BRISK ROVER - The second coming!

[niceyellow vrs]

Greetings,

 

Some of you may remember what was and always will be the greatest car to ever turn a wheel upon this earth, the Brisk Rover. 160 VVC engine, LSD box and handling abilities that bent the laws of physics.

 

 

But alas, 6 years of seriously hard abuse from myself finally killed it so it was replaced by a BMW 318Ti Compact. Bit of rwd fun but it just wasn't as much fun as the Brisk Rover so a new project is under way.

I've been missing the Brisk Rover so much that I've decided it's time to build another one, albeit a slightly more rounded and up to date version.

 

Phase one: Purchase a tatty ZR160 for which to harvest it's organs. I required the engine, box, loom, ecu and alarm unit, brakes and few other little bits that may be useful.

 

 

Phase 2: Whilst engine is out, do all the belts and replace any seals as necessary. It's already had the uprated multi layer steel head gasket installed so as it's showing no problems, I'm leaving that alone. I've got a sump baffle to go in and I've already done the belts, plugs (one of the old ones didn't match the other 3), rocker gasket, water pump and a camshaft oil seal.

 

 

 

 

[niceyellow vrs]

Forgot to mention quite an important detail. If you look closely, in the pile of parts that arrive the other day, a brand new Quaife ATB diff.

This will be installed into the 160 VVC box in due course.

 

Phase 3: This will begin slightly before phase 2 is complete, but an opportunity popped up that was too good to miss. Basically, I need a car to put all this lot in. I've been keeping an eye out for a decent MG ZS, ideally one that's all good but with a busted engine to ensure much cheapness. As luck would have it, a midnight trawl on Ebay has turned up this bad boy.

 

 

 

A one owner, 43000 mile car requiring a head gasket. All the seller wants is £200. So despite now seeing it in the flesh, I'm assured everything else is good and at that price, it's certainly worth a punt. Worst case, it's worth more than that in bits and it's even still got 3/4 tank of fuel.

 

I wanted the ZS over a ZR as it's more similar to my old Rover. Similar handling with the independent rear suspension (exactly the same as what I had) as opposed to the solid rear beam on the ZR. I also prefer the slightly longer back end, suits my driving style on events better and plus it gives me more room for all my kit.

 

So, I'm picking it up This coming sunday and then I can start on extracting the dying engine and then transforming it into my new Autosolo and Road Rally car. The conversion should be pretty much plug and play, just drop n the engine and box along with the engine loom and ecu. Brakes are just a simple bolt on job of the larger calipers, carriers, discs and pads from the ZR.

 

Fun times ahead

[matt_theforce]

[sharkrider]

Yay! briskrover mk2 , love it

 

[Skodaboy1983]

Looking forward to seeing this project unfold....

 

Davy

[niceyellow vrs]

Another piece of the puzzle collected this week. 

Managed to find a powerflow cat back system for all of £40 On Facebook marketplace. Win.

 

[john999boy]

Don't forget to add this to your new car!

 

 

[niceyellow vrs]

Indeed. Don't want a repeat of this:

 

 

 

Braided hoses on the oil cooler solved that problem on the original Brisk Rover after the rubber ones rubbed through and spat hot oil all over the alternator.

 

[sharkrider]

5 hours ago, niceyellow vrs said:

Another piece of the puzzle collected this week. 

Managed to find a powerflow cat back system for all of £40 On Facebook marketplace. Win.

 

bloody cheap that!

[niceyellow vrs]

3 minutes ago, sharkrider said:

bloody cheap that!

 

Certainly was. The receipt I have for the powerflow on the Skoda shows the last owner paid £300 for it.

[niceyellow vrs]

It's on my driveway. Work will commence this week but initial inspection reveals it's an absolute bargain at £200.

 

 

Obviously the head gasket on it's current engine is definitely gone, but the rest of the car is proper tidy. Couple of car park dings but the bodywork is very good. It's tidy underneath and even has 4 Dunlops with loads of tread and just over 3/4 a tank of fuel!

 

The guy that sold it was really genuine and I reckon is going to regret selling it. I'm really pleased though

[niceyellow vrs]

Made a little bit of a start on the car this evening. Didn't get quite as much done as I would've liked as I lost a lot of my evening to dealing with numpties on eBay who clearly still have to get their mothers to the their shoe laces for them.

 

Anyway, I digress. The plan was to get the fluids drained and make a start on stripping out the engine bay in preparation for engine removal. I got the car up on stands. Jacking up revealed its a fairly well balanced car.

 

 

I got the oil (read oil as gooey sick like mess) drained out and while that was happening I realised I got it up on the axle stand about 1 inch too far forward so couldn't shut the garage door without scraping the front bumper. I decided the best course of action would be to remove the bumper as I'll need it off anyway at some point.

 

 

 

 

 

[niceyellow vrs]

Whilst taking off the bumper, I had to remove the arch liners and while I was at that I figured it a good idea to get the sill covers off and Chechen the sill for any rot. It is a 16 year old Rover after all.

 

All solid apart from one small hole at the front of the sill on the drivers side. That's only gone as the screws that hold the arch liner to the sill cover are slightly overlong for the application and have been rubbing away the protective coating.

