An happy 75 owner's blog

[Dorchester2]

According to a kind of 'spot the difference' talk, I may list here the upsides of my 75 and the downsides (i.e. lacks of options) as well.

Upsides:
- cruise control OK
- bi-zone automatic climate control (ATC) OK
- basic & outdated low line sat nav OK (repaired & fixed)
- mini computer display OK
- rear parking alarm OK (just retrofitted, very efficient and most welcome)
- fog lights OK
- automatic gearbox OK
- electric rear windows OK
- genuine burr walnut dashboard (in 1999-2000 only) OK
- whole sandstone beige leather interior OK
- heated & electric front seats OK
- alpine symphony 4x25 w OK
- 6 CD changer OK

Downsides:
- front lights heated spray NONE
- photosensitive centre mirror NONE
- rear sun blind NONE
- sunroof NONE
- volumetric alarm NONE

Some of the latter category look as gadgets to me but the photosensitive centre mirror. However I fear a messy & pita job to retrofit it on a mk1 75 (only prewired in the mk2) and I can easily do with the usual and well known two position mirror.
The last two items of the latter category might even be mere nightmares with leaks or ill-timed activations!

Hence I think I'll stop the retrofit hardly begun because I'm very happy with what I've got, and definitely relieved thanks to the parking alarm: essential & compulsory to somebody who had never ever got such a long car and cannot see from the front the end of it!

[Dorchester2]

I know those power folding mirrors do exist but I have in front of me the thick official Rover 75 1999 French brochure I've luckily found on the bay recently and I assure you that I can't see anywhere those ones.
IMHO they weren't fitted so early on the cars coming from the Cowley plant, at least the export ones.
I would be very grateful to get some more informations about that feature.

[Dorchester2]

But I've read some posts: it's a hell of a job for at least two skillful guys and half a day.
Not for me as you may guess...

[Dorchester2]

Given that my LHD 75 isn't prewired, it would be a very big project: change both mirrors for good used ones on the bay (hard to find here, very few scrappies selling too high), and take off both doors, stripping the trims and the like, stripping the under-dash and maybe pillars, buying wires & plugs and putting back all that stuff in good order. I'm neither an electrician nor a mechanic and I know my limits. You are much more skilled and experienced.

I stripped twice both doors of my 25. But I'm not ready to make a mess or break anything in the 75, I would be in a deep dispair and it would be very costly to clean off my possible mistakes, eventually asking the mechanic to do so and such a small improvement would be hugely overpriced.

Do you want any evidence? When I've done a lot of work myself on the 25, every repair or service on the 75 since 3 months but the parking alarm & the mud flaps retrofit was done by my precious mechanic.

[Dorchester2]

With this post ends the year 2017.
More to come later on...

[Dorchester2]

Just before resuming my journal past posts, I would say that I've suppressed nearly all the posts made by mates (or when kept inside mines, their names or pseudos), to respect their privacy. I'd also slightly modified some parts of my own posts to make the transition understandable but hither & tither it might yet appear some oddities. I hope that will not detract you to keep on reading. I hope you'll take as much pleasure in reading as I did in experiencing & writing. Enjoy.

[Dorchester2]

On our way back from my eldest son's, our usual pubs being closed on Sunday (that's reminds me of my frequent journeys in Surrey in the 60's, doesn't it?), we stopped at the Hotel Restaurant du Quercy at Lauzerte, a typical high located village in SW France.

As we were just paying our bill before coming out, turning in my direction the female boss told me: 'I love your braces'. Those with the Union Jack!
Far from thinking she was hitting on me, especially in front of my sweetie, I told her that my maternal granddad was English born. She asked me where he came from and so and so...

Then she said that she too was born in Oxford - I only then remarked her very slight accent - but living in France since 30 years.
Hence I showed her my bonnie 75 parked just in front of her hotel, telling her my car had been precisely built in Cowley.
Then she answered that being a nipper she was playing in one of the courtyards of Morris Oxford plant, her father working there. And that the guys were very proud of their job.

