Resto project: N7

[Rob Bell]

Regarding the rear deck carpet - https://rimmerbros.com/Item--i-EAD000010PMA - there is only one part number that I can find on Rimmers' website - EAD000010PMA. That means, despite slightly different locations for the inertia reel seat belts, that all models used the same moulding? Is that true? It'd mean that TF rear deck carpets would have been a poor fit? I can't believe that's entirely true...

[talkingcars]

It may be that they ran out of F carpets so now offer the TF version as "the" only one.

[CubMG]

Rear deck sound deadening ,I used a stick on dynamat style product from the bay.. and then 2 dust sheets from Home bargains cut to size about £2 each .Light weight easy to remove and quiet .

[Rob Bell]

It may be that they ran out of F carpets so now offer the TF version as "the" only one.

Could be right - the part number is not an original Rover Group one, but in general Rimmers tend to list obsolete part numbers too?

If I can get hold of a cheap TF deck carpet, I'll compare it with mine...

Rear deck sound deadening ,I used a stick on dynamat style product from the bay.. and then 2 dust sheets from Home bargains cut to size about £2 each .Light weight easy to remove and quiet .

Good call, but I've already bought high-mass closed-cell foam which should perform well. And I'd previously put a bitumen based foil product over the inspection lid and rear deck many moons ago with very good results BUT it is going to be at least as heavy as the disintegrated rubber-backed woolly jumper I've just removed!

[mowog73]

One of the first projects I did on both cars was to replace the falling apart rear deck sound deadening material with two layers of reflective foil insulation. This works every bit as good as the original and cost peanuts to buy.

[Rob Bell]

Nice job Mark

Sadly my original one is in such bad shape, I am not convinced it will make a good template. I may have to resort to making a fresh card template in the true "CAD" tradition!

[mowog73]

Rob, You can use the rear deck carpet as part of the template.

[Charless]

I have a complete good one you can add to the list!

[Rob Bell]

Rob, You can use the rear deck carpet as part of the template.

That's a very good idea - why didn't I think of that? I was planning on making a paper template...

I have a complete good one you can add to the list!

Thanks Charles! Why do I get the feeling that I should hire a trailer?

[Rob Bell]

Not much of an update today I am afraid - but the new air intake arrangement appears to be well sealed and the interior of the car has stayed dry (under a Mike Satur Sunmate/ shower cap). Windows are the next task.

I did however make a start on the replacement, closed foam sound insulation to replace the original fabric fibre items. With the interior staying dry, I should be able to put these in soon - but perhaps I'll clean everything else first before putting trim back into the car.

I need to make new rear bulkhead and engine cover sound-deadening mats - hopefully, these won't be too difficult to make? Or famous last words?

[Charless]

My/your engine cover already has one on the underside!

[Rob Bell]

This weekend was windows time.

The passenger side window had pulled itself away from its pegs that attach to the regulator (poorly adjusted windows I think were the culprit for this failure). While this could be repaired, I opted to simply replace. I had bought a complete door with glass and harvested the door glass from this. This glass was from a later car than mine, and I have suspicions that it it may be the 2mm smaller, later design. No matter, no biggie.

Getting the glass out of a door without power was interesting. I actually got a spare battery out to power the window down to get the last retaining screw out!

Before putting the new glass in, I did some research into window adjustment. The workshop manual is lamentable in its description - none of it is wrong, but it is totally lacking in detail or description of how to achieve the ideal window fit.

Fortunately, I have access to a number of other MG Rover documents - including a technical bulletin issued by MG Rover in around 2000/2001. This is much more comprehensive and details a number of interior leak issues.

I shall probably write a much longer item on window adjustment later, so I'll skip the in depth description for now, but give you an overview of the process I used.

First, and probably most important, is to ensure that the Cheater assembly is correctly adjusted. Don't take this as a given, as the technical bulletin gives details on how to elongate adjustment holes! The first task is to make yourself a tool. Rover recommended making a 7mm thick 100mm x 100mm item out of a non-metallic substance (hard board, soft plastic etc.). The purpose of this is to make a tool that can accurately and rapidly assess the correct distance between the cheater and the A-post.

Here's what I made from two pieces of plastic, wrapped in layers of gaffer tape to make the correct 7mm thickness:

The way that Rover specified to determine the gap between the Cheater and A-post is to remove the A-post seal. You don't need to remove all of it - just around the A post - like so:

Now use your thickness guide to judge whether the cheater is parallel and the correct distance from the A-post:

Difficult to see here, but actually, all wasn't quite well: there was a little too much of a gap. In fact I did have to slightly elongate the cheater mounting holes - but in the opposite direction to what I was expecting! With modification made, I finally had the correct 7mm gap to the A-post.

