Under bonnet blanket on Rover P5b

The under bonnet blanket on my Rover was missing,these keep the heat from the engine from damaging the paint on the bonnet.
I made a blanket from fire resistant wadding between black cotton sheet. The cotton was treated with a mixture of Borax and Boracic acid to make it fireproof. The sheet was held in place with thin steel wire. It tucks under the bonnet supports.

Keeping the patina on an old classic car.

I've started a facebook group for the owners of classic cars who would rather use them than keep them locked away or take them to shows on a trailer. If you have a car you've restored on a budget,where you've adapted parts,sprayed and welded outside don't be shy,be proud of what you have achieved.

If you have a car that you've restored without spraying and chroming to within an inch of its life,join the Oily Rag restoration group. The link to it is here.

Cleaning fouled spark plugs.

Some people say there is nothing in a spark plug to wear out.That might be true but they do eventually get covered in a layer that can short them out so that they don't spark.This gives a misfire at best or stops the engine at worst.These plugs I removed from my V8 engined P5b Rover. The choke mechanism was faulty and the engine was running on a mixture that was too rich.

 Using a combination of a solvent and oven cleaner it is possible to make the plugs almost as good as new.This avoids using a grit blaster (which most of us don't  have) and avoids any grit or sand being left behind to damage the engine.

No wire brushing or need for machinery and fancy chemicals. Details are on a spark plug cleaning page.

Rubber door seals on the P5b.

I was getting fed up with the wind noise and rain coming in around the doors of the Rover P5b.
Door seals are available but very expensive for what are really just bits of rubber. I made some out of some sections I bought to repair the door seals on my transit.
These give a double seal around the door and fit inside the original door seal housing.

The new seals were glued together at the corners and the wind noise and the rain are now kept on the outside of the car.

A bit of woodwork on the car .

One problem that the rover P5 and P5b have is water coming in at the ends of the windscreen and rotting out the metal behind and spoiling the trim especially the ends of the dashboard.
The wood fillets in the corners discolour and delaminate. I removed the wood from the drivers side nd the back of it was pretty badly damaged. the screws securing the panel are hard to locate but on this fillet they had started to give up the ghost anyway.

The area behind the panel was in reasonable order,some surface rust treated with fluid film. The panel was repaired and then fitted back in. Originally I had removed it to replace the furflex trim around the doors. This is secured with tacks to some strips recessed into the door openings.

Sound proofing the Rover P5b.

I noticed when I took the radio out of the rover that some of the soundproofing felt had been removed from the dash panel area. I took the radio and the panel it fits into out and replaced the missing material.According to a couple of people I spoke to there should be more material behind the glove box and I have replaced this too.

MOT on the rover p5b. No tax and no tax disc.

I took the rover for its MOT today and it passed with no advisories. Due to its status as a historic vehicle (a reminder of when this country had a thriving car manufacturing industry) it qualifies for free road tax. Its tax disc is marked as no payment made. The EU in another interference in English affairs are proposing to do away with tax discs,our weak government will go along with this as they allow the Germans and others to do more damage to this country in peacetime than they ever did in war.
How long before these parasites want old cars off the road ?

Rover p5b featured on another site.

My Rover p5b is featured on this web site. The heading picture isn't very flattering but the article hopes to encourage anyone thinking of having a go at using a classic car to do so.
I hope it does.

Curing the thirst of the V8 in the Rover P5b

The tick over or idle of the Rover had been lumpy for some time and setting the carbs didn't seem to help. I went through the ignition replacing and repairing but no real difference.
The fuel consumption was pretty horrendous and the car would tick over albeit it a bit more lumpy even when cold without choke.
I pulled out the starter valves.these act as a choke on HIF6 carbs letting through a rich mixture. One was pretty worn but on one carb the O ring had broken up completely. I replaced both and although I still have to reset the carbs the V8 now idles slowly without trying to cut out or foul its plugs.