Last night my mechanic Terry came over and we put the new Nippondenso Starter in Rose. The old starter's ratchet gears were going so why not do it now I thought. Rose has a Rover 3.5 transplanted back in the UK by a company called "Peak Performance" located out at Heathrow, the sticker is still on the windscreen. With a transplant things are always dicey. The steering box with the power assist hard lines etc prevented us from getting the Lucas M45G starter out....by 1/2 inch clearance. Terry had to undo the steering box, drop that down, unbolt the front right engine mount and jack the engine up an inch just to get the starter out. The new Nippondenso starter (smaller, faster better....must be japanese) went in a treat.

After that we played the "What do you do with this extra wire game".

The current to the coil was weak and we figured it has something to do with that. After extrapolating between a Haynes (STAG) and a Haynes (Rover 3500) and still not being able to trace this errant wire, bundled with the postive leads for the coil.....we decided to snip it. Coooey...full current to the coil and Rose fired up.

How BL...I know just do the same thing the the temperature warning light.....

Engine sounds great!

No smoking except for the crap silver paint baking off that a pervious owner had sprayed on the Headers.

I have wrapped the exhaust headers with fibreglass wrap to keep the heat down in the engine compartment.

This saturday morning I drove Rose 10 feet out of the garage and turned her off. And even tho' I had re-done the brakes I put a big rock under the rear tire.

Daisy, my midget is watching all this work with smirk. Her efficient 4-banger will give me 40 MPG and you know who will get driven daily.......

Just because. More to come.