All over for our Rover?

David’s BRM is in need of a powerplant transplant, so he’s a man with a plan

I decided to drive to the village to get the newspaper instead of the usual walk on a busy Saturday morning last June but ended up walking back anyway. Two-thirds of the way there V844 RBK decided that it didn't want to go any further; I felt the power just drain away. Eventually, some kind hands helped to push it into a side street where it would sit until later.

I returned later that evening with Glenn Gibson of Autotune in his van complete with a power pack but the car showed little inclination to re-start, so the tow lead was attached and the gentleman's sporting hatch had an undigni„ed tow back to the drive outside my home.

It sat there for some time while books and diagrams were consulted. With the orange tow lead still attached, it looked like it had just returned from one of its track days rather than a thwarted local trip of less than a mile.

I’d had problems with the old alternator before so that seemed like the obvious place to start. I managed to get hold of a new one and „tted it after a bit of a wrestle. Was this easy „x really going to work? I turned the ignition key eagerly and was rewarded with

– absolutely nothing. Back to the proverbial drawing board.

Glenn set about removing the cylinder head to explore possible causes within the engine block itself and the cause became all too apparent – a piston had blown leaving an empty cylinder and a trail of damage to the engine casing. No sound had accompanied this catastrophic incident and Glenn recalled that he had only ever seen this once before and that was in a di‹erent type of Rover 200 and again... violent but silent!

Clearly I needed a replacement 1.8-litre K-series if the car was ever going to run again so I went on the Rover 200 BRM Owners’ Group site – thebrm.co.uk – in search of advice and was later o‹ered a more or less complete engine from a chap who had a correct engine sitting in his garage. It had an interesting history, too having been removed from a car that was written o‹ years ago before becoming the spare engine for production car No.2 – performing well and doing around 1000 miles before becoming surplus to requirements once more.

The even better news was that the engine

More orange than we’d like to see on RBK as it sits forlornly outside David’s garage following its engine dramas. was located near Grantham, just a short drive north from where I live. Glenn and I went to inspect the engine one Saturday morning, liked what we saw and the deal was done. We loaded the engine into Glenn’s van and brought it home. It now sits beneath a tarpaulin awaiting the happy day when I can „nd a suitable workshop with an engine lift local to me who can carry the swap out indoors. It can't happen too soon because the Rover has, up until now, always been reliable in everyday use and those famous padded red seats are rather more comfortable than my VW Beetle’s on longer drives.

It is also a pain having a dead car in the middle of a single-width driveway – a lot of shunting was needed to get vehicles in the right place each time I needed to get my VW camper out of the garage; neighbours suddenly found jobs to do when they saw me walking towards them, keys in hand! Fingers crossed that the Rover will soon be „xed and back in business once more.

Stage one involved swapping over the old alternator for a new one, but this easy ‚x didn’t solve the problem.

That will do nicely – a complete engine awaits the swap operation when a suitable workshop is found.

Fellow Rover 200 BRM enthusiast Paul Thompson and Glenn discuss the life and history of the replacement engine.