Rover P4 75
James’ Cyclops doesn’t like being neglected – or, at the very least, its tyres don’t. Time for new ones…
1950 ROVER 75 P4
You live and you learn. I have always thought that the fuel pump on the ‘Cyclops’ was noisy. When you turn the ignition on, the noise it makes carries right through the car. Though it clearly isn’t the original pump, it’s mounted where the original was (or so I thought) and it works. And frankly, that will do me.
Until, that is, I started comparing notes with other Cyclops owners via the P4 Guild’s Facebook page. It turns out that the pump shouldn’t be mounted on the main chassis rail but on the outrigger. That would certainly cut the noise down! So now I want to fi nd an original SU pump and fit it in the correct place. I’ll probably have to renew all the fuel hoses, but that’s never a bad idea anyway.
I still haven’t driven the car anywhere since my last report ( C 3CJWun,e). When I went out to the garage to give it a check-over, I discovered that the tyre that’s prone to losing air had done its party trick, but big time. It had gone as fl at as a pancake and the weight of the car on the collapsed tyre had split the sidewall. I would have seen it earlier, but the tyre is on the side that’s parked up against a wall.
So I won’t be driving anywhere on that one. The spare will do as a temporary fi x, but it doesn’t match the others on the car, and we can’t have that. As soon as normality starts to return, I’ll be calling my friendly specialist for a new one. Meanwhile, the indicators decided to go on strike. The Cyclops originally had semaphore arms, but a previous owner disconnected these and modified the system to provide fl ashers through the front sidelights and an extra bulb in the rear light units. I had improved that by fi tting newold stock Americanspecifi cation light units, with a flasher built in. All well and good, but I didn’t fancy working through the extra wiring to fi nd a fault if it wasn’t a simple one. By a careful process of elimination, I worked out that the problem must be a dud relay unit. So I ordered a new one and set about fitting it.
My week of waiting with fingers crossed and ten minutes’ work were rewarded by fl ashers that actually fl ash. I’d call that a result.