The BigCar channel is great. I recommend watching his videos - they're very informative and well constructed.

My first Rover was a 214i SE. Loved that car and it served me well despite the engine sounding like a bag of spanners. The 214i SE is very unusual for an R3 200 in that it had standard fit air conditioning. As suggested, replace all fluids and filters. Do multiple flushes of the cooling system. Afte...

The fan speed fault is very very common, caused by the fan resistor failing. It's located in the fan motor housing, easily accessed by removing the glovebox. You can either replace or replace. Later R3s like the Streetwise had cheapy Pektron clocks which often fail. They are easily replaced by a goo...

Good effort!

I had this exact same issue with the rear washer on my Vi. I thought initially I had a blockage or split further forward then found that the washer pipe discharged fine if disconnected from the entry into the washer motor. I tried the same sort of fixes that you have, sadly without success. Eventual...

Try popping the reg's in the gov vehicle enquiry site and see what it brings up.

https://vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/?locale=en

Looks a sound project. An SEi is worth it for those seats alone.

Is it a good match to the original? Yes it's pretty decent. I've not fitted it yet (beyond a trial fitting) but it fits the channel perfectly. The only difference is it doesn't sit as proud as the OEM strip as it's not as deep. How long it'll last as it's cheap chrome-plated plastic remains to be s...

The bumper needs to be off the car to remove the chrome strips to avoid damaging them as they clip in. The strips on my Vi have partially delaminated. I removed the rear strip (which snapped in the process) but the bit that remained intact is good enough to reuse on the front corner. I've sourced th...

The Streetwise was available with the 103ps 1.4, 1.6 and 1.8 Stepspeed as well as the 84ps 1.4, if performance is a concern ;) Build quality isn't amazing on the Streetwise as it was born at the height of MG Rover's cost cutting frenzy. But if you ignore the cheap materials and lack of refinement th...