 

 

No bother, easy fix. Just needs a small patch welding on and there's plenty of solid stuff around it so I've  booked my brother to come and sort it. He'll do a much neater job than I will.

 

Hope to get more done tomorrow night, depending on what other life problems get in the way in the next 24 hours 

[niceyellow vrs]

Progress, old engine out 

 

 

 

That's it for today. Got other places to this afternoon.

 

Next steps will be build the lsd into the gearbox, fit sump baffle to the new engine then I can drop it all in the bay.

I've compared all the exhaust parts and I think the ZR downpipe and cat may be ever so slightly too short to reach the mid section. If that's the case, I'll just make up a short link pipe.

Gonna be busy with work this week so hopefully I'll get little bits done here and there but it'll probably be next weekend before I get properly back on it.

[niceyellow vrs]

Decent progress today.

 

First job was install my Quaife atb diff into the gearbox.  I used the box from the ZS as it's got 30000 less miles on it than the ZR box and the gear sets are the same anyway. I did however, use the final drive from the ZR as it's 4.2 opposed to the ZS' 3.9 so I'll get the slightly better acceleration.

 

 

 

 

Once the box was back together, it was on to the last job on the engine before it would be ready to go in.

[niceyellow vrs]

I needed to install my sump baffle. I've bought a slightly better one that I had in the original Brisk Rover, this one also has little flaps to help keep the oil around the pick up. 

 

Once the sump was reinstalled, I bolted the box back on, swapped the ZS mounting onto the ZR engine and got the engine crane out. It all dropped into the bay nicely and is all mounted up.

 

 

 

I'll have to see what the weather is like tomorrow but hopefully I can get a morning's work done. I need to clean all the coolant pipes thoroughly before they go back in as they are minging from the original engines head gasket failure. 

It'll need looming putting in, shafts, exhaust, brakes swapping to the ZR calipers and disks then fluid renewing. Other stuff too.

 

Plenty to be getting on with but it's coming along.

[sharkrider]

don't forget to put oil in it....

[niceyellow vrs]

5 hours ago, sharkrider said:

don't forget to put oil in it....

 

It's not a mk2 Fabia vrs 

[sharkrider]

13 hours ago, niceyellow vrs said:

 

It's not a mk2 Fabia vrs 

 

lol.. I wasn't suggesting it would use it, just a common mistake before the first start up after a rebuild

 

[niceyellow vrs]

Today's progress was a little bit exhausting.

Fitted the Powerflow cat back with no issues.

 

But when I came to fit the downpipe and cat from the ZR, which I thought would be too short, it actually turned out to be too long.

 

 

No matter, that actually makes things a bit easier.

 

 

[niceyellow vrs]

The solution is simple. Chop a bit off and re-weld the flange, ha I said flange 

 

 

Quiet day at work tomorrow so should get 10 mins to weld it on and then it'll all bolt straight up.

[Breezy_Pete]

"The second coming" brings back fond memories, ever been a CGTI forumer?

 

Enjoying what you're up to with this project.

[niceyellow vrs]

11 minutes ago, Wino said:

"The second coming" brings back fond memories, ever been a CGTI forumer?

 

Enjoying what you're up to with this project.

 

Can't say I've ever heard of CGTI.

 

I'm enjoying this one too. Particularly as working on such a low mileage, well looked after car is so easy. Haven't come across a single seized bolt yet.

[niceyellow vrs]

Well, i never said my welding would be pretty, definitely more function over style, but the exhaustis now sorted.

 

 

Just ordered an upgrade too. The clutch hydraulics are well know for being **** and i can srr why, even just holdong it it feels like it wants to break so I've ordered the Dark Ice Designs "Sheddist Style" clutch hydraulics kit.

 

 

That should ward off evil spirits and also gives the ability to bleed it easily. The standard system has no bleed points so if you get air into It, you're knackered. Only trouble is the kit costs almost as much as I paid for the whole car 

[niceyellow vrs]

So I'm back from holiday and able to crack on with the build.

 

Whilst away on holiday, the welding fairy paid a visit and sorted out that little hole on the end of the sill.

 

 

First job for me today was make the necessary engine loom edits.

 

 

A fairly straight forward exercise in the end. Basically just needed to take the 3 plugs for the vvc mechanism and the plug for the camshaft sensor from the ZR loom and add them into the 120 loom. I followed a guide I found on a Rover site and did a better job. Instead of cutting and soldering every wire it was easier to just remove and replace the pins in the ecu plug. This meant there was only 2 wires which actually needed splicing and soldering.

 

Once everything was attached, it just needed the sleeves and tape replacing to neaten it all up.

 

 

With the loom sorted, I was keen to see if it works so I plugged it all in to the engine, filled the engine with oil. Before I could give it a try, I need to swap the alarm/immobiliser box for the one matched to the ecu. That was a ball ache as it means the centre console fascia had to come out to get access to it. I  the old Brisk Rover, this box is much easier to get to underneath the dash above the pedals. I've slightly moved this one so that I can now get to it without having to take half the interior apart.

 

So with this done it was time to turn the key.

 

 

 

Looks like I got my loom right as it fired straight up 

 

Didn't run it for long as I haven't reattached any of the cooling system yet. The tappy noise is just the hydraulic tappets which should settle down once it gets a bit of running. That Powerflow exhaust sounds nice though.