Rover 200vi VVC Engine Swap ~ Five hours single-handed...

[MGJohn]

Even with limited resources, amazing what the resourceful amateur spanner guy can achive even working alone. My son Martin, like some of his other Rover car mad friends, can swap an engine in no time. The only help needed was access to some of my tools ~ my single contribution, undoing the last of three 8mm bolts which secure the PAS Pump Pulley. That Pulley needed to come off to enable the engine to be lifted up and out. I took a few pictures :~



Engine gone ..



Hoisted high :~



Just needs those many connectors, hoses etc reinstated and it will be ready to fire up.

[Mr2Mike]

Good work, it took me somewhat longer than that just to do the timing belts on my KV6!

[MGJohn]

My son was able to work on this 200vi again today ~ despite those apparently record low temperatures for November in the UK. Picking up a cold spanner was almost painful...

Then he spent an hour or so connecting all the various hoses and plugs to the replacement engine he fitted last week. Filled up with 10-40 XPart semisynthetic and some 50-50 OAT coolant then reconnected the battery.

Turned the key and engine fired up almost immediately. Always a relief when that happens with an engine bought without hearing it running, only the words of the vendor to rely on the engine's condition. With little oil in the cam followers, it sounded very tappetty for about five minutes until the oil did its job in the hydraulic lifters. It then settled down to a nicer and quieter idle.

To both my son and my ears, this replacement engine sounds much better than the old engine. Yes, always a relief when buying an unknown quantity like this VVC engine, which was from an MGF and came complete with MGF VVC gearbox which should prove useful one day.

I took a 20 second video of the running engine soon after start up and will take another one so that a before and after comparison of the tappet noise settling down can be made.

Another half decent 200vi lives on ...
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[MGJohn]

I took it for its MoT test for him recently after he swapped the engines as shown in the thread. The original engine had a persistent oil leak which in the car, we were unable to identify let alone rectify. He bought another engine out of a Scrappage MGF VVC so he was told and thus was not able to see it running, only the vendor's words to go on and that could be risky. The engine is the best VVC I've ever driven. The little car flies... he plans to sell the 200vi soon ... Glad about that as it has taken up too much room in front of our garages for too long... Here it is on the ramps during the MoT test. I explained why the engine change and the friendly tester called me over and shone his inspection lamp up around the engine ~ dry as a bone... Passed with a single advisory to renew rear brake pads soon ... Sorted. Here it is :~

Here it is on the ramps with the tester doing his checks :~


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