Amazing, isn't it? How tiny is the world of British car lovers!

[Dorchester2]

Next job on the to do list:

I need to change my right side mirror which was broken and repaired but I don't want any approximation in my car.

My 75 being a Connoisseur SE, I can't see any mirror on the bay with mirror cover.
So a solution could be to buy another pre-facelift mirror with a coloured cover and swap the covers.

But is it an easy job to swap those covers without any break?

I've done it easily on my 25 but the 75 mirror shape isn't the same as there is a kind of little wing at the bottom next to the articulated mechanism.

**************************************

Thank you...
Clear and efficient as usual.
I see I need to be very careful and organised.
Mirrors are already ordered on the bay.

[Dorchester2]

I received the right side mirror at noon and it had been swapped, done & dusted at 6 after my usual 5 o'clock tea.

Happy of the result even not perfect, but I've some warnings or tips.

1. To take off the cover without taking off the oval mirror previously, a solution may be beginning at the bottom (close to the hinge) using an old credit card to protect the black plastic surrounding from possible chips and dents and move apart the cover with a large screwdriver whose blade sharp edges would have previously been covered with one or two tape layers to avoid doing any mischief to the cover.
I so did it because I wasn't interested at all in the dark green cover of my new right side mirror.
But given I wouldn't take any risk with my own chrome cover, I began indeed by taking apart the oval mirror, orientating it to the very bottom to get a sneaky peek above, see the clips and free them one after another. Then electrically raising a little the mirror to ease the end of the operation.

2. The door card. A pig of a job! I didn't succeed in taking it apart entirely, the two strong metal spring clips remaining stubbornly stuck despite all my moderate efforts. I didn't insist, Hayes telling that '... very difficult to release. Simply pulling the panel will probably result in damage.'
Then I was reminded by a nice guy remark on the forum saying that one may take off the window channel trim simply keeping away the upper part of the door card with the help of two more hands.
My wife being tepidly interested in that kind of job (!), I did the trick entirely on my own. Yes we can!
And the window trim came out. But beware: it's far easier to take off than to put it back in place. But once more the old credit card is very helpful to rightly position the rubber lip inside & outside.
Nevertheless in the operation I didn't pay sufficient attention to the little rod and after putting all in good order and testing both door handles inside & outside as well as the fob, all is working perfectly well but that rod becoming loose and probably disconnected somewhere inside the panel. Irritating but without any importance. You've understood I'm not at all keen to dismantle once more again the whole lot!

At least, the mirror is working well horizontally, but no way to get it working vertically. Why? I don't understand. The former was working well in every direction and I correctly fitted back the plug behind the window trim.
But it doesn't matter because the oval mirror is on the right up/down position in the very centre and no need to complain about.
Moreover my long experience is that an electric mirror doesn't need to be touched again unless you have to swap your driver's place with somebody else much taller or shorter. Even when I'm driving again my 25, which is now my wife's own car, I do not need to change the adjustment, and mind she is 6in less than I am.

So guys think of 1. electrically testing the mirror & 2. control the rod is effectively manually working before fitting back all the stuff!

But in the end an used mirror in very nice condition (bought on the bay and coming from Kent) is far better than a broken one!

And that job gave me the useful opportunity to correct a lot of little failures committed by the previous scullion! Several clips broken, tweeter not connected and triangular thick rubber soaked (I've just washed the car on the eve!) because not properly put in place in the groove. And now the door card is actually correctly tighten which wasn't 100% the case beforehand.

I'm definitely happy with the result.

[Dorchester2]

I didn't swap the glass of the new mirror, but only swapping the cover.

Nevertheless I'll have a try tomorrow gently pushing on the glass in case something had happened inside while putting back my chrome cover, but I'm a bit doubtful the glass being tightly maintained by several plastic clips.