1997 Rover 620ti

[escapereality]

I finally have a retro I feel is worthy of being shown on this site! But first, a short tale of how it came about...

December last year I bought this 320i It came from a mate who runs a garage locally and was one of his personal cars, he'd not used it for 3 years and had got halfway through fitting LPG to it but like a lot of his projects, it got pushed to one side to make way for paying work. I took it on mot'd and running perfectly on petrol but ran like curse word on LPG, part of the deal was he'd get it running properly when he had a bit more spare time. So March this year came around and I figured it was definitely time we sorted it out, so I re-piped the system so the heater didn't need to be on to run on LPG (he'd piped it wrong in his haste, it was only the hundred and something'th he'd converted!) took it over and we started trying to play with the map. After the 3rd trip out to see if we'd improved it (couldn't do on road tuning as his laptop battery was dead!) I drove back in the workshop with a rattling big end. So I decided the best thing was to leave it with him and fix it there so as not to damage it more.
Now, knowing his ability to not always get around to his mates cars particularly quickly I bought a cheap run around Yes, that really is a pink Avensis! Obviously after the journey home I knew I was going to get bored, and I did! So at the end of June I started looking for something less boring, a quick read up made me realise what I really needed was a Saab turbo. The trouble was, everyone I found locally (ish) I couldn't get a lift to go and see/buy. After a couple of weeks a Rover popped up on my eBay search, reasonably locally and at the top end of my budget, after a few texts were exchanged I knew I wanted it. Luckily for me the Mrs had a day off the day after this, so a quick word with my boss and I'd got it off too!

If you're still reading and not completely bored and/or asleep, have some pics of it from when I got it home

Unfortunately, due to the fact I still had the Avensis, the Mrs Ibiza and a Carina E with no MOT me and a mate had ended up with, I'd run out of room on the drive Believe it or not, my neighbours actually do love me, even though they're both around 60 they think it's good I've got a hobby!

So as you can see it has 820 Vitesse alloys, some period side skirts, a cat back stainless exhaust and has been hit with the stick about as hard as it can be. It also has some very comfy 820 Vitesse Recaros and a Pipercross cone filter giving some lovely turbo sucking noises and a dump valve to produce whooshes!

To bring this up to date, I quickly realised it had a sticking rear caliper and no pads left in the rear, so some new rear pads and freeing off the caliper came first, shortly followed by 2 rear shocks as the spring cup was so rotten I couldn't believe it was still holding the car up! After that it was time for 4 new tyres and a good wash
Yes, I do still have the Avensis as it's been a handy spare car while I've spent evenings fixing the Rover!
First mod was an auto dimming mirror that I had lying around in the garage
Next came a new but fairly retro looking DAB headunit It lights up orange to match the rest of the interior and is pretty good for the money.
A really good clean up inside left it looking like this

Since then I've removed the dodgy HID kit that had one green flickering bulb and one white one I swear a candle could rival with Nightbreakers. Fitted a much nicer looking boost gauge (that also lights up orange), fitted a manual boost controller (yes, I will be taking it easy in 1st gear!), fitted a new clutch slave cylinder and replaced the number plates today for these

Future plans include buying and rebuilding another gearbox to give me a good spare as I know I'll end up needing it, sorting out a tiny bit of rot in the rear door shut, giving it a service and fixing some oil leaks. That'll do for now I think, although knowing me I'll soon find other things to do on it!

Anyway, I've rambled way more than I should've done and if you are still reading, congratulations, you've reached the end of my post!

[fogey]

Always good to see another Rover on here

[jimspolicev8sd1]

Proper wolf in sheeps clothing.

[smart]

Always wanted one of these, had a turbo tomcat Coupe and was great(when it wasn't broken!) but the 600 is much better built. Stronger box, stronger lsd, bigger brakes etc....
Good luck with this

[rallyboy]

Nice !
I borrowed a mates one a few times (in dark green) - once being a road trip to Belgium. Well quick and very comfy.

[Mercdan68]

I like that! Looks a nice tidy car, and you don't see many about now, good luck with, it a much better looking car than a bmw

[escapereality]

Thanks everyone, they are a good wolf in sheeps clothing especially with the M.B.C fitted - getting full boost from 2.5k RPM gives a lot more punch than just 7PSI! I took a pic of it and its professional fitment earlier I had to hold it somehow and given it comes with no brackets and I fitted it Friday night at work while I was mean't to be working that was the best I could come up with!
Also realised I hadn't uploaded a pic of the engine, this should remedy that

While I was taking the pics this morning I also noticed I have a small weep from the top of the rad Luckily it's just from these two bungs so I'll get some o-rings from work tomorrow and see if I can figure a way of holding the bungs in a little tighter. The radiator doesn't look old at all, luckily for me the previous owner was happy to spend decent money on the car - not long before I bought it he'd fitted Pagid front discs and pads, new front wheel bearings and two new bottom arms.
I've also remembered the other jobs I've got to do on it - Front torque arm bushes that are on the way and rebuild the gear linkage with new bushes that I've already bought along with fitting a short shift kit. Hopefully I'll be able to get round to that this week as it's currently got about 3" of side to side play in the gear lever!

