The Restored Rover 25: A Journey to Redemption

It's been a long and winding road for my beloved Rover 25, but thanks to the support of Liqui Moly, we've finally reached the end of our journey. As I sit here, reflecting on the past few months, it's hard to believe that this car was once abandoned in the woods. But, as my mom always says, "what's for you won't go by you," and indeed, fate had other plans.

The restoration process has been a labor of love, with Liqui Moly partnering with us on countless content pieces throughout the series. Their support has been invaluable, providing all the necessary liquids to keep our trusty steed running smoothly. From coolants to additives, Liqui Moly's products have been instrumental in keeping the engine purring like new.

As we began to strip down the car, I couldn't help but marvel at its miniature size compared to the mighty V6 that powered the Mondel 360. The Rover's 1.4 K Series engine, however, has a unique story behind it. Rover limited its power output due to a clever design feature that restricts throttle flap opening and inlet valve movement. This ingenious solution prevented the engine from producing excessive power, but it also left us with a mystery to solve.

Our team consulted with Rover Joe, who explained how the car's engineers mapped the engine to accommodate this limitation. It turns out that there's no way to simply replace the spring or add more air without compromising the fuel map. This realization was both frustrating and fascinating, leaving me to wonder about the ingenuity of those who designed this remarkable engine.

As we made our way through the workshop, I couldn't help but notice the symmetry of the corrosion on the car's bodywork. The rust had spread evenly across the vehicle, revealing a weakness in its design that allowed water to seep in and wreak havoc. This vulnerability is not unique to my Rover 25; every car has its own spot of weakness, waiting to be discovered.

The final stages of our restoration have been a true labor of love. We've stripped down the car to its bare bones, only to reveal memories long forgotten. The half-leather seats, which required a special Torx head to install, now hold a new significance. I recall feeling like a professional mechanic after completing them and proudly slapped on an MGX Power Badge – the equivalent of an AMG or RS badge at the time.

This remarkable coincidence has brought us full circle, as we're meant to find this car and restore it to its former glory. The plan is to fully refurbish the Rover 25 back to its original state as a perfectly stock model and then put it up for auction on eBay. The proceeds will be donated to a military charity, courtesy of Chris, the car's owner, who has generously returned the vehicle to me.

I'd like to invite our audience to share their own stories – what was your first car? What memories do you hold dear from driving yours? Your comments are always welcome, and I'll make sure to read them. In closing, I want to thank Liqui Moly for their unwavering support throughout this journey. It's been an absolute pleasure working with them, and I'm excited to see the finished product come together.

As we near the end of our restoration journey, it's hard not to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. The Rover 25 has undergone a transformation from abandoned car to fully restored classic, all thanks to the efforts of my team and Liqui Moly. We'll be sharing more updates on this project as it comes to life, so stay tuned for the next chapter in our journey.

In the world of cars, there's often a story behind every part and every repair. Sometimes, it's not just about fixing something but also about preserving memories and experiences. The Rover 25 has been my companion through thick and thin, and I'm honored to have had the chance to restore it to its former glory.

