[Jacinto]

Then, the alarm:

There was a problem with the central locking. If I wanted it to work with the remote, I sould have a "pistol" on the driver's door. But I only had an actuator, as these cars only operate the central lock with the key on the driver's door.

So, I decided to dismantle the Concerto's rear left door, and take the "pistol" out of it. As you can see, the locks are exactly the same (so, must be identical to the Rover XWs).




(On the bottom, there is the 213's lock, beneath the Concerto's)


Both the actuators (213 vs Concerto)



Believe it or not, this is from the Honda! :P



From mine:


And this is the rest:




Then, I just had to add some wires and connect some sensors, and that was it!
[youtube]zCXJBc4OXRo[/youtube]

After this, another job. I always wanted to delete the "H", "Honda Motor Co" and "16 Valve" letterings on the rocker cover. In my engine, it is like this:




Then, I discovered that there were some Rovers with Honda 16v non twin cam engines, with this cover:



But this is hard to find in Portugal, only maybe from a Rover 416 Tourer, pre K-series.

So, I got a spare Honda D-series cover, and started to work on it!




And this was it!

[Jacinto]

Two friends of mine told me that they saw a 213 in which all the red parts at the rear were illuminated. But this doesn't happen in the XHs:





So, I used some old indicators I had at home to get this done:





This was the result:









Sorry about the quality, photos taken with my phone...

[Jacinto]

Yesterday, the 213's insurance was over. And, as it was far too expensive, we decided not to renovate, until some work has been done to the car and, hopefully, we find a cheaper company.

So, I decided to do a little tour to say "goodbye, for now".





Rear fog lamps on:











And some more interior photos:



On this one, I forgot to turn off the center lamp. I wanted you to see only the passenger lights.



This one is blury, but without the center one:





And the 233 000km mark:



So, now, I am driving the 416 Tourer. And I love it.

But I am already missing the 213.

[Jacinto]

Ok, so, I have no news about the 213 except this:





It makes such a difference!

Still waiting for the panel to have it on the bodyshop. I'm trying to have it ready before christmas.

I have a question: any of you tried to change the orange idicator lenses to red, using a transparent coloured film? As the SD3s come with clear frond indicators, and I have clear side lenses too, it doesn't make much sense to have rear orange ones... The ideal would be for them to be clear too, but that's impossible, so, I want to try with red.


But I don't if I have to buy red film, or if it has to be another colour.

Thanks in advance!

Update:

Rear seat belts:









They aren't that easy to find in Portugal, for these cars. :P

And... Rover 216 Vitesse front lip.










I still have to re-index the torsion bars. Will be done by January - February, I hope!

[Jacinto]

Well, some updates:

I had my front speakers 10 to 17cm adapter correctly fixed.



And I changed my valve cover and gasket.



Before:



Now:






And I lowered the front a little bit, so it could be even with the back.













I left some clearance, because Portuguese roads are far, far from good. In some areas, even far from acceptable.





And another mod: the illuminated storage compartment (ex- cassette compartment)





I will have to get some ashtray brackets from two 213s, so that the bulbs could be hidden on the top, and the light would be more homogeneous.

[Jacinto]

Well, it's time for a new update. The torsion bar height adjustment bolts I used were only to have a preview of what I could do with the front height.

So, I ordered new ones, just like the original ones, but with more thread to play with.



They were installed...



And I thik I overdone it. :P



No worries, nothing that a 17cm spanner and a jack couldn't solve, now, in less than 5 minutes.

I lifted it a bit, and took him to the MoT, which he passed:



Back to the 15" wheels:





And so, he was ready to be my daily drive, again. I have to say I really missed it!

The front suspension modifications were spot on. It didn't got the car harder (or maybe it did, but slightly), but I noticed it could handle the bends better, leaning a bit less.

The rear suspension is still the problem. It is quite bouncy over bumps, but not so bad at higher speeds, on B-roads or highway.

I think the problem is due to the shock absorbers. THey are not working as they should, so, I will have the original pair of shocks adapted to the lowering the car had. I hope this will sort it out.

