dug out a set of steel wheels and S wheel trims, i know its not an S and we do have normal trims but i like the look of the S ones better, checking my tyre supplier the only 185/14's they had were van tyres or eye wateringly expensive, so i opted for a set of budget 195/70/14, ok they are cheap ones, but better than having ancient tyres and they fit quite nicely and look right, so thats it we are pretty upto date, ive owned it for a couple of years moted it twice, 4 miles apart ( one lap of the estate at work is a mile) and tonight for the first time in 17 years it went on the public highway went i drove it home which was all of another 2 miles! tomorrow the real test we are going to go to the inlaws in it which is a round trip of about 80 miles, what there reaction to it will be i dont know, when they see a tatty old rover with dead flat paint they will probably assume we are on the verge of bankruptcy!
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