As we take on new challenges and projects, our hearts remain with this trusty steed. It's a reminder that every car, no matter how old or obscure, holds a unique story waiting to be uncovered.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwe're in edinburgh the reason i'm back up in my home city is because i've been given an unmissable opportunity so many petrol heads regret selling their first car and i imagine many of you watching this right now wish you could have your first car back in your life well through a weird twist of fate i'm going to do exactly that it's weird how life works i was driving home from london to edinburgh and i got to the outskirts of edinburgh and came across a military barracks and i looked into the car park and i saw a car and i thought oh i used to have one of them in that color as well and then i saw the body kit and i thought i fitted a very similar body kit to my car that's cool and then i clocked the rage and it was my car it was my first car sadly sitting abandoned in this car park it clearly been there for numerous years rotting away paint fading flat tires it was not in a great shape but i filmed the video for my own channel mike drive tribe and my audience went crazy for it saying that you have to rescue that car so we're back up in edinburgh to rescue the car this is such a weird feeling i don't know whether to feel happy or sad about this to be honest because this was my first car my first piece of motoring getting that freedom to go out when i was 17 but to see it in this state now i don't know whether you should kind of leave this stuff behind or whether you should crack on embrace this amazing coincidence and get it back on the road but i mean looking at the front the tires are shredded you can literally see the threads they're almost slick they're both completely flat the paint's completely faded i haven't actually introduced the car this is a rover 25 it's a 2001 car and basically at the time when i was a teenager there was also the mgzdar which was basically just a fancy rover 25 but i wanted all those mg bits on it so i started putting them on the car this is the mgzr rear wing i've got the mgzr tailgate the bumper i've got the mg wheels on it there used to be a zr badge on the back but someone's either stolen it or it's just been flicked off but the sun has actually damaged zedar into the paint so it's quite cool to still see that sg51hu my first car when i'm 17. the sun has laid waste to pretty much all of the body it used to be a stunning red solar red but now it's pretty badly damaged this car will need a fuel respray but it's going to get a mad ford it's going to be a mint rover 25 once we're finished i wonder what this car smells like inside from what i know it's been here for at least three to five years and has not moved so i imagine it's a bit moldy but still nostalgic nostalgic moldiness so how did my little rover end up abandoned here then well it seems to have been sold twice since i let it go and ended up in the hands of a soldier who was periodically touring in afghanistan hence the car's current resting place outside of this barracks thankfully he was okay with being on camera to explain everything so welcome to the channel lance corporal chris ferguson so chris this was my first car am i right and saying it was yours as well yeah this is my first car um so i used this it's just a workhorse basically to travel backwards and forwards to to work um i used it maybe six months at the most um and then as i was coming into camp for the last time i used it and the clutch went in the car so i had to free roll it and it's been sat here ever since been pretty much abandoned for the last couple of years okay so you work at the barracks a year yeah yeah um so i've been in the military for coming up seven years now at lance corporal and i've just come back recently from serving on tour in afghanistan um so i've come back to to go on course um and to deal with this okay well thank you so much for giving me back the car i can't tell you how much that means to me and trust me the guys at mad ford are going to make this car better than new so thank you so much for making it yeah well good luck there's the there's the keys thank you very much yep okay it's been a while so the central locking definitely isn't going to work so now i remember the smell of this car had a very distinct smell to it it was a nice one something to do with the seats okay that smell is still there but it's mixed with mold the interior i don't know if you can see all this it's definitely got organisms growing throughout it but that's what you'd expect after three to five years basically sitting on top of a lawn it doesn't look too bad in here though a quick wash here and there will get it basically back to how it was when i was driving it mg seats to call the rover seats out so half leather mg seats okay the next check is under the bonnet i'm slightly scared for this one but let's take a look i don't really know what to expect here it's funny how your muscle memory takes you to exactly where you knew it was okay first impressions just a lot of cobwebs but actually looks okay engine the intake the battery actually looks in okay condition considering how long it's been lying here something has nested on the gearbox i don't know whether that's a bird or a mouse or something there's spiders everywhere but kind of similar to the interior it just needs a bit of a cleanup and then it's not actually too bad but that's just my amateur opinion so you'll never guess who i've brought to scotland with me mick hello mike welcome to scotland thank you very much i'm sorry it's not a ford but what do you think of my rover it looks good mike i am absolutely shocked to be fair apart from the cobwebs it looks all complete nothing messed around with yeah first in impressions look really really good uh with the car wrestled kicking and screaming away from its spot it was time to drive back down the country to get it to the workshop we've got the rover down to mad ford let's have a look underneath so we know it has sat for at least three years possibly five