[escapereality]

Oct 4, 2015 8:06:41 GMT smart said:

Always wanted one of these, had a turbo tomcat Coupe and was great(when it wasn't broken!) but the 600 is much better built. Stronger box, stronger lsd, bigger brakes etc....
Good luck with this

Thanks, I'd always wanted one since my old man had a new 620si back in 94, when the turbo came out I knew that was the one I wanted! The brakes are good but it could really do with some braided hoses to firm the pedal up a bit!

[escapereality]

Oct 4, 2015 9:21:04 GMT Mercdan68 said:

I like that! Looks a nice tidy car, and you don't see many about now, good luck with, it a much better looking car than a bmw

Thanks mate, it's not bad at all really for it's age, it's got a couple of small dents and the rear arches have a few scabs but otherwise all good. It is a nicer looking car than a BMW and certainly has a lot more character as well. The E46 is something like my 10th BMW as they're good value for money when you only spend around £1k or less but I much prefer driving this even if it is FWD. When the E46 is finally done I'll use that as my main car and keep this for weekends and odd days I fancy a change, I've no plans to get rid of this at all, in just a few months its really got under my skin!

[escapereality]

Oct 4, 2015 9:12:10 GMT rallyboy said:

Nice !
I borrowed a mates one a few times (in dark green) - once being a road trip to Belgium. Well quick and very comfy.

I'd have liked a BRC one or Nightfire Red instead of silver as I'll end up with 3 silver cars on the drive once the BMW's back but beggars can't be choosers!

[escapereality]

So, I've finally managed to get some time on this. About a month ago I fitted an Accord interior light (gives independant map lights), I know, it's not very exciting!
Anyway, last week I finally got the Avensis re-mot'd so I had something to use while I do the work on the Rover. Unfortunately no sooner had I done that a mate at work stuck his Vectra through a hedge so it's now on loan to him! This week I serviced another mates X-Type and am now using a Nissan X-trail me and the mate with the Jag bought leaving me free to spend some much needed time on the Rover.

First thing to do was get it up on wheel ramps and have a good look underneath. Well my list of things to do now includes a drive shaft seal, lower engine stabiliser, gear selector shaft seal and cam seals - brilliant! I got the gear lever rods off, to do this means the interior has to be at this stage as you can see in the following pictures there was a lot of play, first pic shows it in 1st gear with the lever held to the left of the play, second shows it the same but held to the right of the play I then got the lever partially stripped down and immediately found an ovaled hole It doesn't show up well in the pic but the pin had about 3 mm of play in it. I took that to work the next day to get it welded so I can re-drill it (now done). The next night I stripped this end and found a very slightly ovaled hole but not enough to worry about but did fine a crack in the bracket holding both parts together! That got taken to work on Friday and got it welded (I'm buying a welder tomorrow night from a bloke I do the odd bit of work for so that will cure anything else I find!). Unfortunately that's as far as I've got, weekends are always busy as I have my youngest daughter every weekend so want to spend the time with her. I'll be back on the Rover Tuesday night so can hopefully get some more done, I've got all the parts I need on the way including service items as well, as it's about time it was done. Plus it's developed a "miss" as well so new cap, rotor arm and plugs will hopefully cure that.

[recarouk]

What a peach I love a good rover. Keep up the good work.

[escapereality]

Nov 15, 2015 19:03:06 GMT recarouk said:

What a peach I love a good rover. Keep up the good work.

Thanks, it is a pretty good one and because it is and because I seem to have really "bonded" with it (odd for me given my love for RWD) I plan to.

Now time for another small update, tonight was spent replacing pads on a Merc and collecting the welder so didn't have long. It's not a big welder at all but should do the small jobs I keep having to get done at work.
So, I've had the bracket welded at work Gave it a coat of paint and got the gearbox end all built up I then put the other end back together with the new short shift parts Currently it's set on the shortest shift setting so I'll see how I get on with it. I can't refit it yet, as I'm waiting for a new boot to cover the ball and keep the grease in and also need to replace the selector seal in the gearbox which I'm also waiting for.
The nice thing about doing this bit is I can do it all in the warm dry garage while the car is outside in the cold and rain - It's only a single garage and isn't big enough to get a car in and work on it, plus it's full of tools and a workbench so there's no hope now! The welder has definitely filled the space under the bench I need to find a new home for the ramps the car is currently up on now!

