Hi Adrian,
Your car looks great, have you fitted rear discs?, looks like it from your photos, I also have a +8, 2001 3.9. I would be interested to know does your car temp run up to circa 120 Celsius in heavy traffic situations.
Adrian
I have just tidied up the rear drums by brushing up with wire brush and then spraying with silver heat resistant paint. Was at MOG meet yesterday and had a couple of comments on how it looked better for this.
With respect to temperature, mine never gets above 110c in traffic, and quickly drops to 95 when fan cuts in. Cruising at 2000rpm with ambient air temp of 15c she runs at 85-90c. I used to have a TVR Griffith 250 4L and this used to be about the same, even though it had a larger radiator. In my experience of Rover V8's the important thing is to regularly changed cooling fluid. I would say about every 10K minimum but at least every other year, also I use a 50/50 mix of water/anti-freeze. It is very important to ensure you get rid of possible air locks when refilling. I refill and start engine with rad cap off and watch the level on the rad filler and wait till it drops a little, then switch off and then top up, and repeat the process until it does not drop, then replace the rad cap. Remember when changing coolant to remove the expansion tank cap as well and to fill expansion tank to half way point as well before starting, failing to do so can result in air locks. Also have heater valve in cockpit fully open through this.
I recently had to get my radiator re-cored as it had developed the usual weep that Mog's are known for. Now the chap that did this said that it needed replacing anyway as it was starting to fur up (like a kettle), I was surprised as it has only done 24k miles, he said it did not matter in his experience the corrosion and furing is due to time., my +8 being 16 years young probably explains this.
You could try flushing the radiator in situ on the driveway , take top and bottom hose off, fit short lengths to each that block them off, fit special rad cap with hose attachment for flushing, remove drain plug and switch on water to reasonable pressure to flush through and then refit normal hoses and refill as above. You might want to chat to a radiator repairer about de-scaling agents to put in rad before flushing through.
If your car has otter switch at the bottom of radiator (not sure if later models had this) then you could do as I have done which is to run a wire from each terminal up the side of the engine compartment and into the cockpit and connect it to a simple switch hidden behind the dash. Then if you are in a cue and see temp sneaking up you can override the otter switch and manually turn on the fan. If you have an otter switch and its been there a long time it might be worth replacing, Berrybrooks and others have told me they can become temperamental.
I hope that helps.
