The Red Rover - Returning to the fold!

redrover

Well-Known Member
Well it has been a long time hasn't it! :?



I posted a few days ago and noticed it was well over a year since I'd checked in! But it must be two years at least since I was a very regular poster on here.
Some/most of you may have noticed that I got very heavily involved with the running of The Rover P6 Club, which we've put through a massive transformation and rebrand over the last few years. It's been one helluva journey and we're really starting to get some great recognition for it, but as is often the case with these things, your own projects tend to get left by the wayside.

As such, very little has happened with the Red Rover since my major engine overhaul in late 2011/early 2012. He's had a few welding patches, a rebushed rear suspension (now V8 spec with 5.5J wheels), new exhaust (NOS TC manifold chrome-ceramic coated, with 2" stainless pipe and 2-cans), and a lot of electric improvements. But beyond that, he's been sat around doing barely more than 10 miles a week! A pittance compared to my usual 4000 to 5000 a year!

Some pics from the last year or two:



















So I've decided it's high time to get cracking on the car again! :)
When I first got him nearly 6 years ago, I was 21. It was my only car, daily driver, and had to work in all weathers and traffics. I was on what we would now term a 'zero hours contract' and did all the work myself. I had to as I had no money, but I loved that time - I learned SO much in short a short spell, stripping and rebuilding practically everything in a very methodical way. It really was properly well sorted engine and braking wise. Paint was always a bit flaky, but it's red and goes like stink - who's arsed! ;-)
Back then I was time-rich and money-poor. These days, I'm swinging the other way a bit - well, at least on the time front! I had 4 cars for a while last year (now 3) and have become everything my 21-year-old self was adamant he'd never be.... a marketing manager for a new age techie-software company with a German executive hatchback and fashion-conscious facial hair. Oh, and it's a diesel. I'm even starting to think about mortgages. And healthy eating....

But locked somewhere in the pages of this very forum is the spirit of a younger me. A Michael who'd never heard of device-independent website development, targeted email marketing or social media channel engagement. A younger man with an inherited Britax socket set, an eighth-of-a-tank of fuel and an all-consuming determination to build the best damned 2000 twin-carb on the face of the earth... utterly convinced that he could match a V8 auto for performance if he put enough thought into it.

Well tonight I am making a pledge to that younger man. Because I'm going to do it!

I'm building a 2100cc over-bored TC with Hepolite Heron-headed pistons, a harmonically-balanced crank and flywheel with 0.5g rotational unbalance, and fully mappable coil-on-plug electronic ignition.

And this thread will be the story of how.... :)
 
Re: The Red Rover - New Blueprinted Engine Project

It began at Charnock Richard services on a pleasant day in May last year. M6, Junction 27-28. Northbound side. It was a Saturday.

I was due to meet up with the P6 Club Manchester branch around 8:00. It was the day of the Bowes rally and at least a dozen of us were planning to head up in convoy. But Pat's 2200 was having none of it, half the crew were only just heading over to Mick's, and Chris Pamp's V8 was apparently putting up a bit of a fight and refusing to start. By the time I spoke to them at 9:30, they were only just leaving Manchester. Which was all pretty good really. Because I had other issues to contend with...



Now if you're a V8 owner and have never got intimate with a 4-cylinder, you probably can't see what the problem is. But I promise you, that is the actual end of the actual world if you've spent 6 months rebuilding your engine! 2000s are designed to run at 50 psi at all times, irrespective of engine speed, temperature or load. Most examples don't, but mine should after all the new bearings and bushes and fastidious cleaning and checking and check again exercises I went through during the rebuild.

Now I will admit part-blame in this.
I do have a tendency to drive my cars hard. It's why I'm so fastidious about setting them up properly (I got needlessly anal about torque settings and tightening sequences once, rechecking after heat cycles - bottom end as well as top!). Because if I haven't thoroughly cleaned, inspected and rebuilt something myself under a magnifying glass, I just cannot sleep until I've at least checked it.

It's probably worth mentioning at this point that I don't have a girlfriend. Reasons why should now be fairly clear.

So to cut a long story short, I cooked the crank! It was never perfect, even before I rebuilt it. A few of the journals had light scoring that felt like one of those holographic cards you used to get on cereal packets (what happened to those? All you get now on a cereal box now is a lecture on heart disease), it would lose about 10 psi at a hot idle, which triggered the soul-destroying timing chain rattle, and it went through crank shells on cylinder 4 in feasting sessions of just 8k miles or so.