Thanks for looking

[Squiggles]

Mmmmmm a 620 ti

Looks awesome and is that standard skirts and spoiler or is it part of the sw kit

[deanflowers]

A friend of mine had one of these about 7 or 8 years ago in green metallic and it was good fun with 75 shot of nitrous

Unfortunately it got squashed between an audi A1 and my jag waiting at a roundabout. No damage to the jag or the audi but the rover was a foot shorted so got written off

[escapereality]

One thing I've learnt since I started this thread is that I'm useless at keeping on top of it! Thanks all for the comments, Squiggles the spoiler and skirts aren't standard but I'm not sure whose kit they are part of. The skirts are fibreglass and I believe the spoiler is too if that helps?

So, I carried on with the work and got it all done in the end. Unfortunately I failed completely to get any more pictures, in my defence I was doing it in the dark in the evenings and in the rain at times as well - all outside on the drive!
The list of work is as follows
Gear lever bushes and quick shift kit
O/S drive shaft seal
downpipe - failed completely at this as the new one won't fit but the old one isn't blowing anyway
power steering pipe clip replaced - was leaking very badly
lower engine stabiliser replaced - small bush had disintegrated due to the P/S leak
Poly bushed the front tie rods
gearbox oil replaced
new fuel filter
engine oil and filter
spark plugs
exhaust cam seal - I didn't replace the inlet as A. it wasn't leaking and B. getting the new one back in wasn't easily possible without pretty much half removing the engine
Painted the dial needles red - small thing but looks way better!

After doing all this I then found the large bush in the upper engine stabiliser was badly worn so poly bushed it. About a week after that I found the top N/S ball joint was badly worn causing a knocking so also replaced that. After all this work I have a feeling the N/S CV joint is on it's way out as there is a strange knotchy sensation through the wheel when pulling away at the same time as turning left only. It doesn't click like most but something's not right so I'll have to investigate. It's also still not pulling all that well on boost, it spools up fine and holds pressure but as it accelerates through the rev range it's not completely smooth and seems to hesitate on and off all the way to the red line. I'm wondering if it could be the coil pack going down?

Unfortunately a few weeks ago someone also drove into it, I was travelling in a long queue doing around 30 and as we were going through a crossroad we came to a very abrupt stop. I was left slightly blocking the path of the person to my left who then proceeded to drive out of the junction into the N/S/R of the car, over the crossroads and away - He didn't stop! I couldn't do anything about it as the traffic in front of me started to move again and straight back up to 30 and there was a long queue of cars coming the other way that he'd jumped in front of, so all I could do was carry on and forget about it. This I have got photos of:





As you can see it's left a large dent and torn the panel where what appeared to be a small spot of rust was/is. I will be getting it fixed and at the same time I'll get the small hole in that side back door shut cut out and repaired. Not a great thing to have happen but I suppose the upside is the rust that is on the arch will get repaired sooner than I was planning to do it! The major downside is, it'll be coming out of my pocket as A. he didn't stop and B. I've got a trade policy which although is fully comp also comes with a huge excess if you claim for yourself!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all, I'll try to be better at taking pictures and updating in future!

[pauly22]

If the driver didn't stop you can claim for repairs from the MIB

Nice car though.

[Squiggles]

Hey bud yea looks to be part of the sw kit for 600 series. And as for the not running on boost check the actuator as the do ware out over time. If ya can get a chance to do a compression test on it as every tseries I've had both nasp and turbo has had head gasket fail however no signs showing except coolant low or needing a exhaust.

[escapereality]

Thanks pauly22 I had a look on there when you posted it but saw a reason straight away that mean't I couldn't go through them (might have been down to me having the cars on a trade policy). The good news is it's going in to get the dent done and the rusty arch in the next week or so. It's going to the bodyshop we use at work and because I get on so well with our truck salesman he's getting the bill added over the next few jobs he sends there so no cost to me which was a nice surprise! It's also just gone straight through the mot on Thursday with no advisorys which I was pleased about given the amount of love and money it's had thrown at it recently! It could probably do with another oil change now as well given I've done over 3000 miles in it since the last change a few months ago!

Squiggles the coolant is fine, hasn't lost a drop since replacing a hose in the summer, exhaust is stainless after the cat so wouldn't really be able to tell from that but, I'll go with the possible of the actuator as I noticed the other day it initially boosts to 14psi and then tails off after a second to a steady 12psi so maybe it is wearing out.

The avensis still isn't back yet although should be in a few weeks, but I have bought the vectra off the mate who's borrowed the avensis and is now ready to be taxed and used while the rover's in the bodyshop (it's not worthy of being on here - 2004 SRI edition 100 but still quite a nice car) the rover will probably be in there for a month or so due to them doing it inbetween other jobs.

The e46 isn't home yet either, talked to him Thursday night while moting the rover and pointed out in a few months it'll have been broken for a year - his response was "oh, c**p, we need to get on with that then" (meaning me and him!) so hopefully I won't be waiting too much longer!

[Sinky]

Love your 600 mate