Practically Classics Forum

I only had half a day to work on the car but I got some done.
This is the passenger side bodge patch collection (well, part of it) After some serious grinding I had a little hole that needed filling in (ignore the accidental cut of the battery box, I welded that up before putting the repair in)

so I did. I have encountered what happens when you heat a large(ish) flat piece of metal now. there is some serious warp in that! I may re-do it when I do the headlamp boxes.

I have put the car back on it's wheels for the first time in a few weeks. I have to line up the wings and re-fit them next so it looks like a car again. Then one last removal of the scuttle cover to re-connect the heated screen and grease the wiper motor before I can re-fit that and the bonnet. It will be nice having a car that looks like a car again! (from the outside anyway) Only a couple of repairs left on the front for this round of welding, each battery box needs a small 3/4" -2" section putting in then I can move on to the back :S

No pics today as it was much too hot to do any welding. Instead all I have done is drill new mounting holes for the air box, ABS pump, charcoal canister, header tank and various cable clips. It is still very untidy under the bonnet but at least things are now held in place. I also plumbed the heater and A/C back in. I still have a very small leak coming in around a failed grommet for the alarm cabling so I will get some more from the handy car bits shop tomorrow and fix the last drip then I can put in the sound deadening and carpet

Not done much this week as I was totally bored of bodywork. I decided yesterday that I would get everything re-assembled and wired up so I could get the engine started as some enthusiasm to finish off. I spent about 2 hours putting the intake back together, re-connecting all the sensors and clipping wires back in, mounting the air box, etc. Put the battery in and it would turn over but not fire. Damn car, check everything and it was all correct. I tried some brake cleaner in the intake just in case sitting for a few months meant it was hard to start and it ran for a few moments. I did it again and it revved up to 1500 so the LPG caught it and ran beautifully. I then checked and swapped the main and fuel pump relays just in case they were faulty, bypassed the fuel pump cut off on the alarm, nothing. if I ran the fuel pump from a handy local 12v supply (the rear lights) it would run fine so gave up for the night and went out. Just got to it today, opened the bonnet and pressed the inertia cut off for the fuel supply and it started straight away on petrol.
stupid cars.

In the last little while I have been doing the rotten job of scraping off lose underseal and replacing it. HORIBLE job and I smell of waxoil, I found a couple of very thin bits of metal that I have dealt with including a bit that I thought was solid but no such luck.
This is a bit of the inner wing that I thought was good but a screwdriver pushed clean through so needed cutting out. This is a set of holes in exactly the same place as it was rotten on the drivers side but on the passenger side there was a thick layer of sealant over them, the drivers side was easily visible.
This is where the inner wing meets the bulkhead I had to cut a small piece out of the bulkhead too This is the bulkhead filled in. I have welded up the inner wing too but my phone has decided the pics look better completely white. New handset tomorrow so no more lost pics (hopefully)
Now the underside is all welded up (unless I find more on the other side when I start scraping that tomorrow) and waxoiled. Dash and sound deadening is back in, carpet is down. Console is not in yet as I have to attach my new cubby box to the old console which I will do as the last job after the body of the car is sound.
I have also got an electrical problem.
This is what the inside of my EAS pump looked like after I pulled it apart (it was blowing fuses so I opened it up and found it was seized solid and smelt like burning plastic, it is outside in the garden 3 days later and still stinks) This was a "good" pump I got from a breakers a few years ago while I rebuilt the original one. the motor part of this (minus the bushes which are good) is heading for the bin and the pump part in to my spares box.

I have also found that after 2 days the battery runs flat without anything powered on so will be going through the fuse box one at a time looking for the circuit with a drain on it.

I haven't done anything interesting / picture worthy today. I have tracked my battery drain to a faulty timer relay for my EAS. it is supposed to cut power to the ECU 15 seconds after you turn the ignition off but it wasn't. Replaced it with a quality spare and issue should hopefully be solved. it was drawing 3.3 amps continually which strikes me as quite a high load for a car without the engine running. Down to a nice 60ma now, 32ma to the alarm and 28 to the BCU. While looking for the cause of the power drain I noticed that the puddle lights on the drivers door weren't working. I found that one pin in the multi-plug going to the door had corroded off so I have temporarily removed the wires from the plug on both sides and soldered them together. I will have a look to see if the plugs are the same as they are on a disco then go on a snipping spree and get myself a new set from the scrap disco 300 I have been raiding.
I would also note that on the soft dash RR most of the multi-plugs are unique apart from the ones for the interior lights and front fogs. annoyingly the fog lamp switch makes the interior lights work with the annoying side effect that the warning light on the switch comes on when you turn the interior lights off. The interior light switch doesn't work the fogs. It did take me a few minutes of head scratching to work out what was going on.

Front wings and bonnet now aligned properly as the passenger door trim was catching the wing. I think this is because I have made my own mountings for the body kit so the wings are now lifted in to the correct place so lining the mountings up with their previous location didn't work perfectly. Bonnet now latches and unlatches as it should. Car looks much tidier.

Still to do:
drill mountings for the front inner wing liners and washer bottle, sort out the cubby box.
That is it for this round of repairs. The next lot will involve a load more welding but will have to wait until funds allow.

I found I have a full tank of petrol and 3/4 tank of LPG that I had forgotten was in it. Bonus!

That last bit is always a billy bonus

Terry - I thought that your RR is the rarer soft dash model - if so check this out - it might just be worth a few bob more than you thought http://www.graemehunt.com/motorcar/198/ ... miles-only

Very nice I have turned down offers of £5k and £7.5k in the last year. Mine is a Soft Dash LSE (long wheel base) Brooklands which excluding special models and the velar is the rarest of the factory cars. It is one of those that you either love or you hate as the body kit really puts some people off but I think it adds character.
I appear to have forgotten to add the final few pics from this instalment.
I did have to have the windscreen removed as what I thought was a leaking sunroof turned out to be a rotten windscreen frame. I did weld it up but I am struggling to find the "after" pictures, I will add one when I find which phone they are on.
On the plus side, my heated screen now works, I have no idea why taking a screen out and putting it back has fixed that but it has so

I also fixed the damaged paint on the scuttle: I will have to take a new pic of the interior re-assembled as I can't find those either :S This is the problem with going through 3 phones in less than 2 months.

Just proving that I was able to put the car back together (which was surprisingly easier than taking it apart) I have been asked on another other forums so I will just note that I have a Discovery 2 steering wheel fitted as it is more comfortable than the standard item (which I do have).

All I need now is a new mortgage so I can afford to fill the tank

That looks cock on Great job done there Terry.