I'll leave these shots here:











And this is it! It has been a real pleasure having the 213 back

[Jacinto]

In the meanwhile, thanks to both work during summer and college since then, I had no time to update the thread.

So:

First, some photos taken when a friend of mine with a "grandson" of my 213 came to visit:









In the meanwhile, he got the 235 00km mark.





And my birthday gift, from by brother and his girlfriend:





I just loved it!


Then, after some days away from home, when I decided to take my dad's 416 Tourer because I had to transport some thing which wouldn't fit on the 213, I saw this when I arrived home.

The car had been almost one year just sitting in the garage, without any kind of trouble... But this time, after just a couple of days, this happened! I think it was my brother's dog (she was the only one sleeping in the garage).


On the door:



Front wing:





This is the only scratch that could be noticed after the first stage.

Bonnet:





After the bath:







The deeper scratches on the wing corner are much older than these new ones ;)




These on the door were the ones that scared me.




And on the "eyebrow", just like if the rock marks weren't enough...



I didn't want to use the polisher just yet.... I was just going to do it when the rust was repaired and the car painted.

But I couldn't see him like this, so I worked on the afected areas, just to see if he would need a more "hardcore" treatment.

So, I started here... Since it was a panel that would need to be painted soon, I had nothing to lose.




As I liked the results, I decided to go for the front right wing.







These are relfection lines, not scratches:

[Jacinto]

Always in good company!




In the end, what scared me the most got completely "clean". Mainly the door and bonnet.






As a bonus, the "eyebrow" now looked much better, without some older scratches. But still, the rock marks were still there, as well as some of the consequences of my small accident, just after I had the drivers' license. So, even knowing that now I feel it will be a shame, this will still be painted (as was already planned).

Not everything went that well, and, even after some practice on other cars and after being warned, I made my first "burnout" on a paint job.

The scratches on the front right wing were still too much noticeable, so I insisted a little bit. Not as much as I thought that could make this, but there was already a tiny lack of varnish, so, it was fragile, and I shouldn't have done it.





So, one more thing to be painted, in the near future!

Then, I had to replace a bulb (oh, these unreliable British cars... The just keep giving trouble! Or maybe not :P )




When I tried to remove it, it just broke.



So, I whent to my old "lamp box" to see if I could find something.



There was just one.




After that, time for a quick bath. But first, some photos with the slightly older brother!











When I was drying him, a package arrived:



I know that, by then, it was still November... But it seemed that Christmas got there earlier, last year



Finally, the much needed NOS rear panel, so that I could start the bodywork on the 213

[Jacinto]

By the end of 2014, I found a 213SE on a "dismantling center" (fancy name given in Portugal to scrapyards), which had leather seats. But they looked like this...













They were asking me about 50€ for them. But, even still, I decided not to bring them... I know, I want them so much... And they are very rare, but it would be so expensive to get them refurbished that I let them go. I have many other items that are more urgent, in which I have to spend money on.

Still, I brought the door cards (they are even more rare than the seats, because there was the 213 Executive in Portugal, with leather seats but without leather doorcards) and wiper/headlights stalks, because mine was broken.






Some experiments I am doing:





Visually, they will be like this (but colour-coded)... But I will have to make some changes to fix them to the car.

This all started when a friend of mine with a 216 Vitesse told me that it was a shame that the Vitesse never had a proper body kit (in a MG Zx sort of way), besides the front lip on the bumper and rear spoiler on the boot.

So, I searched and I came across the TWR kit...





... Which looks so terrible. So, I searched again and found some skirts that would fit the XH shape, without looking "forced".

I also thought it was stupid that the Vitesse was fitted with a front lip which made it look like that the side profile was like "stairs" (The front is lower than the middle, and the rear is even higher than the middle).



Some more photos:

[Rover GTi]

Hi Jacinto,

Just wanted to let you know that i thoroughly enjoyed reading the excellent thread you posted on your car!

You have got a great looking Rover there, its a credit to you.

Make sure you keep us updated on any further progress