Rover Sports Register Forum

The car has been suffering form heavy steering lately - and I'm pretty confident that it's not balljoints or track rod ends as they're all new and moving freely.

So I had another go today and replaced the PAS pump with a used spare I had in the shed. It seems to be better - but I'll need to give it a quick road test tomorrow. I think that the old one was just not giving enough oomph.

I also found that the rack gaiters were showing signs of old age - one was split and the other had gone - so I've changed those (well, one as it started to rain before I got the other done).

As an aside, why do Honda make it all so ****ing difficult to get at? To get to the bottom mounting bolt for the PAS pump you have jack the engine up and remove the engine mounting bracket. To get to the inner end of the driver's side gaiter you have to remove a cover plate and work in amongst all the pipes and hoses for the rack (which the Rover rack has on TOP of the rack and therefore out of the way).

Anyone want to buy a manual mk1 Sterling? I'm serious, by the way.

I finally got round to changing the steering rack on this today - what a complete s*** of a job it is! The workshop manual forgets to tell you that you need to undo the gearbox support member and gearchange linkage yet does tell you to remove the exhaust downpipe - which is less restrictive.

Anyway, as you can imagine the downpipe nuts didn't want to come free so I had to use a plank of wood to bend the flexible joint out of the way to shift the rack out. I managed to spill a load of ATF all over me but got there in the end. 3 hours to remove it and just 1 hour to put it all back.

I haven't driven it yet as I need to buy more ATF/PAS fluid but I'll report back when I do.

The "new" steering rack is great - or at least it's right. The steering weight is just as Honda intended, which means too light for my tastes.

I've actually got something done on this over the last few days. First I doubled checked that the sunroof drains are all clear - which they are - and that means that the sunroof seal is the source of the leak that I've been suffering. The water comes in through the seal and tracks around the sunroof frame, dipping onto the headlining rather than down the drain channels.

The rear pads have been changed, cleaning off the sticky calipers and carriers in the process. That should sort out the handbrake, too.

I found a small hole at the top of the fuel filler neck - it's just been done with chemical metal for now. If I keep the car I'll pull the filler out during the summer and do a better job but it's OK for now.

Lastly I changed the rear exhaust box, fitting a spare from an 820. The old box had rusted just about everywhere it could have and was blowing from every seam. The 820 box had a different flange and a very slightly smaller bore but by cutting off the old flange I have managed to civilise it again. I suppose in theory the narrower bore will have a detrimental effect on performance but it will be negligible in real world use.

It's just been down for an MOT and passed first time with no advisories. Not bad when you consider that it's been standing almost 10 months.

Thanks to a mate, I have acquired a better bonnet than the aerosol painted one on the car, plus a pair of rear doors that are more tidy than those currently on the car. Here's the bonnet:




Compare it to the old one (which also had quite a lot of rust in it):

I've just sold this as I've moved to Abu Dhabi and can't take it with me!