Restoration of Rolls Royce 94RF

[alpineeagle]

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

Steve, did the team have access to period photos of the car while restoring? I believe each Rolls Royce of the era would have been photographed before delivery, am I right?

Hi, we had only 2 or 3 period pictures of the car and also a copy of the original build sheets, all of these items can be invaluable during a restoration. i do think that many cars were photographed before delivery but over the years a vast quantity have either been lost, destroyed or have vanished

Steve

[alpineeagle]

Originally Posted by IndrojitSircar

Hi steve i have a mentioned a few things above i guess you forgot to mention about these things.Thankx

Hi, very sorry! We were commissioned to give the car a 'cosmetic' restoration, this included, painting of the chassis and door shuts, removing doors, wings and any panels which came off, straightening out and bringing back to the standard it would have been offered in 1927. the body was given the same treatment. We fixed all the window and mesh operating mechanisms, re - plated all the items that were so originally. the interior was all stripped down and completely re-trimmed, all the wood inside the car (decorative cappings) were overhauled and repaired as required. we were only given permission to clean and freshen up the engine bay. the lights were all overhauled. We completely re - wired the car.

steve

[IndrojitSircar]

Originally Posted by alpineeagle

Hi, very sorry! We were commissioned to give the car a 'cosmetic' restoration, this included, painting of the chassis and door shuts, removing doors, wings and any panels which came off, straightening out and bringing back to the standard it would have been offered in 1927. the body was given the same treatment. We fixed all the window and mesh operating mechanisms, re - plated all the items that were so originally. the interior was all stripped down and completely re-trimmed, all the wood inside the car (decorative cappings) were overhauled and repaired as required. we were only given permission to clean and freshen up the engine bay. the lights were all overhauled. We completely re - wired the car.

steve

Hi that's alright.Thank you for sharing these details.Here above you mentioned that some items were re-plated.What is the re-platting you did ?Here you also mentioned that you re-painted the chasis so did you do any treatment before or after painting?


Sorry i'm being a bit too inquisitive please do excuse me!

[alpineeagle]

Originally Posted by wasif

Now that the car is back to its former glory what were your suggessions to the owners on storage and use ?

What would you advice people on the proper manner to store / use a car of such value to ensure it remains in perfect shape.

Also please look at this link below. If you were to advice on what should be done for this RR Silver Ghost, which has under 1000 miles on its clock to date, which direction would you take ??

Do look at the beginning of that thread for pictures of the cars and the current page for the discussion on what should be done to them and comment on this please.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/pre-19...carriages.html (The Nizam of Hyderabad's Collection of Cars and Carriages)


Since obviously you have been deeply involved in the restoration business your views on restoration / useage / preservation of these old beauties would be invaluable to us.

Well in an ideal world a climate controlled storage facility would be the best option. However very few people have access to these. We supplied some polish to keep the aluminium in good order and a sheet of instuctions for window mechanisms as they will break if forced or wound the wrong direction. Generally the climate over in India seems to be very good to older cars! We do recommend that cars are used regularly as it keeps oil around the moving components and this in turn will prolong the life of seals and bearings. And also this is what the car was designed and built for!

I think generally as long as the cars are serviced as per handbooks, and kept clean there is no reason they shouldn't be serviceable for many more years!

In Regard to the Silver Ghost, this is a truly exceptional car, it is extremely well documented in various books and on-line here! In our opinion this car is one which needs to be restored to exactly as it was originally supplied. all the later additions removed and returned to the graceful original lines! This is a very very special car. It in our opinion would at the very least would be wonderful to return it to working order so it can be used for special occasions once again.

Steve

Originally Posted by IndrojitSircar

Hi that's alright.Thank you for sharing these details.Here above you mentioned that some items were re-plated.What is the re-platting you did ?Here you also mentioned that you re-painted the chasis so did you do any treatment before or after painting?


Sorry i'm being a bit too inquisitive please do excuse me!

We had many many items re - plated, they were things like door handles, window strips, bezels, luggage rack the mesh screens the list is endless! all the polished nickel parts on the exterior and interior!

Steve

[DKG]

Steve what kind of welding do you use for aluminium? Is that a MIG? I believe it needs an inert gas environment? What is the rod in the left hand?

This has loads of significance for me as I am almost done building an aluminium camper at home and one of the challenges I face now is to seal joints. Ideally a weld would be perfect but everyone I ask tells me its close to impossible to weld aluminium.

Also the arc weld doesn't affect the wood under right?