absorbing scottish rain let's have a look at it so that's my 1.4 liter k series engine up there little five speed box one of the final mods i did to the car was put a big bore exhaust on it and the previous owner has definitely resorted back to the original rover 25 exhaust which is a shame because it made a pretty good noise looking at the front wheels the front tires down to the threads basically slicks the previous owner was definitely ragging this car which is a bit of a shame but it is a bit of a boy racer car i guess to be honest it doesn't actually look too bad the mondeo i think actually looked worse maybe that's down to the salt on the roads actually being driven about but i think all of the rust it looks pretty crusty but i think it's all just surface so it should be able to be blasted off and then it might come out looking all good i'm not the expert though so let's get mick in and see what he thinks hi mike mike i need your eyes here's the light tell me what you see okay well instantly i see a lot of rust obviously from standing where we know it's been still in the car park for years it looks all intact it looks all there i can't see any massive amounts of uh holes or bits of things missing or anything like that it does look actually quite complete yes very crusty but i think nothing that a good sandblast and powder coating won't uh weren't sort to be honest so if you were expecting holes they'd be what at the front here i would expect sills inner closing panels at the back yeah outer sills we've got a little bit of corrosion on the sills but nothing nothing to speak of in actual fact what you said about your monday i was correct that was far worse okay so yeah it looks a bit crusty but once you've got rid of all that there should be some solid metal underneath what we intend to do is as we did with the mondeo take it down to a shell and we'll actually have this body shell sandblasted so we can work from basically from nothing and cure all the problems you know straight away perfect i think what we should do now before we go any further let's do will it start after three years in a scottish car park yes sir you're confident absolutely okay let's give it a go okay okay mike so with the vehicle being stood for so long there are a number of checks we need to do before we attempt to start the car so one of them oil yes it's got oil so we give it a little wipe okay drop it back in looks good i always like to do a little sniff checking for fuel or anything like that there's no moisture in there so that's good what does the color of that tell you that hasn't been changed for a while okay then we check for as the k-series renowned for head gaskets no cappuccino in there no build-up very clean which is a good sign coolant we can see there's some coolant in the header tank so that's good just check the air box mark make sure there's nothing living inside the air box filter looks good yeah yeah not bad at all considering it's uh it's been stood now we know the battery is toast so our next thing to do is put a fresh battery on okay and we'll give her a crank great stuff okay mike so when you turn the ignition on you should see a battery symbol and an oil symbol if it starts you need to make sure that both of those go out okay okay and shout if they don't turn it off if they don't yep so in your own time mate okay god go on okay give it a minute it sounds like little a bill let me ever go with a throttle what a little beauty of a car we've smoked out the workshop but that took what three goes mick and then fired straight up what a little car fantastic view of that k series again i cannot wait to have this car back on the road what a thing what a feeling hearing my first car start up again considering the state we found it in it sounds like it's only running on three out of the four cylinders but we'll get there this restoration would not have been possible without the sponsors of the series liqui molly they've partnered with us on loads of really cool content on the channel so far and when they heard the story of my rover they wanted to help out so they'll be providing all the liquids going back into the car once we're over the hill and on the other side of the restoration making sure that all the best lubricants coolants and additives on the market get into that car now if you would like to know what products liquidmoly provides for your car click the link in the description below and punch your registration into the search function you may not be doing a full restoration like us but it's always good to refresh the liquids in your car as and when it makes sense so click the link and get browsing so pretty much everything has been disconnected three bolts to go mick may i do the honors absolutely it's amazing how miniature this thing is compared to the mondeo's v6 yes it looks tiny and an animal's definitely had offspring on my gear box doesn't look too bad though no it looks really really good considering so this will be totally refreshed yes totally stripped we'll go through everything um and do what we do vapor blast powder coat replace repair as necessary let's make it a really fresh engine for the new owner very nice so i was talking to rover joe a guy on my twitch stream earlier and he explained to me how rover limited the power of the 1.4 k series why did they need to limit the power i don't really know but the way they did it was through actually limiting the amount of throttle flap opening in the and the inlet so instead of that throttle disk actually opening completely open it was barely open is there anything we can do about that to get it fully open not really because that will mess with the rest of the mapping it hasn't been mapped for full throttle imagine the engineers designed this engine going through all that hardship and then that's how they essentially map it yeah yeah crazy really so we can't just sort of cut the spring there and put a new one in and now because if we if we add more air there won't be a fuel map to cut to compensate for that extra air that could be another 50 horsepower easy just like we did with the mondeo mix put