Putting a Rover V8 in a Cabrio

[danny_nelson]

Re: Putting a Rover V8 in a Cabrio

Hi Paul, I am glad to see you are getting on with the convertion. The first Cabrio built by Paul Moorhouse was a V8 and he used the servo and master cylinder from a cortina,
This is what the build manual then advised. When Mark Matthews started building he used the Cortina servo on his first cars, but as time went along and he started fitting different sized engines he changed to the Metro unit, and he supplied these to builders. The set up works better if you mate a Ford master cylinder to the Metro servo. If you do not change the master cylinder from the Metro the pedal travel seems quite long.
Regards
Danny.

[sam.pej]

Re: Putting a Rover V8 in a Cabrio

Hi All. Thanks for the many replies, both on the forum and to my own email. Peter Licence suggested I contact Nick Derrick from Dorchester about how to re-route the steering column. So Nick, if you are out there....or anyone who has a contact for him...I'd be really grateful.
On the servo front, I have one from a mini, but the mounting bolts do not line up with the existing holes. As these bolts also hold the pedal bracket in place, it would be better to find a servo with the same bolt spacing as the sierra. I could drill more holes in the bulkhead but don't want to weaken it.
Finally I found some water pumps with shortened front pulley spindles on ebay but I'm not sure exactly how much reduced they are. May have to take pot luck and get one and see if there is enough room for the radiator - which, incidentally, I have not sourced yet.
Still, great fun experimenting and digesting all your responses. Many thanks.
Paul

[greyV8pete]

Re: Putting a Rover V8 in a Cabrio

Paul. I have just checked my old Cabrio build manual and it gives the following info for shortening the font shaft of a w/pump for an SD1. "Cut off end of pump [spindle] in line with air hole." There is a sketch showing a dimension of 41mm from the front of the largest front flange to the cut face. Hope this helps? Peter

[danny_nelson]

Re: Putting a Rover V8 in a Cabrio

Hi Paul,I have another V8 in my collection at the moment and while checking it over I remembered, Paul Moorhouse and Marlin supplied pedals with the V8 kits. They did not use the Sierra pedals. You may have to do some modifications. Another point you may like to consider, Paul Moorhouse made a larger alloy reservoir that served the clutch master cylinder and the brakes, it was mounted on the brake master cylinder. Mark used remote ones.

[sam.pej]

Re: Putting a Rover V8 in a Cabrio

Peter. thanks for the phone number - I've now made contact with Nick and hope to go and see his car soon. Marlin have been helpful and have master cylinder, exhaust manifolds and radiator to fit the V8. A bit more pricey than second hand parts from ebay but probably worth it. Incidentally, just seen my car is featured on the MOC gallery of Cabrios - A349SKM - I don't know who owned it when the pictures were taken. Paul

[danny_nelson]

Re: Putting a Rover V8 in a Cabrio

Hi Paul,
Chris Day was the owner. Chris is in Bridport.
Regards
Danny.

[greyV8pete]

Re: Putting a Rover V8 in a Cabrio

Hi Paul. Glad you made contact ok with Nick.

I suggest that you check the mating faces of the flanges on your new manifolds before fitting. Fabricated systems are notorious for moving when the welds cool. They also move after they have been run for some time. In my case after 20,000 miles my N/S manifold was fine but the O/Side front and rear flanges were well out of true and were the main reason that the pipes were touching the steering shaft and the gasket faces leaking too. I had to spend several hours hand fettling one pair to match the other.

From the MOC gallery your Cabrio doesn’t seem to have louvres in the bonnet. You will probably need these as there will be a lot of heat to dissipate with a V8. Also the louvres reduce the pressure build up in the engine bay so the radiator air flow / cooling is improved.

Thanks Chris for the tip on resizing photos. I have now done this with the attached pics of my exhaust to show lower part of manifolds and the additional rear boxes that I had made by Powerflow in Exeter. May still need to atttach these to two replies though due to quantity.

Guess you are going to have a busy Christmas Paul :-) Peter.

[greyV8pete]

Re: Putting a Rover V8 in a Cabrio

And here are the other rear silencer photos. Peter

[sam.pej]

Re: Putting a Rover V8 in a Cabrio

Thanks to Nick Derrick and his wife Sally for spending several hours showing me how he had built his V8 Cabrio. It's a beautiful car and Nick is a superb craftsman - if my car looks half as good when I've finished I shall be delighted. Thanks to Sally for a lovely lunch. Nick has re-routed the steering column by using four universal joints and making nylon bearings to hold part of the column to the chassis rail. His solution to where to place the clutch master cylinder is neat too - it's inside the the footwell attached high up on the pedal framework. Thanks to Peter for putting me in touch. Paul