penguins p6 3500

In a car that the system is already installed, a modification to to R380 would require a new style compressor, a new filter/dryer, and new rubber hoses. Regarding the compressor, if you shop around there are opportunities even for genuine Sanden ones, while the filter/dryer and hoses can't be expensive. So if you want to retain it, the cost isn't really prohibitive. I agree that as it comes is ugly, and it doesn't look to be very efficient, but on the other hand it is easy for someone to come up with something different, according to his taste.
 
In a car that the system is already installed, a modification to to R380 would require a new style compressor, a new filter/dryer, and new rubber hoses. Regarding the compressor, if you shop around there are opportunities even for genuine Sanden ones, while the filter/dryer and hoses can't be expensive. So if you want to retain it, the cost isn't really prohibitive. I agree that as it comes is ugly, and it doesn't look to be very efficient, but on the other hand it is easy for someone to come up with something different, according to his taste.


thanks but to be honest im just going to remove it, it really isnt hot enough to warrant having AC on a car which wil only get occasional use
 
long time no progress, but i did have a spare set of black leather seats repaired/reupholstered, i say both because it was both, the fronts were pretty much past it, so i got our upholsterer to make new covers for the fronts, the rears were in much better shape so they got a couple of minor repairs and a good clean/feedseat new l.JPG
 
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the seats have been ready for a while, and ive purchased a cheap carpet set off ebay, but that was as far as i got for some time, until last week, when Doug my classic car mechanic was at a bit of a loose end, so i got him to bring the P6 in and strip out the interior. luckily the floor pans are as good as i thought they were. while the carpets were out it seemed like a good time to swap the pedal boxes over in readiness for the LT77, so this year i will have a fairly unique car on the road, a 3 pedal Auto
 

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the last couple of sundays ive gone into work to work on my race car, i went in today, but seeing the P6 sitting there minus its interior i felt guilty i hadn't actually done anything on it for ages, so i dug the 4.6 out. i did a cylinder leakage test, not to shabby at all, most cylinders had around 18-20%, one up nearer 30% one was up at 80% but it was leaking out an inlet valve as i had removed the rocker shafts i was able to give the valve stem a couple of sharp taps with a hammer and the leakage dropped back in line with the others, so clearly that valve seat with either a bit corroded, or some muck had got trapped under the valve seat. at this point, with half an eye on costs and given the cleanliness of the engine internally and unworn cam i did consider not stripping it much further, just swapping sump and timing covers for p6 ones, with 4.6 big end bolts being one time use only, its an expensive quick look if you split the big ends only to find they are ok. In the end i decided because i was going to fit a cam and raise the compression a bit it only makes sense to fit new rings which meant splitting the big ends anyway. The crank looks perfect, the main bearings are mint and will go again, bottom halves of the ends are fine and reusable, but all the uppers were worn down to the copper, so just as well i split them, the only other noteworthy thing was one of the cam bearings seems to of suffered from having some of it bearing material break away from the backing. i now suspect the engine hasnt been used hard, but has been running with either way too thin or badly diluted oil
 

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AlpinAir is still going strong, last year my P6 was in there 3 weeks of the summer having the latest air Con enstalled, see the pictures of my P6 interior which do not look like Penguin's, mine has a Radio sandwiched in between the Air con grills and the Air Con controls
I know auto P6s before have been changed to manual but you have said little about why, is it because of the 4.6 engine Penguin?
I do like the look of your wheel trims Penguin, I got a lovely set off Clive when up at the national Show in August , they really are top .

Penguin when you saw that car up for grabs on ebay you knew it was an Auto then but you bought it intending to break it, what were you going to do with the spares? did you have another P6 in mind or merely use it as a business idea? some people are "against" autos with all cars, they just dont get on with them so I was wondering if that was you, it must have been an enormous effort to change it to manual
 

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my car was never on ebay! well not that i know of! i bought it blind with a view to break it for spares, but when it arrived here although it looked rough, mechanically and structurally it was really good, we did a couple of repairs and mot'd it with a view to selling, but i changed my mind and decided to keep it.