together this wheelie contraption so we can move the car to the other side of the workshop and take off the main body panels and the interior what's really interesting is how symmetrical the corrosion is we've got this little section here and then this bit here and if you come around the other side of the car it's actually much worse but it's in the exact same spot there and there so it shows that there's just a weakness into where water can get into on this car i imagine every single car has got a spot of weakness that if you give it the time and the amount of water it needs to corrode it will do it but that'll all be fixed by mick in a few months as ever at the end of an episode one at mad ford engineering a car is completely stripped down to its bare bones it's amazing some of the memories that have come back while we've been dismantling this car those half leather seats i remember having to buy a special torx head just to get those seats in and i felt like a professional mechanic once i was done with it that mgx power badge x power was the amg or rs of mg at the time so i slapped that badge on the card just to make me feel good about myself it's been a pretty unbelievable coincidence that i came across the car it just so happened to be abandoned where it was and i just so happened to drive past and see it but my mom always says to me what's for you won't go by you and this is basically the perfect example of that i was meant to find the car and now we are meant to restore it so the plan is to fully restore the car back to as it was when i was a 17 year old a perfectly stock rover 25 and then we're gonna put it up for auction on ebay and the proceeds will then go to a military charity chris the guy who owned the car and has given it back to me to make all this happen is a soldier himself and then the guys at glen course barracks were amazing letting us film there showing us rescuing the car so i think it's fitting that the money goes to the military i would like to hear it from you guys though what was your first car i bet you guys have some awesome stories so get them in the comments and i will definitely read them i've been mike and don't forget to subscribe to drivetribe youwe're in edinburgh the reason i'm back up in my home city is because i've been given an unmissable opportunity so many petrol heads regret selling their first car and i imagine many of you watching this right now wish you could have your first car back in your life well through a weird twist of fate i'm going to do exactly that it's weird how life works i was driving home from london to edinburgh and i got to the outskirts of edinburgh and came across a military barracks and i looked into the car park and i saw a car and i thought oh i used to have one of them in that color as well and then i saw the body kit and i thought i fitted a very similar body kit to my car that's cool and then i clocked the rage and it was my car it was my first car sadly sitting abandoned in this car park it clearly been there for numerous years rotting away paint fading flat tires it was not in a great shape but i filmed the video for my own channel mike drive tribe and my audience went crazy for it saying that you have to rescue that car so we're back up in edinburgh to rescue the car this is such a weird feeling i don't know whether to feel happy or sad about this to be honest because this was my first car my first piece of motoring getting that freedom to go out when i was 17 but to see it in this state now i don't know whether you should kind of leave this stuff behind or whether you should crack on embrace this amazing coincidence and get it back on the road but i mean looking at the front the tires are shredded you can literally see the threads they're almost slick they're both completely flat the paint's completely faded i haven't actually introduced the car this is a rover 25 it's a 2001 car and basically at the time when i was a teenager there was also the mgzdar which was basically just a fancy rover 25 but i wanted all those mg bits on it so i started putting them on the car this is the mgzr rear wing i've got the mgzr tailgate the bumper i've got the mg wheels on it there used to be a zr badge on the back but someone's either stolen it or it's just been flicked off but the sun has actually damaged zedar into the paint so it's quite cool to still see that sg51hu my first car when i'm 17. the sun has laid waste to pretty much all of the body it used to be a stunning red solar red but now it's pretty badly damaged this car will need a fuel respray but it's going to get a mad ford it's going to be a mint rover 25 once we're finished i wonder what this car smells like inside from what i know it's been here for at least three to five years and has not moved so i imagine it's a bit moldy but still nostalgic nostalgic moldiness so how did my little rover end up abandoned here then well it seems to have been sold twice since i let it go and ended up in the hands of a soldier who was periodically touring in afghanistan hence the car's current resting place outside of this barracks thankfully he was okay with being on camera to explain everything so welcome to the channel lance corporal chris ferguson so chris this was my first car am i right and saying it was yours as well yeah this is my first car um so i used this it's just a workhorse basically to travel backwards and forwards to to work um i used it maybe six months at the most um and then as i was coming into camp for the last time i used it and the clutch went in the car so i had to free roll it and it's been sat here ever since been pretty much abandoned for the last couple of years okay so you work at the barracks a year yeah yeah um so i've been in the military for coming up seven years now at lance corporal and i've just come back recently from serving on tour in afghanistan um so i've come back to to go on course um and to deal with this okay well thank you so much for giving me back the car i can't tell you how much that means to me and trust me the guys at mad ford are going to make this car better than new so thank you so much for making