Sunbeam Stiletto
John has got his Rover P6 just as he likes it. Which means it’s looking great
Welcome to my P6’s third appearance in PC. The first was early in 2016, shortly after I’d bought it and taken it to Brooklands’ New Year’s Day gathering. The second time was the story of its return to the Solihull factory where it was made. Now it’s time for another update on what I’ve done to this very early example of the P6 breed.
On the way back from Brooklands the Rover started to get a bit smoky and smelly. A blue haze surrounded its tail as I reversed it into my garage, the haze of oil washed off bores and burnt. On removing the air filter I could see petrol welling up through the top of the SU’S jet. Flooding. Time for a new needle valve.
This duly arrived from P6 parts specialist Wins International, along with various rubber seals needed to replace perished originals around the P6’s body, notably around the fuel filler neck (a favourite entry point for water to soak the boot) and where the accelerator linkage passes through the bulkhead. The carburettor flooding was fixed but still I couldn’t get the fuel mixture lean enough. A new needle, jet assembly and dashpot spring from Burlen Fuel Systems finally did the trick and cleaned up the emissions.
Next was a mysterious wiring glitch. Two of the four interior lights, the boot light and the clock didn’t work, and attempting to reconnect a detached purple wire produced the vigorous spark of a short circuit. Detective work with a multimeter eventually traced the short to a trapped feed wire to the light built into the interior mirror, so I fixed that and celebrated the new electrical functionality by converting the system to negative earth. Everything still worked normally apart from the windscreen washer pump, which needed its connections reversed.
Sound and traction
Now I could fit the slightly retro Panasonic radio and CD player I’d bought on ebay for a tenner, plus the full complement of one front and rear speaker. I also replaced the ignition coil, partly so the markings by the terminals told the truth, partly to take modern push-fit HT leads in place of the disintegrating screw-on originals. A new distributor cap, red rotor arm and spark plugs finished the job. The Rover was running well and I had sounds, too.
The ride and handling were my next focus. The three 20-year-old Avon tyres and one perishing Vredestein had to go, so the Rover and I vibrated our way up to Longstone Tyres in Bawtry, South Yorkshire, for a set of the 2000’s tyre of original equipment choice: the Pirelli Cinturato CA67. These are being remade in several useful sizes, including the Rover’s
‘I really think my Rover has become one of the nicest early ones around’
165 R14, and they retain the original textile-braced construction. The speedometer’s rightangle drive came apart noisily en route, which at least helped keep the indicated mileage down.
The drive back revealed a car transformed. Sharper steering, a smoother ride, no vibration, proper grip… and, goodness me, they looked good. And now that I could feel properly what the suspension was doing, it was clear that the left front damper wasn’t doing as much damping as it should. J R Wadhams supplied a pair of Oe-spec Armstrongs to replace the very crusty originals, and the Rover took a further leap towards dynamic sortedness. Wins supplied a good pre-owned speedo drive.
Sill sprucing
Next job? I unscrewed the black-painted, purely cosmetic outer sills and resprayed them in Rover White along with the lower sections of the front wings. I was delighted and relieved to see that the structure behind the sills was very sound and solid, including the jacking points, and there was plenty of rustproofing wax. On went the repainted sills and the Rover looked massively better, its shape unified instead of looking sliced-off at the bottom.
More paint magic occurred with the dashboard, whose main transverse bar – the part that contains the vents – had gone powdery. I lightly rubbed it with wire wool, washed it with white spirit, masked up the surrounding area and refinished it with Indasa black textured trim paint from Frost. The result was very convincing; it’s a brilliant product. The Rover was really coming together now, helped by a new pair of black-and-silver numberplates from Tipper’s Vintage Plates, so I took it on a local classic car run. Pleasure turned to pain at the end of the run when the clutch wouldn’t disengage completely, so I had to stop the engine every time I needed to move off, engage first gear, start the engine and rocket away. I’d always thought the pedal travel was unexpectedly short and light, and as the new clutch (fitted by the previous owner) had bedded in, its operating range had changed enough to cause clutch drag. After much head-scratching I worked out that the operating rod between the slave cylinder and the release arm was too short. Why is impossible to know, but I made a new one from a Hillman Imp water pump bolt and all’s now well, apart from a developing clutch judder that a new front differential mount and engine mount (the latter a VW Golf item) reduced.
Other underside work has included overhauling the De Dion tube with new seals and outer bellows, and I’ve made the non-heating heater work by filling the matrix with central heating descaler, leaving it for a week and flushing it out. It’s nice and toasty now, ideal for winter.
That’s my Rover to date, and I really think it has become one of the nicest early ones around. So is it terrible of me to admit to a growing hankering for a V8? A nice Series 1 with a manual gearbox conversion? There’s even a particular one I have in mind…