All Activity

Yeah, think id get some of those wee magnet things to hold it in place if I do it.

As far as I know it was standard only on Coupes, no clue about the others. Also update it decided to throw tantrums at me yesterday, fob didnt work anymore and got me stranded for an hour and a half at a random square, even had to order pizza while I waited for my parents to come back home from a trip just to get me the spare fob LOL

Bit of a nightmare on this body kit with all the weird lines, shapes and curves. There's a few wrinkles in what I've done - especially where the shape is curved, and then a flat top, like on a bumper, as material needs to disappear instead of stretch. It's much, much easier on a flatter surface like a body panel.. Just need spare hands.

How easy/hard was the wrapping to do? Always fancied giving it a go but worried about cocking it up!😄

Doesn't the tachometer read from the distributor? and not the VSS

Aye, was sick of the sight of them mate, more chips than paint! Still to finish prepping the spoiler as DD was called to duty yesterday.....moving a bed for one of Faith's friends! Roof rack on and job done. Forgot how useful this old girl is! The place we were moving is about an hour and a half from here, so nice long run for her. I was shattered on the way home, so had to pull over and let Gayle drive the rest of the way home. She loved driving DD, said she's so lovely to drive😎

Does look odd without the splitter. Nice one for getting it ready for a blow over.. Plenty of stone chips in ey?

Got 1 skirt wrapped and fitted, and 2/3 if the rear bumper..

Okay so i haven’t had the time to properly start fixing stuff yet however i did take a photo of the disconnected engine wire harness connector. I don’t really know what these wires are actually for or if they’re supposed to be like this but it looks weird to me so yeah.

Been busy as had a day off from work and the sun was shinning! Decided to get DDs front VTiS spoiler off to get it ready for respraying. Also got a replacement bumper to do and the bonnet but they're getting done later this year. The spoiler was bugging me as it looked crap, more stone chips than paint! Gayle got me a new orbital sander for my birthday on Tuesday past, so put it to the test. It's bloody awesome! It's got quite a small head so perfect for the curves etc on the spoiler. Half way there... Had to stop as its now tea time and its baking hot here so needed a break. Also went under her and got all the excess power steering fluid that had leaked out from the rack. Was a right old mess! Gunk to the rescue! Leak hopefully now cured too. DD sporting her temp "spoiler-less" look. 😁 She looks bloody naked! Although still better than the scabby looking spoiler.

Yes mate, a photo of both those engine wires would be good so we can identify them for you. Regarding the alternator it's the 3 pin plug and it's connections. Can't remember if the alternator has the female connection or the plug, but I would give both a real good clean out and see if you can clean the pins too. Enjoy your weekend mate and let us know how you get on.

Hey Dave, thanks for the response! I’m going to investigate the things you’ve mentioned when i have some time. I’m going on an adventure this weekend but i’ll make sure to post an update whenever i’ve made any progress! When you say to check the connector on the alternator, are you referring to the B+ wire or the 3p connector? I have checked the 3p connector and cleaned out some kind of grease or gunk with a toothbrush, however i didn’t really look at the pins so i’ll make sure to do that. I’ll do my best to check the spark plugs and wires as i’m not in a position where i can purchase new ones at the moment, but i’ll see what i can do! To me it feels like this is the most likely cause of the battery light issue because of the whole ”high rpms” thing. Never realised how serious the door wire situation actually is so i appreciate you being straight with me regarding that, and i will definitely be looking at that before anything else! As for the disconnected wire underneath the engine, that’s separate from the disconnected engine wire harness connector in the top of the engine bay. I’m not so worried about the one underneath, however it’s a bit concerning how one of the 3 main engine wire harness connectors seems to be disconnected. (Unless i’m misunderstanding something) I’ll try to attach a picture of what i’m talking about if i remember. :) For now I am still able to drive the car without issues as long as I keep the rpms under 4000 so i’ll just have to do that until i can start replacing stuff to hopefully fix the issue. Going on a 170km roadtrip right now so i’m crossing my fingers that nothing goes wrong 🤣

I think the fuel caps will fit a number of cars as they were an outsourced part. Try searching for one for a rover 400 (96 to 2000) and see if that shows the same part number.

Tough one to diagnose remotely mate, but sounds like there are a few faults (all electrical) that you've mentioned the car currently (excuse the pun!) has. 1st off check the connector to the alternator. It may be as simple as it needing cleaned out/pins cleaned. The spark plug arcing out is a big issue which may even be the cause. Try replacing the 4 plugs and fit new oem spark plug leads. What youre saying with it initially only happening at high revs ties in with the plug/leads that has that fault. The wires in the passenger door need checking out pronto. If they are busted/bare wires possibly touching that's going to cause the issue with your radio, but more important it could cause a fire. Needs fixing asap. The wire underneath the car I'm not sure on, we don't have any additional heaters in the cars over here in the UK so haven't heard of that before. But if there's a loose cable up where the loom enters the car, and it's the same connector as the one underneath, I would assume that needs connecting. It could be a previous owner has had something fitted in between the wires and removed it. Worth checking out. Finally, voltage regulator. It may be faulty although they don't tend to go very often. If none of the above solve the issue it may need to go to an auto electrician to see if they can diagnose it. Deffo fix those faults first though mate to eliminate them. Any one of those could be the cause.

