carfix

I have seen this storage shelf for sale on the Rimmer Bros site. Rimmers are specialists in most things Triumph, Rover, Mg etc and have an amazing website. (no connections). It is still available. You can find it in the Rover 400/45 section. Look under the Rover 400/45 clearance section. Was around £21 + vat last time I looked but Rimmer's postage and packaging costs are quite expensive.

I would certainly take a look at the door switches. Any one of them could be causing your problem. They can be easily taken apart using a small screwdriver (watch out for the two small springs) and the internals can then be cleaned. It is amazing just how much dirt and corrosion you can find. Also, as they earth thru the screw that hold the switch in place make sure that is nice and clean. Be careful when you undo the wiring connector. It has a habit of springing back and disappearing into the body panel. A plastic clip/peg is useful to stop this.

Yep. The aircon system fitted to my Honda Civic MB3 was a dealer fit. I know as I paid for it to be fitted. It took less than a day for them to fit it. They advertised this dealer fit system at my local dealers for quite a few years. The Rover 400 aircon retro-fit kit came in an impressive wooden box and included everything (and I do mean everything) to fit the system. Only the gassing/oil/dye had to be done by a specialist. It also had an amazing step-by-step installation manual in several languages I managed to snap up the kit on ebay for about a quarter of the price I paid Honda and took me a day to fit

Way back in 1999 I retro-fitted a genuine Rover air-con kit to my 1997 Rover 400 (same year and shape/heating system to my 1997 Honda Civic 5 door MB2). As I rememember I did not need to take out the dash to fit the small ai-rcon radiator behind the glovebox. It was simply a matter of removing a section of the plastic heating ducting and sliding the radiator in followed by coupling up to the pipe work in the engine compartment. I guess taking it out would be similar and the access is all behind the glove box? The resulting "gap" in the heating ducting is filled with a section of ducting from a breakers (Honda Civic or Rover 400).

I would also check under the large plastic plastic cover that sits at the bottom of the windscreen (scuttle cover) for blocked drains. It is a bit of a pain to bit remove (plenty of fiddly clips and you have to remove the wiindscreen wipers) but I was amazed at the amount of rubbish hiding there. I found that leaves etc had clogged up the drainage holes into the wings causing water to back up and then overflow into the heater fan intake. Result. Water dripping from heater fan area and wet passenger side carpets. This is now part of my annual servicing regime.

Also worth removing the two black roof finisher strips. Clean out the channel and have a good look at the join with a torch. I have had both my Civic and a Rover 400 go here and both on the passenger side a few centimetres away from the windscreen. The Civic was a tiny hair line crack whilst the Rover had started to rot out.

Hope this helps.

I have removed the needles on both my Civic and Rover 400 (similar instrument cluster) without any problems so that I could paint them. In both cases I just pulled the needle off with my fingers. It takes a bit of effort but they eventually come off. I surrounded the speedo dial with masking tape first just in case anything slipped. I think the fork idea would also work. Beware of the little pointer at the zero speed point. I managed to snap one by being a bit heavy handed but also managed to repace it with a sewing pin and a bit of black paint. I like the idea of refitting the instruments without the needle and then powering up for a short while to reset the speedo at zero. Getting the needle to read correctly was the only problem. My solution was to partially refit the needle, remove the clear plastic lens cover, temporary refit the instrument cluster then take the car for a drive. I used my sat nav which has speed readings on to compare the accuracy of the needle. I then repositioned the needle as necessary then tested it again. Sounds a bit fiddly but it was easy in the end.

Re. cutting holes in doors. The scrapyard owner did not mind. He evens lets angle grinders in and they are usually a big no no. I know that the ones's near me would not allow it. Guess he thought he had plenty of rover 45's in stock and most of the doors already had damage on them so would not be an issue.

It really works!!. Prior to that I was using a cordless drill with a hole saw on the donor car to cut a small access hole in the door so that I could access the white clips.

A guy in the scrapyard showed me how to get them off without damaging the clips (especially that little white on at the end). Takes 5-10 minutes each strip. He took the external, vertical, black plastic finisher at the open edge of the front door which is held on by a couple of screws behind the inner rubber door seal and a few clips. With the finisher out of the way you can now see the little white clip which stops the weather strip from sliding out. Get a couple of small screw drivers to compress the sides of the white clip and carefully lift weather seal up so clip is clear of its location hole. Once out of the way you can then slide the weather strip out leaving the blue clips attached to the door which can then be easily taken off. The rears are similar but the white clip is at the hinge end of the door. Again remove the external black plastic vertical door finisher first. Job done.

Just replaced all of mine last week. On my originals the rubber finish had started to come away from the metal base. The replacements came off a scrapped Rover 45. Hardest part of the job was getting them off the donor car.

Do you mean the rubber strips that fit onto the door and press against the bottom of the window?