There is another important dimension to consider, not discussed in the Workshop manual: the distance between the cheater and the seal flange on the A-post - this should be 14mm:

I got it reasonably close - but with the original seals, the cheater is still pushed out - I do wonder whether the cheater and/or seal were modified for later cars?

The next step was to set all the adjustment screws to "neutral" positions. My car had rubbers on the window guide lower adjustment screws - and the manuals state that this should be just touching. I am not sure whether the rubber boots are found on later cars though?

The next step (after I re-intalled the window) is to centralise the glass in the door waist aperture. This is done using the window glass screws. The two screws on the glass to window regulator do fore/aft and a degree of up/down movement. The assembly adjacent to the rear window guide is set first to set the initial tilt. All subsequent in/out movement is achieved using the rear lower adjustment screw.

First you need to get the fore/aft adjustment just so. Then you set the in/out adjustment to ensure that you load the softtop seals correctly - the glass should engage the rail seals at the corner and slightly deform the seal. It is should not ride over the outside or meet in the centre of the seal underneath.

Once you have all this nailed (many happy minutes/ hours/ days), you can then finally fix the lift stop screws and the final guide screw to the rear window guide rail.

Once I'd done this and was reasonably happy with the job (it's not quite perfect, but if it keeps rain out, I'll count that as a win), I then had to go through the whole task again on the drivers side (water entry from maladjusted cheater). Happy days.

In the process of doing this, I found more problems. The speaker wiring is not behaving - so this needs sorting. Worse, I found why the door light and super locking is not working on the car - the window lift had trapped and snapped one of the door lock wires - so some water proof connectors are on their way from the bay of fleas.

[Rob Bell]

Then, as if there were not already enough little faults to fix, I looked at the heater speeds. Fan speed #1 has stopped working. I popped out the regulator block and its gloriously simple design was revealed. The resistor wire for speed #1 had burnt out, but the others looked fine. Not too bad for 25 years of use...!

The module is located here on the heater box, above the main air intake trunk from the airbox mounted on the scuttle panel. Easy access at the moment without any interior fitted!

And here's the resistor block - spot the problem!

I've bought a replacement for £7.50. I wonder whether this one will last another 20+ years???

[Rob Bell]

The dashboard is cracked, the instrument binnacle has multiple cracks and I am thinking of retrofitting ABS to N7.

This, of course, represents something of a scope shift for the original project - but it would be relatively easy to undertake with the interior stripped out, with a damaged door loom that needs repair...

Probably a rhetorical question: should I do it?

The biggest resistance on my part is (1) finding where I squirrelled away the VVC ABS-equipped wiring loom and then checking it for damage, and (2) having to transfer the VIN plate from N7's original dashboard to its replacement: I'm not sure of the best way to achieve this, and of course, Rover made it hard to do this anyway for obvious reasons!!!

Any thoughts?

[mowog73]

TB0005 – Water Ingress – Door Mirror Cheater Adjustment

[Rob Bell]

Thanks Mark - that's actually in better resolution than the versions I have (one of which is in draft form!!)

For the nearside cheater, I actually had the fractionally elongate the holes forward rather than rearward by just over 1mm to get the prerequisite cheater alignment

[itsonlyme54]

I am too sharing the rust issue, collecting a Volcano over the weekend and its going to need quite a lot of work

[Rob Bell]

Ouch...

[Rob Bell]

Been away/ a lot of work on (including weekends) which means not as much done over the last month as I'd have liked. Looks as though N7 won't be racing this year after all. Next year - and that will be the year that Project Shed gets its next raft of upgrades.

For now, I want to concentrate on sorting the irritating problems on N7.

The failed fan speed controller pack is an easy place to start - here comparing new and old:

This is an easy swap - except, you know, even an easy job can be subverted by circumstance. In this case, one of the retaining screws fell into the centre "tunnel" between the seats. Arrgh! I ultimately fished this out 15 minutes later, requiring the use of my Lidl video endoscope/bore-scope. Really handy widget!

That "hilarious" distraction aside, success: fully functional heater fan control. One job off the list.

But... (there's always a but isn't there?)...

Back to the water proofing - which I thought I had sorted... the persistent rain has at least had its uses...

[Rob Bell]

I came back from half term to discover, much to my chagrin, a re-accumilated acquarium in the passenger foot well!

There was also water in the driver's side too, but much less - probably because of the missing floor pan plug.

What on earth was happening?

Inspection revealed two issues:

(1) Water still entering via the air intake gasket:

You can just see the tell-tale water line from the water ingress into the foot well in the above picture.

This is because of the way the car is parked on a slope on my drive - which allowed water to pool on the scuttle panel and find its way in:

(2) On the driver's side, there is a gap between the hood seal and the A-pillar:

This was adjusted out on the catch - much better, if not quite perfect...