Ohhh, I've never seen those in the Rover. My best mate Jim had the Rover400 iS, the 2 litre one with the boot. Can't remember seeing them in that one, was a 99 model. Unless it was a factory option/only fitted to higher up models?

for context: i bought my 1998 mb3 in november of 2025 as my first car, before that i haven't had any experience whatsoever with working on cars, nor do i know anyone who can teach/help me so it's pretty much just me and the internet trying to figure this one out. (what i'm trying to say is that my knowledge is somewhat limited, so keep in mind that what might be obvious to you may not be obvious to me). also wanna mention that my current financial situation is quite bad to the point where €20 is a noticeable chunk of my wallet, therefore i would very much appreciate any help with this issue as it's literally impossible for me to just buy a new alternator and see if that fixes it. first of all i wanna make very clear that i had a mechanic replace the alternator + belt in january of 2026 because i was having charging system issues so i'm currently trying to rule out every other possible cause of this issue before having to put myself in debt to get ANOTHER new alternator. so i've been trying to figure this out for a week straight now and it's driving me crazy, not joking when i say i've spent every night of this week researching until atleast 4am, but i'd say my average sleepy time this week is around 7am. i've then woken up 5 hours later and went straight out to the car to try and make my every braincell work together to fix this. (obviously haven't worked out great) a couple weeks ago i was out driving with my friend and i was in second gear accelerating quite hard. as i was approaching 7000rpm i noticed the battery light flickering a little bit. thought it was weird but didn't really think twice about it since it didn't stay on or anything. fast forward about a week and i was out driving by myself. accelerated quite hard once again (not gonna act like i don't abuse this car, because i really do drive it harder than i probably should lol) and i was probably somewhere around 6000rpm when the battery light came on and didn't go out. i stopped the car on the side of the road and called my dad since he lived closeby and decided to go to his place because he has a booster pack and tools etc incase i was gonna need it. the drive to his place was around 15km, and during the drive there i noticed the battery slowly being drained to the point where i literally JUST made it outside his place before it was gonna die completely. however when i parked the car the battery light suddenly went out? i let the car idle for a bit and eventually drove like an elderly lady home hoping that the battery light wouldn't come on again, which it didn't. day after that i was out on a drive enjoying the moment and once again the battery light came on but this time i was only at about 4000rpm when it did. decided to go straight to a family member who lives closeby and also has some tools etc if the problem would escalate. i parked the car and went inside and talked for a bit, then went out to the car to see if it would start, which it did, and no battery light. the next 3 or 4 days this cycle would continue where the battery light comes on during a drive, always somewhere between 3500rpm and 4500rpm, i shut the car off and turn it back on with no battery light. since then i've done the following things to try and fix the issue: - replaced the very worn out ground cables from the valve cover and transmission housing with thicker 21mm2 cables aswell as sanding down to expose bare metal underneath the grounding locations on the chassis - replaced the battery ground cable with a much thicker one (not sure exactly how thick) and also relocating the ground location in the chassis + sanding it down - checked the fuses in the engine bay + under the dash - checked the alternator connectors and cleaned out the green connector since there was some kind of mayonnaise looking gunk in there (i'm now realizing that it might've been some kind of grease and maybe that was intentionally put in there but oh well) - checked the spark plug wires since i noticed one of them kept getting pushed out slightly and also noticed some kind of clicking noise which i suspected was the spark possibly arcing to the metal and somehow making the alternator act up since the alt is grounded through the engine block (if i understand it correctly) but after changing all the spark plug wires back to the original ones that were in the car when i bought it, the battery light does still come on so i guess that was a dead end (and the clicking noise is still there) - checked the spark plug that was pushing the wire out and found it was a little bit loose, there was some brown-ish residue at the top of the porcelain part but i don't know if that's relevant or not - checked the battery voltage with multimeter; 13,3v with engine off, 12,5v with engine running and battery light on, 14,5v with engine running after shutting the car off and starting it again. my battery has a indicator light which is green meaning it's good so i'm just assuming it's good lol - sanded down the ground location for my subwoofer amplifier (2000w amplifier with a 900w rms subwoofer) just in case that has anything to do with it. amp is grounded through a factory bolt in the trunk where the factory "rear speaker holder/thing that covers the trunk" thing meets the rest of the chassis, i really have no clue whether that's a good or bad ground location but yeah. probably also worth mentioning that whenever i crank the volume up real high and the sub is working hard, the headlights dim down a little bit aswell as the dash lights but it's really only noticeable when it's dark out - checked the alternator belt which seems to be in ok condition however it looks kind of dry-rotted and has some tiny cracks all over, and from what i can tell it's not slipping unless it's doing so silently. my AC belt likes to slip alot and that sounds like 345 pigs screaming for their lives in symphony, which my alternator belt does not. - checked the battery terminals and noticed the positive cable wasn't really very tight so i jammed a little nail inbetween to make it sit tighter (i am the literal opposite of rich so if a ghetto fix is possible then that's what i'm gonna do) - spent countless hours googling/youtubing/checking forums/checking service manuals/brainstorming with chatgpt/overall researching trying to find anything that might be of help but so far nothing has worked and i've only found one single forum post of someone having a somewhat similar issue but it didn't help my situation so yeah. i don't know what to do next. the only thing that i haven't investigated so far (to my knowledge) is the wires in the 3p connector on the alternator, maybe there's a break in one of the cables somewhere but even if there is, idk how to find it let alone repair it. and also i don't see how that would be affected by the engine being at higher RPMs. everything seems to be pointing towards the alternator or voltage regulator or something but like i said, i really don't want that to be the cause because i probably won't be able to fix it for atleast a couple months and i need my car every day since it's my only car. some things worth mentioning: - i'm in sweden so my car is left hand drive, if that makes any difference. - the wire harness at the top right corner of the engine bay where the brake fluid reservoir is located has 3 connectors (male connectors i think) but only 2 of them are actually connected to something, while the third one is just hanging there next to them. - while i was underneath the car and inspecting the alternator, i found a cable that was disconnected (it was the same cable but had a female and male connector inbetween them that were plugged out) but i believe that was just the cabin warmer outlet thingy, like the thing where you can plug in a heater fan in the passenger side footwell. i don't use one of those anyway so i don't really care that that's disconnected but i'm just mentioning it in case someone knows something that i don't. - i'm pretty sure the wires going to the passenger door are damaged and shorted, because when i upgraded the door speakers i noticed that all the speakers in the car (i have 4 speakers) besides the subwoofer stopped working whenever the passenger side door speaker was connected to the headunit, so i'm guessing the headunits internal amplifier went into protect mode. another reason for suspecting the wires are shorted is that every time i unlock the car with the key, the passenger door mirror adjusts itself a little bit so i keep having to adjust it back up to not be just seeing the pavement lol - almost every time i do anything that requires electricity (rolling the windows down, turning the wheel so the power steering engages, turning AC or headlights on, etc) while the car is idling, the rpms drop to the point where the car starts shaking from the vibrations for a second and then goes back up i'm probably forgetting some stuff but it's now 2:30am and i've been writing this post for 2 hours so this will have to do for now. if you need any other information from me then i'll gladly provide it, i just really need this to be fixed ASAP and i really really REALLY hope it's not an expensive fix. any help would be greatly appreciated !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes that I do know, I meant the ultrasound sensor which detects movement in the cabin and blasts the horn if it does! The rover has it on the pillar so I expected this one to have one too ahah, it's really handy whenever I leave my roof open

