My 3500S Ground Up Resto (Updated 17th May)

[MadAnt]

Hi All

Apart from a brief introduction many moons ago, and the odd post here and there I've not really made much of a contribution to the forum, but that's hopefully about to change.

I'm in the process of a long term ground up restoration of a 1974 3500S in Zircon blue. My first P6 but not my first major restoration project.

Any way (and fingers crossed I've got this image linking working) I'll let the next dozen or so pictures give you a sampler of progress to date. Needless to say my car has been assaulted over the years by numerous bodges in all the normal places (in some cases plated over 3 times!!).

After you see the pictures you will understand why my forum name is so very apt!!!

 

[ghce]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Now that is impressive work and no patch job. Often you wonder how much gets done and how much gets left, nice to see an extensive repair going well.

Graeme

 

[testrider]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Good effort there, it all looks so familiar. You were a lot braver than me with the chopping out stage though!

 

[MadAnt]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Thanks for all the reply's to date.

A few more from the current efforts.

I managed to lay the cut out section over the top of the old floor, and using the drain holes as alignment references (you may have spotted a couple of sockets poking through the holes from one of the earlier pictures), run a 1mm cutting disc along the edge of the cut out in order to amputate the old floor section below.

Shame I had to remove the original front jacking point, but its location is marked here for reference. Interestingly the replacement outer sill section I have to hand, does not ling up with the jacking tube location, so will have to fettle it accordingly when I;m ready to fit.

I've a NOS B post which I'll probably fit, once the outer sill, jacking tubes etc have been fitted. Just need to work out alignment reference points. Did Rover ever issue bodywork repair manuals with such information?

BTW The grey paint you can see on some of the pictures is just a quick dusting of zinc rich primer to stop the welds flashing over.

Will keep the thread going as I progress forward.

 

[quattro]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

:shock:

Wow, you are much braver than me, chopping that lot out.

Excellent work, your Rover is a very lucky P6 indeed.

Look forward to seeing this progress.

Richard

 

[Phil Robson]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

:shock: me too!

A brave man indeed, but excellent quality work - well done. You've put enough metal back now to see that you're going to get a great result. I might just have bottled it before that was done

 

[vaultsman]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

As I was scrolling down the first few pics, I could feel this chill running down my spine....

...disappeared completely when the "afters" came into view!

That looks excellent work....and not that mad really then!

Keep posting!

Stan

 

[pat180269]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Two questions :-

1) How long did it take ?
and
2) Is the other side as bad !

Respect

 

[KeesB]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Great job!

 

[MadAnt]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Two questions :-

1) How long did it take ?
and
2) Is the other side as bad !

Respect

1) About 7 man days of work to get to this stage spread over several months, including un-pickking all of the bodgers previous work, as well as prepping the cut out section. Took me several weeks of hunting to track down a donor that I could take the cut out section from as well.

2) Yes about the same, so will be on the look out for the same cut out from a donor in the not too near future.

 

[DesmoDuke]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Fantastic job nice to see butted welds, Mine was nowhere near as bad as yours but still in the same places, Keep up the good work.

 

[billoddie]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

KEY...RIST!!! :shock: :shock:

 

[rottenlungs]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Hi MadAnt

Great to see another one being saved. It is also nice to think that our dear old P6`s are becoming unusual enough to justify restoring some pretty advanced rot.

What other resto`s have you done? I did a Series IIA LandRover and a Spitfire 1500 before I started on the Elegant Thirsty Dinosaur ( http://www.classicroverforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=11689 ) .

I`m just glad they don`t use salt on the roads down here in NZ.

 

[Dave3066]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Excellent work there! I recognise most of that and sympathise completely.

The offside of my 3500S looked much the same as that, although I didn't have to remove quite so much of the floor :shock: Nice bit of bracing there to keep things aligned though and it looks to be coming along very well.

Dave

 

[Rob M]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

..........and im whinging about putting a few patches into my floor!! :wink:
That is truly astonishing workmanship, you are saving a car that most of us would have considered only good enough for parts.
I do hope you are showing all of this on other car related forums, it does deserve to have the widest possible audience ( you are fully entitled to boast!) as what you are doing is not just fabulous workmanship but is also giving people like me the impetus and courage to tackle stuff that they havent tackled before, in my case more rust than ive had to deal with previously.
I certainly cant weld like you can but im now feeling that I can do a decent job with what ive got to deal with if you can do brilliant welding/fabrication on yours.
If I wore a hat, id take it off to you!!
Excellent stuff.

 

[1396midget]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

whoa, good effort!

very impressive! I notice that your wire bundle that feeds everything at the back goes over the rear seat cross member, mine went under it next to the sill, right in the way of the welding :roll:

looking great, what's the other side like?

 

[ReinhardP]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Impressive: the difference between before and after. I think I would going crazy when I would detect such rust nests.Great job! Congratulations!

 

[pat180269]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Did you brace the body in any way ?

That's a hell of a lot of the structure of the car gone.

I remember doing something similar ( but not so severe) on a marina once ( god knows why ), and the back door never fitted properly afterwards!

 

[MadAnt]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

Yes Pat

The B post was braced as per a couple of the pictures, and lots of measurements were taken.

I'd also played around with the existing doors to get them correctly alined first before the amputation took place, then took more reference measurements.

Fitted the floor & sill section, and held in place with several aviation type drill through grips, then re hung both doors to double check before tack welding the floor, and B post. Finally removed B post bracing.

I'm impressed with the amount of engineering that Rover put into the base unit design, in a lot of cases its probably over engineered by a factor of 50%.

Rob M

Thanks and you had me blushing....

If you need any welding tips etc please ask away.

Whilst I'm no professional, I think I got the car bug at a very early age as I remember a photo of me standing next to my uncles Humber as he was prepping the car for a re-spray, probably in the early 1970's!!!

 

[MadAnt]

Re: My 3500S Ground Up Resto

whoa, good effort!

very impressive! I notice that your wire bundle that feeds everything at the back goes over the rear seat cross member, mine went under it next to the sill, right in the way of the welding :roll:

looking great, what's the other side like?

The wires and positive battery feed should be routed next to the inner sill structure as you say, but I moved them out of the way for now. The outer sill section is spot welded very 3/4 of an inch along the lower floor edge of the inner sill, so its going to get hot there when I unite the outer sill.

More work but will probably just disconnect the loom at either the front or rear and re route correctly once that's all squared away.

Yes the N/S is just as bad, but I'm hoping that its on the first 6 inches of the floor that will have to come out on that side and not such a big chunk of floor.