hi everyone. i have left my rover 420 in the garage for nearly 2 months now. i cant get to it at the moment. when i left the car for about 5 days in november, it had a little problem. when i tryed to start it, it kept going over and over and refused to start. this caused the battery to go flat. 3 days later and i had charged the battery and i put it back on the car. the car wanted to start but needed me to push the accelerator down half way and slowly went, chug chug chug and it got faster. while it was doing that, the exaughst made a popping sound and the car started up fireing only on 3 cylinders. when it did start, there was a tiny bit of blue smoke which i think could be because i put my foot on the gas. but then it ran for 30 seconds and it ran fine again. i always open the bonnet on the rover to check the engine before i start it and i find allot of damp inside the engine. could this be making the spark plugs damp? or do they just need replacing cause i have bought some new ones for it. please help guys and just to let you know it is a t series engine and has done 121,000 miles on the clock with full service history. The other thing was that when i leave it for a long time, it tends to sound like a diesel and makes an awful ticking noise coming from the right hand side of the engine. this is where the disturibitar cap is. my dad who has been working with cars for years says it could be the tappets. i just want to know whether this is a common problem or needs to be sorted asap. thanks for looking



thanks

Change the rotor arm and possible the distributor cap and HT leads too. If the tapping is more like an electrical zap then chances are that is what is causing the rough running when left stood in the damp.

well the engine looks awfully damp when i go to start it so it might be that. its just that other cars dont have this problem. well my other cars anywayz

This sounds like my 214 K series on the M6 near Manchester. Drove fine down the M55 out of Blackpool, got onto M6 and pop pop bang bang. Stopped and called RAC, They got it going again but only to happen later. When I eventually got back I took it to my trusty garage. No1 plug had a hair line crack and traces of earthing on the ceramic insulator. Changed all plugs, leads + HT from coil and srpayed faithfull WD40 over everything electrical. Was fine for a day and again it happened. Turned out to be contacts to a sensor at rear of engine. It was a fuel temp sensor I think! Its just below the throttle body. But thats the 214 TC K series! Could be a similar problem I suppose but worth checking sensor contact terminals. The smoke is unburnt fuel and oil in the head. Quite normal. Worry if its white, thats a head gasket! Good luck, Dave

thanks allot for that infomation. will try that. and no my car never ever has white smoke neither does it burn oil. just leaks it *laughs*

I had a similar problem with my 220. After changing the spark plugs, it now starts first time, every time...even when it's -5 out there

hi yep was the spark plugs, i was away for a week and when i came back to start it up it started up like it had been shut off a minuit ago.