it yeah well good luck there's the there's the keys thank you very much yep okay it's been a while so the central locking definitely isn't going to work so now i remember the smell of this car had a very distinct smell to it it was a nice one something to do with the seats okay that smell is still there but it's mixed with mold the interior i don't know if you can see all this it's definitely got organisms growing throughout it but that's what you'd expect after three to five years basically sitting on top of a lawn it doesn't look too bad in here though a quick wash here and there will get it basically back to how it was when i was driving it mg seats to call the rover seats out so half leather mg seats okay the next check is under the bonnet i'm slightly scared for this one but let's take a look i don't really know what to expect here it's funny how your muscle memory takes you to exactly where you knew it was okay first impressions just a lot of cobwebs but actually looks okay engine the intake the battery actually looks in okay condition considering how long it's been lying here something has nested on the gearbox i don't know whether that's a bird or a mouse or something there's spiders everywhere but kind of similar to the interior it just needs a bit of a cleanup and then it's not actually too bad but that's just my amateur opinion so you'll never guess who i've brought to scotland with me mick hello mike welcome to scotland thank you very much i'm sorry it's not a ford but what do you think of my rover it looks good mike i am absolutely shocked to be fair apart from the cobwebs it looks all complete nothing messed around with yeah first in impressions look really really good uh with the car wrestled kicking and screaming away from its spot it was time to drive back down the country to get it to the workshop we've got the rover down to mad ford let's have a look underneath so we know it has sat for at least three years possibly five absorbing scottish rain let's have a look at it so that's my 1.4 liter k series engine up there little five speed box one of the final mods i did to the car was put a big bore exhaust on it and the previous owner has definitely resorted back to the original rover 25 exhaust which is a shame because it made a pretty good noise looking at the front wheels the front tires down to the threads basically slicks the previous owner was definitely ragging this car which is a bit of a shame but it is a bit of a boy racer car i guess to be honest it doesn't actually look too bad the mondeo i think actually looked worse maybe that's down to the salt on the roads actually being driven about but i think all of the rust it looks pretty crusty but i think it's all just surface so it should be able to be blasted off and then it might come out looking all good i'm not the expert though so let's get mick in and see what he thinks hi mike mike i need your eyes here's the light tell me what you see okay well instantly i see a lot of rust obviously from standing where we know it's been still in the car park for years it looks all intact it looks all there i can't see any massive amounts of uh holes or bits of things missing or anything like that it does look actually quite complete yes very crusty but i think nothing that a good sandblast and powder coating won't uh weren't sort to be honest so if you were expecting holes they'd be what at the front here i would expect sills inner closing panels at the back yeah outer sills we've got a little bit of corrosion on the sills but nothing nothing to speak of in actual fact what you said about your monday i was correct that was far worse okay so yeah it looks a bit crusty but once you've got rid of all that there should be some solid metal underneath what we intend to do is as we did with the mondeo take it down to a shell and we'll actually have this body shell sandblasted so we can work from basically from nothing and cure all the problems you know straight away perfect i think what we should do now before we go any further let's do will it start after three years in a scottish car park yes sir you're confident absolutely okay let's give it a go okay okay mike so with the vehicle being stood for so long there are a number of checks we need to do before we attempt to start the car so one of them oil yes it's got oil so we give it a little wipe okay drop it back in looks good i always like to do a little sniff checking for fuel or anything like that there's no moisture in there so that's good what does the color of that tell you that hasn't been changed for a while okay then we check for as the k-series renowned for head gaskets no cappuccino in there no build-up very clean which is a good sign coolant we can see there's some coolant in the header tank so that's good just check the air box mark make sure there's nothing living inside the air box filter looks good yeah yeah not bad at all considering it's uh it's been stood now we know the battery is toast so our next thing to do is put a fresh battery on okay and we'll give her a crank great stuff okay mike so when you turn the ignition on you should see a battery symbol and an oil symbol if it starts you need to make sure that both of those go out okay okay and shout if they don't turn it off if they don't yep so in your own time mate okay god go on okay give it a minute it sounds like little a bill let me ever go with a throttle what a little beauty of a car we've smoked out the workshop but that took what three goes mick and then fired straight up what a little car fantastic view of that k series again i cannot wait to have this car back on the road what a thing what a feeling hearing my first car start up again considering the state we found it in it sounds like it's only running on three out of the four cylinders but we'll get there this restoration would not have been possible without the sponsors of the series liqui molly they've partnered with us on loads of really cool content on the channel so far and when they heard the story of my rover they wanted to help out so they'll be providing all the liquids going back into the car once we're