CLASSIC TAILS
TIPS, TRICKS AND NOSTALGIA FROM A LIFETIME IMMERSED IN OLD CARS
SAINTS AND SINNERS…
IN MY YOUTH – and I’m going back to the mid-’Eighties now – I did part of my City and Guilds apprenticeship in Motor Vehicle Technology at an Austin Rover garage, Nias of Newbury. The garage itself is still there but now with a Mercedes franchise and hopefully a lot less aggro in the workshop.
I arrived as a part-timer in late 1985. The Mini, Metro, Maestro, Montego, Rover SD1 as well as the Rover 213/ 216 were all in production and older, recently discontinued cars such as the Ambassador, Maxi and Marina/ Ital were still in evidence.
A mate of mine had an apprenticeship at the Ford dealership, Gowrings, who traded in a pre-ruined Newbury on a roundabout where KFC’s currently located. What went wrong with Fords? On the CVH engine it was the Lucas distributor and ignition modules. VV carburettors could be tricky unless the diaphragms were perfect and the auto choke was set up correctly. Sierras were as tough as nails, Granadas gave almost no trouble at all, Fiestas were generally good and overall, they were decent cars.
Austin Rover? Blimey, where do you start? The Mini was as much as it had ever been and wasn’t bad. The Metro could be aggro however. Hydragas was still in its infancy on these but it could still pop a displacer or break a subframe mounting. Early ones were coming into the bodyshop for wing replacement at just five years old and it’s a fault BL never cured until the K-Series revamp. By far the worst fault was the third motion shaft bearing in the revamped A- Plus gearbox.
BL had wisely beefed up the idler gear gearing but in a moment of madness had decided to replace the tough brass caged double roller bearing (full width) with a plastic cage bearing where the outer race was narrower to reduce friction. These were truly awful and it wasn’t long before they started failing. The plastic cage would break up and fall out, leaving the steel ball bearings to flail about and resulting in the fourth gear rattle – you also heard a weird noise as in reverse as well. This was because the final drive pinion was trying to climb up the crown wheel and being forced down again with a resultant clank, clank, clank, clank. Early 1275’s were a bit rough and ready but a good 998 Metro was a very pleasant small car and the MG1300 a good effort. Turbos were a total disaster.
Maestros had been out for over two years, long enough for the silly faults to become obvious – cracked thermoplastic bumpers, rust in body seams, the talking computer on higher spec models and the daft automatic choke set up on an SU carburettor. The 1600 R Series hadn’t been very good and the original dash was a bit naff, but by late ’85, it was coming good on the back of a slightly rubbish reputation. The 2.0 MG was very good but the Lucas made Bosch L Jetronic could be a real pain.
It was much the same with the Montego, only worse. Replacing a car that was actually more reliable (Ambassador) with the Montego was hit with a multitude of problems early on. Oil leaks from the SSeries engine, as well as from the crankshaft oil seal that soaked the clutch brought back a thousand BL memories – and not good ones. Whilst at a year old, there would be rust festering behind the bonded in glass with the rear screens being the worst.
The 2.0 versions with a revised O-Series and a Honda gearbox were generally okay (The MG Montego was a cracking car) but the 1600 used a VW box and of course the BL designed and made gear linkage rods would pop off where VW ones just didn’t. Various trim rattles and assembly faults meant the Montego was destined to become another BL could-have-been, even if the MG versions were pretty good cars. But they suffered early on from stupid faults of the type that didn’t afflict the Sierra or Cavalier and so, like the Maestro, its fate was sealed.
The Rover 213 was a decent small car. Early ones had ride and handling problems that weren’t that bad and didn’t seem to bother the legions of blue rinse buyers who bought them. It was a fine replacement for the Triumph Acclaim that according to the mechanics at Nias, was the best car BL ever produced.
The S-Series engined 216 was okay but not as good – any performance advantage it had was lost due to reliability and the fairly coarse S-Series motor and oil leaks that the 213 Honda engine didn’t have.
The worst car? That has to be the Rover SD1. At any one time there would be five or six dead ones lined up waiting to get into the workshop – overheated O-Series 2000’s, 2300/ 2600 cars with major engine traumas and the 3500 EFi could be a nightmare of engine electrical problems affecting running. The five speed manual gearbox was known for its self- destruction and the SD1 – despite it’s great design – just didn’t have the unburstable toughness of the German-built Granadas, never mind lower specced Mercedes or BMW stuff.
Judging by the warranty claims and the age of cars being dragged back into the workshop, the newer examples appeared to be no better made than the originals.
It’s probably not a fashionable view amongst BL aficionados, but the evidence was there for all to see – BL could design some really great cars but were not capable of building them to a consistently good standard. I know, because I was there…