Rover jet engined car

Ebay

There is one of these engines for sale on ebay, Item number…250681116333.

Lincoln. 7

Hi Whalebone, thanks for the thread, you wouldn’t want to be starting that little brute up several times a day, I now know, looking at the video, what Hitler meant by his “Scorched earth” policy, however, where can I get a boat like that from?. I am amazed at the speed it was travelling at,just how little wake it left.
Thanks again for the info.

Lincoln. 7

Pump action here ! :dev2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4_wuc2F3Ak&feature=related

I keep telling you Rich, we are going to get slapped!!:D

Lincoln.7
:diablo:

Hey… I said navy friends! Not me!

I get seasick on a rowing boat.. if man were meant to play about in deep water he would have gills!

Hi Rich w. Being in the Navy, did you ever find that gold rivet you were looking for?. 😀

Lincoln.7

:diablo:

Yes, that is a hand crank! Some of my Navy pals still hate the memory of trying to get them going using that!

Regards,

Rich

I may be way off track here and am only chipping in as a friend had a couple of the old Rover turbines that were designed to use as firefighting kit ? We took them up to Bruntingthorpe one year on a rig and ran them – great fun.:eek:

I understood that Rover had the patents/design work from Power Jets (Rolls Royce took over the aero engine side, leaving Rover with the smaller elements?) and Rover tried for some time to look for commercial applications such as the car, firefighting kit etc ?

Happy to be corrected on this.

A very long time ago I was assigned to 442 Squadron (Canadian) which flew the CH-113. Weird thing, back then they had no APU. What was used was a neat little Rover turbine/generator sitting on the back ramp. When it was time to fire up the engines, we had to first start the Rover, which to be perfectly honest, was a blast. Just drop the ramp to make sure the exhaust was pointed out, and hit the start button. If I recall, even in 1969 the start process was almost entirely automatic. But when it ignited, there was a lovely blast of exhaust, something that really should have made a Batman movie. That would have been a really impressive start.

The entire unit was extremely similar to this pump, but of course in place of pumps it had a generator.

And here’s what the hot end looked like.

As a side note, does this turbine powered water pump have a hand-crank?

My personal view is that its over-rated as to get real power from it requires a lot of aftermarket parts and modification. It’s output in standard form isn’t that impressive.

Put it at the side of a Daimler 2.5 V8 (or the 4.6) and the output for the capacity isn’t great at all. against ‘proper’ US V8’s and it looks worse. There was a reason Buick got rid of it… they didn’t think it was up to the job.

The block castings can go porous, the liners move about if you over-stress it trying to tune it up too much, and the hydraulic cam followers can be a royal pain in the ****.

The good points are that it is light in weight and its fairly compact. It fitted a nice little niche in the UK. The fact that it has been around for 50 years means it will fit most applications well, and parts are available to make it work most ways. In the right car it can be a very fun engine to have.

Regards

Rich

A highly over-rated engine. It does make a nice sound, but that’s about it.

It must have had some redeeming points, it was used for a long time and still may be.
My siter has one in her Discovery (aboutthe only part that hasn’t broken) and is planning to put one into a MGB.

BTW: The basic engine was designed in the states by Buick and sold off by GM in the 60s.

A highly over-rated engine. It does make a nice sound, but that’s about it.

I hope Pagon 01 don’t read what you have said about Rover cars, they are his favourite cars, I have heard, he eats a Rover “V6” for breakfast!! and spits out pistons if he sees anything derrogatory said about Rovers. 😉

Lincoln. 7

IIRC Jools Holland had a replica of the Jet One car built out of a couple of old Rovers (80+75) and using Jaguar running gear. It was featured on a series of ‘Chop Shop’ on Discovery.

Jools Hollands Jet One

Martin

And, I’ve had a few Discoverys with the celebrated V8, cars in which one would hope for a red traffic light just to be able to hear the engine pulling away from standstill again.

A highly over-rated engine. It does make a nice sound, but that’s about it.

The Rover gas turbine cars had many drawbacks, as has been said, but I watched a video of Jet 1 driving once (it was being demonstrated in the presence of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh) and the swishing noise it made was something else.
That said, the Rover engines that did make it into production sounded pretty good. I was passed yesterday by a Rover P3 (the ‘Auntie’ Rover), whose 2622cc L-head six sounded wonderful. And, I’ve had a few Discoverys with the celebrated V8, cars in which one would hope for a red traffic light just to be able to hear the engine pulling away from standstill again.

James, if you, myself and rich w keep on the way we do, we may well get a slap on the wrists, we have got to keep things on a more serious side.:D

must remember to watch, “The life of Bwyan tonight,” and try not to laugh at the BIGGUSS DICKUS sketch.

Lincoln.7 :diablo:

JAMES!! It was Neil Armstrong,Louise Armstrong, “Had all the time in the world” (Song) but still didn’t make it.

;)Keep up Jim, anyway who was Louise, his wife?!
Anyway brought us nicely back to the lunar Rover!:p

Absolutely Linc…but if you want to see real thread drift and have an hour or so to spare…have a look through this spitfire thread…it was a real hoot 😀

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=86503&highlight=spitfire+handling

The fun starts at post 5

Yeah, and they all laughed when Louis Armstrong said he would walk on the moon…

JAMES!! It was Neil Armstrong,Louise Armstrong, “Had all the time in the world” (Song) but still didn’t make it.

Think we have taken a left turn, as we seem to have run off the road re jet cars. But thats what makes this forum worthwhile, we can laugh at each other, with no offence taken. 😉

Lincoln. 7

Not being negative Linc 🙂
I am a practical scottish engineer 🙂
‘She willna take no more capn’
They are great for headline grabbing/concepts etc but a modern 150 HP ,6 speed turbodiesel will knock spots off it for efficiency/economy.

rgds baz

Yeah, and they all laughed when Louis Armstrong said he would walk on the moon…