over the hill and on the other side of the restoration making sure that all the best lubricants coolants and additives on the market get into that car now if you would like to know what products liquidmoly provides for your car click the link in the description below and punch your registration into the search function you may not be doing a full restoration like us but it's always good to refresh the liquids in your car as and when it makes sense so click the link and get browsing so pretty much everything has been disconnected three bolts to go mick may i do the honors absolutely it's amazing how miniature this thing is compared to the mondeo's v6 yes it looks tiny and an animal's definitely had offspring on my gear box doesn't look too bad though no it looks really really good considering so this will be totally refreshed yes totally stripped we'll go through everything um and do what we do vapor blast powder coat replace repair as necessary let's make it a really fresh engine for the new owner very nice so i was talking to rover joe a guy on my twitch stream earlier and he explained to me how rover limited the power of the 1.4 k series why did they need to limit the power i don't really know but the way they did it was through actually limiting the amount of throttle flap opening in the and the inlet so instead of that throttle disk actually opening completely open it was barely open is there anything we can do about that to get it fully open not really because that will mess with the rest of the mapping it hasn't been mapped for full throttle imagine the engineers designed this engine going through all that hardship and then that's how they essentially map it yeah yeah crazy really so we can't just sort of cut the spring there and put a new one in and now because if we if we add more air there won't be a fuel map to cut to compensate for that extra air that could be another 50 horsepower easy just like we did with the mondeo mix put together this wheelie contraption so we can move the car to the other side of the workshop and take off the main body panels and the interior what's really interesting is how symmetrical the corrosion is we've got this little section here and then this bit here and if you come around the other side of the car it's actually much worse but it's in the exact same spot there and there so it shows that there's just a weakness into where water can get into on this car i imagine every single car has got a spot of weakness that if you give it the time and the amount of water it needs to corrode it will do it but that'll all be fixed by mick in a few months as ever at the end of an episode one at mad ford engineering a car is completely stripped down to its bare bones it's amazing some of the memories that have come back while we've been dismantling this car those half leather seats i remember having to buy a special torx head just to get those seats in and i felt like a professional mechanic once i was done with it that mgx power badge x power was the amg or rs of mg at the time so i slapped that badge on the card just to make me feel good about myself it's been a pretty unbelievable coincidence that i came across the car it just so happened to be abandoned where it was and i just so happened to drive past and see it but my mom always says to me what's for you won't go by you and this is basically the perfect example of that i was meant to find the car and now we are meant to restore it so the plan is to fully restore the car back to as it was when i was a 17 year old a perfectly stock rover 25 and then we're gonna put it up for auction on ebay and the proceeds will then go to a military charity chris the guy who owned the car and has given it back to me to make all this happen is a soldier himself and then the guys at glen course barracks were amazing letting us film there showing us rescuing the car so i think it's fitting that the money goes to the military i would like to hear it from you guys though what was your first car i bet you guys have some awesome stories so get them in the comments and i will definitely read them i've been mike and don't forget to subscribe to drivetribe youwe're in edinburgh the reason i'm back up in my home city is because i've been given an unmissable opportunity so many petrol heads regret selling their first car and i imagine many of you watching this right now wish you could have your first car back in your life well through a weird twist of fate i'm going to do exactly that it's weird how life works i was driving home from london to edinburgh and i got to the outskirts of edinburgh and came across a military barracks and i looked into the car park and i saw a car and i thought oh i used to have one of them in that color as well and then i saw the body kit and i thought i fitted a very similar body kit to my car that's cool and then i clocked the rage and it was my car it was my first car sadly sitting abandoned in this car park it clearly been there for numerous years rotting away paint fading flat tires it was not in a great shape but i filmed the video for my own channel mike drive tribe and my audience went crazy for it saying that you have to rescue that car so we're back up in edinburgh to rescue the car this is such a weird feeling i don't know whether to feel happy or sad about this to be honest because this was my first car my first piece of motoring getting that freedom to go out when i was 17 but to see it in this state now i don't know whether you should kind of leave this stuff behind or whether you should crack on embrace this amazing coincidence and get it back on the road but i mean looking at the front the tires are shredded you can literally see the threads they're almost slick they're both completely flat the paint's completely faded i haven't actually introduced the car this is a rover 25 it's a 2001 car and basically at the time when i was a teenager there was also the mgzdar which was basically just a fancy rover 25 but i wanted all those mg bits on it so i started putting them on the car this is the mgzr rear wing i've got the mgzr tailgate the bumper i've got the mg wheels