March & April 2003

16th March, 2003

Glorious day for rushin' about so I set about doing a few jobs prior to popping out for a drive.

First job was to fit the EBC Green Stuff brake pads that I bought from Demon Tweeks over a month ago. This went a lot better than I expected and after an hour, all four corners were done. Whilst I had the wheels off I set the dampers to Dax's recommended settings (¾ of a turn on the front and 1½ turns on the rear).

I then went about changing the brake bias a little more to the rear. I had imagined that this would mean tapping out the roll pins, spinning the balance bar a couple of turns and then redrilling the balance bar to fit new roll pins. However when I looked at the bar, it was clear that all I need do was disconnect the rear brake cylinder push rod from the pivot on the balance bar, spin the pivot three turns closer to the brake pedal and then reconnect the push rod. This was accomplished in five minutes flat! This now means that the roll pinned lock nut on the rear side of the balance bar is no longer 'locking' but still remains in place as a safety precaution.

After that it was out on to the road for an hour's blast through the superb early spring sunshine, and for the first time, without the need for a woolly hat! The EBC brakes combined with the change in bias made for much more controlled braking. This will be even better once the brakes have had time to 'bed-in'.

26th April, 2003

Today I set about tackling a few jobs on my to do list.

Firstly I fitted a replacement oil pressure sender as I suspected mine was faulty (even with the better/later oil pump assembly, 8-9 bar is a tad optimistic). To try and isolate the problem, Tim Hoverd lent me his sender. With that fitted the gauge now reads 1 bar at tick-over and just over 2 bar when driving. That's more like it. (Also see later) I'll order a replacement from Greengauges and post it on to Tim. Whilst removing the old sender I noticed that it is possible to spin the threaded union and its base within the outer sender housing. Unfortunately the electrical connection pokes through the outer housing but moves with the union. I think that the sender may have became damaged when I hand tightened it using the the outer housing and thereby damaging its internals (more likely to do damage than my slight wiring error which saw the pressure switch and sender wired together for a while..oops!).

With that done the next job was to replace a short length of hose that I had used to bung the small fuel tank inlet next to the main filler pipe. I'd used none petrol resistant hose and took a gamble on Mr SVA not looking too closely. Another few minutes saw that replaced with the correct petrol resilient type.

Last job today was to add some piping around the boot box to give a better appearance. This was easy to do since the boot box had to come out to do the second job above. 30 minutes work saw the edging strip contact adhered in place. I'll leave it overnight tonight to fully 'set' and then bolt it all back together tomorrow.

27th April, 2003

The piping stuck very well overnight and so today I reinstalled the boot box. The piping around the edge really makes the whole rear of the car look better finished. Problem is that it is all going to have to come out again to fix the number plate properly. I forgot to do this whilst the boot box was out. I should read my own to do list more carefully!

3rd May, 2003

I'll sneak this entry in here rather than start a new page just yet.

The new Greengauges oil pressure sender arrived this week and I duly fitted it today. Tim Hoverd had asked for his original back as he knew how it read (compared to his capillary oil pressure gauge). And I have to say that my new oil pressure sender works well but it gives a different set of readings to the one I borrowed from Tim. The new sender and gauge read as follows:-

Running temperature tick-over = 1.5 bar (21 psi)

3-4000 rpm at running temperatures = 4 bar (60 psi) max.

I feel happy with this (although it still seems high for a high volume system) but I am now beginning to see why many people do not trust electrical pressure sensors. And I also wonder at the manufacturing tolerance at Mr Greengauges establishment. Perhaps those of us with Greengauges/Telemetrix/Caerbont instruments should compare readings and come to some sort of common consensus about Rover V8 oil pressures.

As a basis to judge everything on, I looked in my Rover P6 handbook which states that the oil pressure should be 30-40 psi @ 2500 rpm in top gear when warm. Mind you that's with the older/smaller oil pump so all things being equal, with the larger RR oil pump I should see an improvement in this figure.

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