73 V8 in an unusual colour

Holey moley who would'a thunk it, I must say I am somewhat suprised? maybe it came to NZ as complete built unit and spent some time on UK roads :mrgreen: A worse thougt occurs to me... maybe I should look under there on mine too :oops:

Graeme
 
It looks like a keeper Chris, i'm getting way too involved with it now! :) But if the missus has her way, I may not be able to pry it from her hands when it's done.
It's a Kiwi built car Graeme. It's odd that the the rust is quite high up. If it had lived in Britain it would have no sills or wheelarches left but these are all good. Weird. :?
 
Perhaps a concrete garage or car park building could have caused that, well known that water run off concrete that spills onto cars is very corrosive to painted surfaces.

Graeme
 
Stop rabbiting on about your giant store of spares, Al! It's making me jealous.

Personally, I don't care for the body coloured sills. To me the black just adds a touch of panache, or something. Do you think that colour has anything to do with the Nelson factory assembling Daimlers as well as Rover P6s?
 
Im wondering if it had a tow bar at all in its life . May have gone off the end of a slipway whilst dropping a boat in the tide or caught a rogue wave over the back. Ive seen that happen .
I can never get my head around drivers reversing their lovely 4x4's into the salt water with a trailer- boat on the back .
A lot of rust for NZ dont you think ? Stunning P6 otherwise .
Thought about " rent an Al classic " using your stable of P6'ers ?
A film company approached me once . Wanted mine as a period piece in a local movie being made . I thought better of it and declined .They ended up using a Mk 111 Zed car.
 
Warren you know i'm happy to share. :wink: Yes, i'm quite certain about that fact. They had no qualms about borrowing colours from the stock they had on hand. Jaguar, BMC, Triumph etc.

Gerald, good point about that towbar theory. Not sure how long it's been there but a bit of salty goodness could have been washed up under the rear screen and made a nest there. I don't think it's an excessive amount of rust for a Kiwi car, but it's usually in the sills and D posts and the boot floor. I've seen worse.
I'm not sure about renting them out, i've had perfectly reliable cars fail when I let other people drive them. I suspect that the only reason they are so good for me is 'mechanic's syndrome.' Used to get it all the time when I was freelance, customer would arrive and say "my car's making this funny noise" and i'd drive it... nothing. :? it may simply be my own personal faith in the car that keeps it running, like how jumbo jets work. :LOL:
I did however loan my TC out for an episode of 'Underbelly'. $300 for an evening's use of the car in a minor scene. :D Don't see much of it unfortunately, just a bit of the bootlid and taillights as a guy was putting stuff in it.
 
Makes my little front cross-member rust problem seem a tiny triviality, really.

On the subject of loaning out cars, my beloved uncle is due in from his overseas home on December 7th, and I'm handing the 75 over to him for a trip to Dunedin to see his daughter (my only first cousin) graduate. Is thise wise? My 75 has been perfectly reliable up until now, and furthermore I've just remembered that way back in 1983, a loan of it to this same uncle spelled the end of the family Jaguar 240's useful life.
 
Having just completed similar repairs to to the back of my TC I do sympathize with you. That area would puddle with water if the car was always parked facing down a slope.
 
Thanks Paul. I made a start on it last night, cut lots of holes and made a lot of patch panels. It's quite a complicated area where the pillar meets the parcel tray. It's been a case of make a patch, cut out the rot, make a patch for what was underneath, cut that out, make another patch... :roll: Not too much more and I will be able to start welding on the way back out. At least 90% of this won't be visible when its all back together, I just hope the panels still fit :LOL:
 
Finally! I finished the welding on this thing after some marathon days in January and passed everything on the the painters and after a few false starts I got it back late February- just as I was about to go on holiday! So it sat in the carport while I was away, and then the inevitable business at work when I got back happened, and I didn't really have the enthusiasm for the project. But, my beloved went away on business again a couple of weeks ago so I got stuck in. Anzac day before my weekend gave me 3 days in a row which saw the doors removed, rubbers fitted, holes drilled, trim attached and badges replaced. Sills, pillars and grille were painted, P5B Rostyles were fitted and the door glass was replaced with Sundym (almost finished). That was followed by several long evenings after work dealing with all the smaller jobs. Speaker grilles were punched, stereo fitted, overriders replaced and Square 8s installed. Finally I took it in for a wof on Thursday which it passed. Some new tyres were fitted and we were on the road again.



Quite pleased with the result. There have been a few deviations from original, the most obvious being the rear pillars which are satin black with modern Rover badges.
There are also hidden speakers in the doors and parcel tray and there will be an alarm and hopefully central locking fitted soon. Mechanically I haven't touched it yet, other than to fit electronic ignition. There are a couple of fairly significant oil leaks, one from the fuel pump (not connected) and one from under the PAS reservoir (hopefully just some new hose clamps) but it'll get a service on Sunday and i'll try and attend to these thing then. The interior hasn't changed but I have some new carpet waiting to go in and may have a line on some nice sandalwood leather seats. I am also having a go at carpeting the boot so we'll see how that works out.
 
And in a little segment I like to call "First world problems" :LOL: I've been playing about with different lenses. What do we think?
Standard:

All orange:

And all clear:

and of course, red on the back:
 
Looks amazing Al -
big results for your work . Sits very nicely on those rostyles too .
I like the blacked out grill - how would the lower grill look blacked out too ?
Sundym always seems to give the P6 "an air of class"
Well done
 
Thanks Gerald, I have seen them with the lower grille blacked out. I'll give it some thought but i'm not totally sold on what i've done, it can look like the grille is just missing in some lights. I may put the silver highlights back, we'll see.
It sits alright but I think the front end could be dropped an inch or two. I had tried out some 205/65 tyres on the front and 205/70s on the back which filled the arches better but they were a bit wide for the 5" rims so i've opted for 195/65 instead.
Another little thing I did was to cut the front number plate mount back to fit the NZ plates so there'll be a few more square inches of air to the rad. Still considering police spoilers too...
 
Hi KR,

I was over at a friend's place recently, and there was a copy of P6 News on the table. Inside I found an article that you had written about that very same car. Top Stuff!

Very nice work there, looks excellent. :D My personal choice when it comes to the light combinations is the original, clear side and orange flasher. I am going to opt for the same configuration for the rear too.
If the colour of the car were a different one, then maybe one of the other combinations might suit it better to my eye.

How's the Range Rover going? All well I hope!

Ron.
 
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