on it there used to be a zr badge on the back but someone's either stolen it or it's just been flicked off but the sun has actually damaged zedar into the paint so it's quite cool to still see that sg51hu my first car when i'm 17. the sun has laid waste to pretty much all of the body it used to be a stunning red solar red but now it's pretty badly damaged this car will need a fuel respray but it's going to get a mad ford it's going to be a mint rover 25 once we're finished i wonder what this car smells like inside from what i know it's been here for at least three to five years and has not moved so i imagine it's a bit moldy but still nostalgic nostalgic moldiness so how did my little rover end up abandoned here then well it seems to have been sold twice since i let it go and ended up in the hands of a soldier who was periodically touring in afghanistan hence the car's current resting place outside of this barracks thankfully he was okay with being on camera to explain everything so welcome to the channel lance corporal chris ferguson so chris this was my first car am i right and saying it was yours as well yeah this is my first car um so i used this it's just a workhorse basically to travel backwards and forwards to to work um i used it maybe six months at the most um and then as i was coming into camp for the last time i used it and the clutch went in the car so i had to free roll it and it's been sat here ever since been pretty much abandoned for the last couple of years okay so you work at the barracks a year yeah yeah um so i've been in the military for coming up seven years now at lance corporal and i've just come back recently from serving on tour in afghanistan um so i've come back to to go on course um and to deal with this okay well thank you so much for giving me back the car i can't tell you how much that means to me and trust me the guys at mad ford are going to make this car better than new so thank you so much for making it yeah well good luck there's the there's the keys thank you very much yep okay it's been a while so the central locking definitely isn't going to work so now i remember the smell of this car had a very distinct smell to it it was a nice one something to do with the seats okay that smell is still there but it's mixed with mold the interior i don't know if you can see all this it's definitely got organisms growing throughout it but that's what you'd expect after three to five years basically sitting on top of a lawn it doesn't look too bad in here though a quick wash here and there will get it basically back to how it was when i was driving it mg seats to call the rover seats out so half leather mg seats okay the next check is under the bonnet i'm slightly scared for this one but let's take a look i don't really know what to expect here it's funny how your muscle memory takes you to exactly where you knew it was okay first impressions just a lot of cobwebs but actually looks okay engine the intake the battery actually looks in okay condition considering how long it's been lying here something has nested on the gearbox i don't know whether that's a bird or a mouse or something there's spiders everywhere but kind of similar to the interior it just needs a bit of a cleanup and then it's not actually too bad but that's just my amateur opinion so you'll never guess who i've brought to scotland with me mick hello mike welcome to scotland thank you very much i'm sorry it's not a ford but what do you think of my rover it looks good mike i am absolutely shocked to be fair apart from the cobwebs it looks all complete nothing messed around with yeah first in impressions look really really good uh with the car wrestled kicking and screaming away from its spot it was time to drive back down the country to get it to the workshop we've got the rover down to mad ford let's have a look underneath so we know it has sat for at least three years possibly five absorbing scottish rain let's have a look at it so that's my 1.4 liter k series engine up there little five speed box one of the final mods i did to the car was put a big bore exhaust on it and the previous owner has definitely resorted back to the original rover 25 exhaust which is a shame because it made a pretty good noise looking at the front wheels the front tires down to the threads basically slicks the previous owner was definitely ragging this car which is a bit of a shame but it is a bit of a boy racer car i guess to be honest it doesn't actually look too bad the mondeo i think actually looked worse maybe that's down to the salt on the roads actually being driven about but i think all of the rust it looks pretty crusty but i think it's all just surface so it should be able to be blasted off and then it might come out looking all good i'm not the expert though so let's get mick in and see what he thinks hi mike mike i need your eyes here's the light tell me what you see okay well instantly i see a lot of rust obviously from standing where we know it's been still in the car park for years it looks all intact it looks all there i can't see any massive amounts of uh holes or bits of things missing or anything like that it does look actually quite complete yes very crusty but i think nothing that a good sandblast and powder coating won't uh weren't sort to be honest so if you were expecting holes they'd be what at the front here i would expect sills inner closing panels at the back yeah outer sills we've got a little bit of corrosion on the sills but nothing nothing to speak of in actual fact what you said about your monday i was correct that was far worse okay so yeah it looks a bit crusty but once you've got rid of all that there should be some solid metal underneath what we intend to do is as we did with the mondeo take it down to a shell and we'll actually have this body shell sandblasted so we can work from basically from nothing and cure all the problems you know straight away perfect i think what we should do now before we go any further let's do will it start after three years in a scottish car park yes sir you're confident absolutely okay let's give it a go okay okay mike