But it'd had a good run. I'd racked up about 11k miles since the rebuild in all weathers through two winters. It had never let me down, never missed a beat.
But when the external oil pick-up pipe (replaced just a week earlier for a 'better looking one') collapsed internally at "honestly officer i was only doing 70"-mph, it was curtains. I nursed it to Charnock Richards and got a truck home. Apparently Bowes was a very good show.

Much of this kind of thing shortly followed:



But it was to no avail. The crank was finally shagged out.

I can't lie. I felt utterly defeated and was really down about it for quite a while. I put him back together and continued to pootle about town at low speeds, but there was a terrible death rattle above 2000 rpm. I just couldn't use it anymore. I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome I bought a Mazda MX-5. Sitting low, seeking out the sharper corners where the ragged edge let go. Looking for the apexes only we would know.



 
Re: The Red Rover - New Blueprinted Engine Project

About 3 months had gone by when suddenly, one day, a stroke of good fortune came my way. It was August time last year.

Happily (or perhaps unhappily, depending on how you look at it), Stan 'Vaultsman' was in the process of selling off 'Rebekah's' parts after he'd been unable to sell the project as a whole. I'd followed his thread keenly as the project had been developing, and was particularly interested in the pages where he had rebuilt the short block. At that time, there were very few images of the inside of a P6 4-cylinder on the internet, let alone a step-by-step account of regrinding a crank for one. So I was paying close attention, having come around to the fact that I would sooner or later have to pull my engine out and do all that to mine.





This, I was comfortably able to convince myself was for the best. After all, the crank was never right to begin with, and regrinding it would attain that perfection (and longevity!) that I had always been hankering for. What was putting me off was the time investment to re-strip and re-clean an engine I'd already poured hundreds of hours into, thus generating a sea of parts all around the place and one decidedly immobile looking Rover on the driveway to once again endure the grimaced smiles of our neighbours who genuinely believe me to be responsible for the somewhat diminished property values in the L23 postal area. So you can imagine my joy (and my neighbours') when Stan offered me the short block, complete with reground crank! It would be easy, I told myself. Simply check the new block over, pull my engine, drop my already remachined and tightly set up TC cylinder head onto it, bolt all the ancillaries on, and whack it back in! Be done in a weekend I told myself!

So at some point between that moment and being sat here tonight, I managed to contact an engineering firm who specialise in Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing engines and their 190SL 4-cylinder derivatives. There are a lot of similarities between these engines and the P6/P7 2000/3000 engine designs, and with my obsessively fastidious attention to detail rejoining the ballgame after recovering from a long-standing pride injury, it made complete sense to finally chase the dream I'd been cooking up for five years. To build a Super-TC!

So this weekend saw the project begin in earnest.





After lugging it back from my lock-up garage in The Workhorse (German with a Spanish lisp), strip-down began.











The crank is a work of art! And absolutely massive! If I said it was from a truck, you'd believe me. The journals are truly huge!

I've already sourced a set of NOS +0.060" Hepolite pistons, which should give a swept volume of about 2048cc IIRC. These came with NOS Hepolite rings, gudgeon pins and circlips. I have a set of NOS con-rod ready and waiting.



Next on the shopping list are the chain wheels, slippers and tensioners. I already have new chains (several sets in fact, anybody want some?!).

The block is going here for the work. The crank will be checked, and crank, flywheel and pulleys balanced to within 0.5g rotational unbalance. The block will be crack tested and checked for alignment. The cylinders will be bored out to the correct tolerance with a superior finish for running in. And the whole thing will be enamel coated inside and out (cooling jacket and crank case) to eliminate rust potential and promote a more complete oil circulation (old fashioned race engine technique).

Wish me luck! Plenty of updates to follow. I can't wait :D

Michael
 
Good to see you back on here mate and I like where this is going. Sorry I missed you at the show the other week, but you looked busy and I didn't want to interupt.

I don't mean to be cheeky, but does this mean there's a set of 9:1 pistons going spare?
 
I'll be following your progress with a lot of interest!