If I remember rightly, the dome where the front interior light is is the sensor/receiver for the IR remote.

i'm having trouble finding a compatible aftermarket fuel cap for my Civic MB2 (17670-s1a-e03) on auto parts stores when i search by chasis i get compatible results as: VALEO 745378, TOPRAN 102747, AIC 50028,FEBI 02212 but they also appear as compatible with cars from OPEL/VAG group so i'm not sure it will fit did anyone manage to replace their fuel cap with a compatible aftermarket on their 6th gen EU civics?

The coupe one seems not to work (for me at least) The old Mb2 sure is moving, though! I really like the facelift-look of the plastic parts being colour-matched, i plan on doing that to my Mb3.

That sure sounds wild, truly supporting all the straightpipe civic stereotypes haha

Just found out I can insert videos so here's one from the coupe mainly for the sound(slower than usual as I had the roof off and uphill) and one from my old MB2 at an event! Highway acceleration.mov WhatsApp Video 2026-07-09 at 14.02.37.mp4

Didn't know I could add videos ahaha, here's what mine sounded like (cut off right after the cat) petal_20251015_104629.mp4

Yeah, it's the second time that happened too... last time it was the end muffler. Cant lie though, even though it was ridiculously loud i cant say i didnt enjoy it... had to record a few videos of it, for memories sake... InShot_20260707_215220204.mp4 Now its crudely welded together and still blowing underneath the middle console (the handbrake handle becomes slightly toasty on long drives), but at least the police hopefully wont stop me for it. Its just temporary until i find a way to resolve my upgraded exhaust issue... Yeah, it took me a while as well until i realised my cat situation, but i'm glad i did before planning ahead too far. I'd have loved to try and do some improvements performance-wise, but with the ECU being non-chippable due to the economy stuff being hard-coded in it, there isnt really alot to do. But at least they do the efficiency thing pretty good, without hypermiling but still driving a little conservative i managed to hit a max of 42.8 mpg.

Oh yeah these exhaust LOVE rust, my mb2's mid pipe fell to the ground while driving and it sounded like a kanjo racer, my ears still hate me. The one on the Rover coupe, which is the same basically apart from maybe different hanger location, had insane blowing so i changed that too, still blows pre cat... I didn't know they made models with an upstream cat like yours, I guess the VTEC E engines were the d series efficiency flagship so they had to do that. Good luck with it