Happy Saturday,
The hose clamps on the smaller hoses (the coolant hoses on the throttle body, the air evac hoses on the valve covers, etc) are a pain to remove and reattach. Is there any reason I cannot replace those with standard screw-tightening type clamps or some other clamps that are easier to manuever?

The intake manifold removal is not going too bad, I didn't realize how gummed up they could get, so I'm going to clean it while it is off. I'm going to use some carb cleaner. The only problem is the Rave manual isn't specific about how to remove certain components. If you don't know, get on here and ask before you break your brake servo vacuum hose connecter .

Any suggestions are always appreciated from you rover-experienced folks. I like European imports, but they are always so peculiar and proprietary.

Also, any opinions on the use of anti-seize on the spark plugs with these engines?

 

Its nice to keep the oem hose clamps but I have changed out
the ones that needed it.

I always use anti-seize on the plugs.

 

With an alloy engine, you should always use anti seize.
Make sure to use Dexcool and bleed the system twice, a day apart.
Also if you haven't done it yet, while the manifold is off, install some Magnacor wires.

 

Ok, gotcha with the anti-seize. I'm putting in Magnacor's now, they arrived with some white build-up inside of the spark plug end, is this normal? I got them from Tony, they look great and whatever the white stuff is looks uniform, so I'm guessing it is a protective coating of some sort. Should I clean any of it off or just pop them in? I'm leaning towards using a small bit of dielectric grease on them because one of the plugs was had alot of rust build-up, but I think that is just from the coolant leak under throttle body.

 

I use dielectric grease on the plug wires keeps them from
getting stuck on the plugs