But is there a reason why you've gone for a 2.1 rather than over-boring to 2.2 and using 2.2 pistons? I ask with slight anxiety after buying a NOS set of 2.2 pistons (from Iran of all places!) with a view to doing the same myself.
 
testrider said:
Good to see you back on here mate and I like where this is going. Sorry I missed you at the show the other week, but you looked busy and I didn't want to interupt.
I don't mean to be cheeky, but does this mean there's a set of 9:1 pistons going spare?

Thanks Paul. I glimpsed you briefly over by one of the cars and meant to say hello, but was in full-on sales pitch mode all weekend as you saw! :(

Not cheeky at all! If you mean Rebekah's old pistons, then yes they are available as of now if you want them? They are definitely 9:1 and standard bore size. And are the later type without the right-angle notches in the scraper ring, so more durable for a second-hand application. Stan fitted NOS Hepolite rings and cleaned up them really well. Pins and circlips are there and you can probably have them with the con rods as well if you want as I am putting NOS ones in with the new pistons. PM me if you're interested. I don't know the mileage but they were in surprisingly good order when I took them out - very little scuffing, etc.

 
Willy Eckerslyke said:
I'll be following your progress with a lot of interest! But is there a reason why you've gone for a 2.1 rather than over-boring to 2.2 and using 2.2 pistons? I ask with slight anxiety after buying a NOS set of 2.2 pistons (from Iran of all places!) with a view to doing the same myself.

Hi David. It was an academic decision really. +0.060" 2000 pistons gives me the largest possible displacement whilst still retaining the original Heron combustion chamber design. I'm not a fan of the 2200 combustion chamber - it's just a cylindrical squish area, with the flat-topped piston stopping about 6mm shy of the top of the bore. The castellated 'walls' of the 2000 piston come right up to the underside of the head and focus the squish area right under the spark plug. In theory, this should keep the flame-front within the 'dish' part, exerting maximum pressure on the downward piston with minimal losses to the bore walls. There's nothing inherently wrong with the 2200 piston design, but I think it was a cost-saving rather than an engineering decision. Having said that, the revised carburetion and increased cc of the 2200 TC made for a considerably pokey engine, so the vast majority of owners would not have benefitted from, or even noticed the difference with expensive Heron pistons. I still think a 2200 makes for a great engine, I just personally prefer the engineering purity of the earlier, more focussed, less cost-aware design.
Iran?!! Blimey! Is there anything the Soviets didn't sell them?! :LOL:
 
I don't often stray into the lounge, but a slow lunch break had me seeking out any new threads I could find anywhere...

I am glad I came across this! Great thread and can't wait to see it progress! Eagerly awaiting the next instalment. :LOL:
 
Glad to see that Red Rover is getting a new heart. :D
I think that the problem with the Heron type pistons is that they are rather heavy, making the engine rough and noisy at higher revs, as we all know a hallmark of the Rover 2000 engine. In this context, perhaps the conventional pistons of the 2200, although a certain compromise on the combustion chamber design, are what make the 2200 engine to feel more refined in comparison with the 2000 type.
Also i am waiting with interest to see the results of the balanced crankshaft.
 
redrover said:
If you mean Rebekah's old pistons, then yes they are available as of now if you want them? They are definitely 9:1 and standard bore size. And are the later type without the right-angle notches in the scraper ring, so more durable for a second-hand application. Stan fitted NOS Hepolite rings and cleaned up them really well. Pins and circlips are there and you can probably have them with the con rods as well if you want as I am putting NOS ones in with the new pistons. PM me if you're interested. I don't know the mileage but they were in surprisingly good order when I took them out - very little scuffing, etc.


Thems the ones. I'll email you later.
 
I'll be following this with interest. I'm now using my Rover for a weekly return trip from South Lincolnshire to Southampton, so any tips on creating a durable, smooth, refined engine will be of interest.

Tom
 
Re: The Red Rover - Blueprinted Engine



Well everything is officially in bits and stripped to component parts. Well, almost!
I still need to get the dowels out on the flywheel. Any tips for this? It will be balanced with the crank but also needs skimming to restore a clean and new finish for the clutch to bite against.

I may also replace the ring-gear, but it's not in a terrible state, just clearly been the victim of an inertia starter for quite a few years!

I'm just waiting on a set of NOS chainwheels (the split type) to be delivered and it'll be ready to go. Have made preliminary contact with the machine shop and aiming to take it down there in next few weeks. Exciting!
 
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