Memory lane : 1976 Rover 3500

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[Lacessit]

Going even further back, there was the Rover 90.

IIRC the main claim to fame of the 3500 was the aluminium alloy engine.

[HauptmannUK]

One of many Spen King designs. I remember them well - worked on more than a few. The V8 used the GM BOP 215 cu.in. engines. GM gave up on it because it was too expensive to produce and passed it over to Rover.

The aitomatics were a GM 180 'box.  Very very reliable drivetrain, but thirsty.

[transam]

8 hours ago, HauptmannUK said:

One of many Spen King designs. I remember them well - worked on more than a few. The V8 used the GM BOP 215 cu.in. engines. GM gave up on it because it was too expensive to produce and passed it over to Rover.

The aitomatics were a GM 180 'box.  Very very reliable drivetrain, but thirsty.

I think BMC/BL asked for the Buick engine, it was spotted at GM on a walk about, and asked what it was. They bought the rights to produce it.

BMC/BL were, for some reason, incapable of producing a V8, though the Daimler 2.5/4.5 Hemi was a lovely piece of kit.....????

 

The first Buick/Rover V8 was used in 1967 in this model below, the Rover P5, P5B.....

 

[seedy]

[xylophone]

A good mate of mine had the Rover 3500 and we drove to many pubs and parties it, and I thought it was a great car at the time. Very spacious and well laid out internally, and it was quiet and drove very well, as well as being good-looking, IMO.

[In the jungle]

If I remember correctly a lot of the Rover SD1s were banana yellow for some strange reason.

[transam]

1 hour ago, seedy said:

The Buick 215ci was a cast iron bloke with alloy heads, not sure if they did an alloy block later, but the Rover reincarnation was all alloy, a lot of weight saving..

[seedy]

7 minutes ago, transam said:

The Buick 215ci was a cast iron bloke with alloy heads, not sure if they did an alloy block later, but the Rover reincarnation was all alloy, a lot of weight saving..

The 215 cubic-inch aluminum V8 was originally announced in 1960 as a lightweight economy engine for General Motors new line of compact cars; Buick Skylark, Olds Cutlass and Pontiac Tempest.   The “215” first in the appeared in the 1961, with production ending in 1963 after ¾ million engines produced.

https://www.museumofamericanspeed.com/v8oldsmobile215.html

[Woof999]

Older brother of a school friend had the SD1 Vitesse. Lovely car at the time. Sounded amazing.

 

I believe my 1998 TVR Chimera used the same V8 block?

[Social Media]

From memory, the SD1 was adopted quickly by the cops and became the Motorway patrol car for quite some time. "The jam sandwich"

I had the 2.6 version in 1983, nice car for the time I owned it.

[transam]

57 minutes ago, Black Ops said:

From memory, the SD1 was adopted quickly by the cops and became the Motorway patrol car for quite some time.

I had the 2.6 version in 1983, nice car for the time I owned it.

London police had the SD1. The Rover V8 even did a stint in ambulances too....

[HauptmannUK]

These cars came with a one year warranty and so two or three years after launch they started turning up at our garage - which my dad was running in the late 1970s.

I was at university, studying engineering, but was expected to go home and work at the garage on weekends and vacations. I worked 7.00am-7.00pm on Saturdays and 7.00am-1.00pm on Sunday - then my dad and me would go home to a roast dinner and I would catch up on university work in the afternoon.

The SD1s were quite cheaply built and suffered a lot of electrical gremlins. I was the 'electrical expert' (I'd become a Radio Ham at age 15) so there was often an SD1 waiting for me to fix.  The bugbear was the relays and electronic modules. Most of these were made by a company called Pectron (in Derby IIRC). The soldered joints used to fail. Rover charged a fortune for replacements so I used to pry off the plastic enclosures and reflow the solder joints. The multipin connectors were very cheaply made so a lot of time was spent with contact cleaner and Electrolube switch lubricant.

One of the main weaknesses of the engine was cam and lifter wear.  Unscrupulous dealers would massively overfill the sump to quieten them off. Of course once the car was correctly serviced you'd hear it clattering away like a helicopter. I often got the job of replacing these parts.  I can remember we could get a cam and lifter set for £69 - which was very cheap (even allowing for inflation).

The job involved removing the radiator and intake manifold. Lock the flywheel. Undo front pulley nut and take off the front pulley, cover, timing chain etc. Then remove pushrods, lifters and then cam pulled out through the front of the car. I can remember doing these like it was yesterday.

There was a 2.3 and 2.6 version, IIRC based on the Australian Leyland engine, but they were much more troublesome than the V8.