so with the vehicle being stood for so long there are a number of checks we need to do before we attempt to start the car so one of them oil yes it's got oil so we give it a little wipe okay drop it back in looks good i always like to do a little sniff checking for fuel or anything like that there's no moisture in there so that's good what does the color of that tell you that hasn't been changed for a while okay then we check for as the k-series renowned for head gaskets no cappuccino in there no build-up very clean which is a good sign coolant we can see there's some coolant in the header tank so that's good just check the air box mark make sure there's nothing living inside the air box filter looks good yeah yeah not bad at all considering it's uh it's been stood now we know the battery is toast so our next thing to do is put a fresh battery on okay and we'll give her a crank great stuff okay mike so when you turn the ignition on you should see a battery symbol and an oil symbol if it starts you need to make sure that both of those go out okay okay and shout if they don't turn it off if they don't yep so in your own time mate okay god go on okay give it a minute it sounds like little a bill let me ever go with a throttle what a little beauty of a car we've smoked out the workshop but that took what three goes mick and then fired straight up what a little car fantastic view of that k series again i cannot wait to have this car back on the road what a thing what a feeling hearing my first car start up again considering the state we found it in it sounds like it's only running on three out of the four cylinders but we'll get there this restoration would not have been possible without the sponsors of the series liqui molly they've partnered with us on loads of really cool content on the channel so far and when they heard the story of my rover they wanted to help out so they'll be providing all the liquids going back into the car once we're over the hill and on the other side of the restoration making sure that all the best lubricants coolants and additives on the market get into that car now if you would like to know what products liquidmoly provides for your car click the link in the description below and punch your registration into the search function you may not be doing a full restoration like us but it's always good to refresh the liquids in your car as and when it makes sense so click the link and get browsing so pretty much everything has been disconnected three bolts to go mick may i do the honors absolutely it's amazing how miniature this thing is compared to the mondeo's v6 yes it looks tiny and an animal's definitely had offspring on my gear box doesn't look too bad though no it looks really really good considering so this will be totally refreshed yes totally stripped we'll go through everything um and do what we do vapor blast powder coat replace repair as necessary let's make it a really fresh engine for the new owner very nice so i was talking to rover joe a guy on my twitch stream earlier and he explained to me how rover limited the power of the 1.4 k series why did they need to limit the power i don't really know but the way they did it was through actually limiting the amount of throttle flap opening in the and the inlet so instead of that throttle disk actually opening completely open it was barely open is there anything we can do about that to get it fully open not really because that will mess with the rest of the mapping it hasn't been mapped for full throttle imagine the engineers designed this engine going through all that hardship and then that's how they essentially map it yeah yeah crazy really so we can't just sort of cut the spring there and put a new one in and now because if we if we add more air there won't be a fuel map to cut to compensate for that extra air that could be another 50 horsepower easy just like we did with the mondeo mix put together this wheelie contraption so we can move the car to the other side of the workshop and take off the main body panels and the interior what's really interesting is how symmetrical the corrosion is we've got this little section here and then this bit here and if you come around the other side of the car it's actually much worse but it's in the exact same spot there and there so it shows that there's just a weakness into where water can get into on this car i imagine every single car has got a spot of weakness that if you give it the time and the amount of water it needs to corrode it will do it but that'll all be fixed by mick in a few months as ever at the end of an episode one at mad ford engineering a car is completely stripped down to its bare bones it's amazing some of the memories that have come back while we've been dismantling this car those half leather seats i remember having to buy a special torx head just to get those seats in and i felt like a professional mechanic once i was done with it that mgx power badge x power was the amg or rs of mg at the time so i slapped that badge on the card just to make me feel good about myself it's been a pretty unbelievable coincidence that i came across the car it just so happened to be abandoned where it was and i just so happened to drive past and see it but my mom always says to me what's for you won't go by you and this is basically the perfect example of that i was meant to find the car and now we are meant to restore it so the plan is to fully restore the car back to as it was when i was a 17 year old a perfectly stock rover 25 and then we're gonna put it up for auction on ebay and the proceeds will then go to a military charity chris the guy who owned the car and has given it back to me to make all this happen is a soldier himself and then the guys at glen course barracks were amazing letting us film there showing us rescuing the car so i think it's fitting that the money goes to the military i would like to hear it from you guys though what was your first car i bet you guys have some awesome stories so get them in the comments and i will definitely read them i've been mike and 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