not liking auto' s was my principle reason for fitting the LT77, i wasnt going to do it yet i was going to leave it until after the summer, but two things happened, first i bought an accident damaged 3500s which already had one fitted and secondly i was short of work for my rover mechanic ( including me there are 5 of us in my workshop, one of which has been working on P4, 5 and 6's for 20 years, he would much rather work on them than do clutches and such like on modern cars) so as i didnt have much for him to do and we have everything to hand doing the swap now made sense.
 
ever since i have had the car fuel has mysteriously vanished, you can park it up with half a tank, go back to it a week later and its empty, with no signs of any leakage! Turns out the fuel pump was at fault, fuel was seeping into the diaphragm, and leaking out at the edge, part the reason it took so long to see it was it was totally hidden by the AC compressor and its mounting bracket, which perhaps explains why the only other factory AC car ive looked at close up had an electric pump from new. so i ended up removing the compressor and its mount just to fix the fuel pump.
 

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Penguin, may I ask what it costs to get a pair of front black flat pleat seats retrimmed?
 
in order to get the bracket off i had to unbolt the viscous coupling, while i was there for good measure i put a new alternator belt on as teh old one was badly cracked and slipped. that rather backfired though as 3 miles later the water pump seal started leaking! and no i didnt over tighten the belt and theres no discernible play in the pump bearing. Finding a replacement pump proved tricky, its different to every V8 pump we could find in our stores or old catalogs. Gordon at Roverpart came to the rescue, an expensive rescue but he had a NOS pump to fit. When this car was converted to AC the waterpump had been changed to one carrying a viscous fan, and as the viscous works really well i wanted to keep it
 

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the cheap ebay carpets actually fitted quite well, better than some of the coverdales we have fitted. new carpets and seats mean the car is a nice place to sit now. i do have a set of black door cards, although i might recolour the existing ones are they are in better shape, either way the current ones are staying put for the minute.

The LT77 was in by the time i took these pictures, the gear stick only looks like a P6 one, i shortened an SD1 stick, drilled a hole in the end and fitted the Knob end of a P6 stick in it, so it looks the part, the Knob itself is a P4 one which has reverse in the right place, i filed an extra "leg" in to it, but stopped short of trying to put a 5 on it as well. its funny because both Doug "my rover mechanic" know where reverse is we neither of us try to select reverse as if it were a 4 speed, but neither of us can get the hang of pushing the stick down and both of us try lifting the reverse collar instead, which we dont try to do with other cars we have had in with a 5 speed fitted
 

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when we had interior out we did notice there had been a slight water leak in through the rear screen, so we fitted popped the screen out and fitted a new rubber. the rubber actually came from Wadhams and im pleased to say it fitted as you would hope
 

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before the world shut down the classic side of my business went quiet, now both sides of it are at full stop! i currently have 4 members of staff sitting at home on 80%!!

in order to avoid everyone trying to work on one car which results in no work being done at all, i had decided to take advantage of the P6 design and started painting replacement panels one at a time when no one is here at weekends and getting Doug to fit them during the week.

i had to do it that way because we dont have a paint booth on site, so you cant really use 2K in an open workshop with others around. i quickly learnt im very rusty with a paint gun, and the lighting in my workshops is nowehere near good enough for painting cars but the results are not too bad, im not trying to build a show quality car, i just want something tidy and usable.

Doing it that way was also cheap, i would end up with a full respray for the cost of my cheap ebay paint, so £90 as opposed t about £2000.

im changing most of the exterior panels for better ones, some new some just much better. The new ones not having any trim holes got me thinking, i like the look of S1 cars without any side rubbing strips and as my new panels dont have holes for them, where i d have a panel with holes im brazing them up. we also put on a German spec rear bumper which has two individual number plate lamps like an MGB has why? simply because its the only good rear bumper i have. ive also gone with early S1 tail lamps, again because i like the less "fussy" look of the early cars. whether i will give the front end an S1 look i dont know yet.
 

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That rear bumper is so much nicer without over riders. I used one of those Lucas number plate lamps from a Lotus bumper on my boot lid. Because of the curve of the lid I had to make a shade to stop white light shining rearward. You will be fine as bumper is flat.
Great progress !
 
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