[alpineeagle]

Originally Posted by DKG

Steve what kind of welding do you use for aluminium? Is that a MIG? I believe it needs an inert gas environment? What is the rod in the left hand?

This has loads of significance for me as I am almost done building an aluminium camper at home and one of the challenges I face now is to seal joints. Ideally a weld would be perfect but everyone I ask tells me its close to impossible to weld aluminium.

Also the arc weld doesn't affect the wood under right?

This welding you see in the picture is called Tig welding, it too uses an inert gas. It creates an electrical current to heat up and turn the aluminium into a molten state, the rod you see in the left hand is a high grade of aluminium, we use this to add to the panel and fill the gaps. its basically the feed wire!! There is a vary fine tolerance to keep the aluminium in a state where you can join it, too much and it will end up as a very large hole, or too little and it wont fuse! the power (torch) is controlled via a foot operated pedal. The wood sometimes will get hot and sometimes cause damage.

Steve

[karlosdeville]

Originally Posted by alpineeagle

Hi, we had only 2 or 3 period pictures of the car and also a copy of the original build sheets, all of these items can be invaluable during a restoration.

If possible could you share scans with us?

[DKG]

Originally Posted by alpineeagle

This welding you see in the picture is called Tig welding, it too uses an inert gas.

In your experience a localised TIG weld where the gas is flowing out onto the weld spot enables a strong weld? as opposed to welding in a chamber of argon?

[alpineeagle]

Originally Posted by DKG

In your experience a localised TIG weld where the gas is flowing out onto the weld spot enables a strong weld? as opposed to welding in a chamber of argon?

To be honest i don't really know if the tig is stronger than gas welding, we find that tig is better for us as there is no use of flux which can cause problems on painted surfaces!

Steve

[harit]

Originally Posted by IndrojitSircar

Sorry i remembered about this now after seeing it.

AGREED

Forgiveness required!

Please apply in triplicate for the council to consider. Two copied for you, one to be submitted.

Originally Posted by IndrojitSircar

Hi steve i have a mentioned a few things above i guess you forgot to mention about these things.Thankx

Indrojit, this car would have been restored just like any high end car of that period as required to bring it back to original condition as far as possible.

Actually, you should look into the work done and see how it differs from the work done in India. Take for example aluminium welding. I have seen good jobs done in India, an entire roof rebuilt on a Bentley which was chopped off, but most of the aluminium bodied cars have to be painted so that you can use putty (or whatever) and hide the joints. Leaving the aluminium exposed and highly polished becomes difficult when there are joints to be hidden. That is, in my opinion, was extreemly crucial in this restoration. And Mr. Steve has said so.

There is a mention of the wiring with cloth insulation. In Indian conditions, by that I mean the little pets that scurry up under the chassis and nibble wire, and the local karigars who will do their job well and spoil others work (for example, the upholstry guy will put a scratch on the paint), I use PVC insulated wire over which I get a cloth layer braided. If done well, it will look like the real thing.

Lovely to have the back in India in this condition.

Cheers harit

[IndrojitSircar]

Originally Posted by harit

Please apply in triplicate for the council to consider. Two copied for you, one to be submitted.

Indrojit, this car would have been restored just like any high end car of that period as required to bring it back to original condition as far as possible.

Actually, you should look into the work done and see how it differs from the work done in India. Take for example aluminium welding. I have seen good jobs done in India, an entire roof rebuilt on a Bentley which was chopped off, but most of the aluminium bodied cars have to be painted so that you can use putty (or whatever) and hide the joints. Leaving the aluminium exposed and highly polished becomes difficult when there are joints to be hidden. That is, in my opinion, was extreemly crucial in this restoration. And Mr. Steve has said so.

There is a mention of the wiring with cloth insulation. In Indian conditions, by that I mean the little pets that scurry up under the chassis and nibble wire, and the local karigars who will do their job well and spoil others work (for example, the upholstry guy will put a scratch on the paint), I use PVC insulated wire over which I get a cloth layer braided. If done well, it will look like the real thing.

Lovely to have the back in India in this condition.

Cheers harit

I completely agree with you on this.That working on aluminium is very difficult.We faced a similar problem when we were restoring the 1952 Bentley Mark VI because this car also has a body of 3 different types of metals aluminium being of the main constituents out of the 3.We had to use different primers for different areas.The job was not at all easy.The problem with us is that very few people here in Inidia are trying to get a original and next to perfect job.This is very time consuming because there is a lack of availability of spares and other issues we generally face with the workers here.We also do the same thing of cloth braiding to prevent damage of the wiring.The main thing which i wanted to know is anything different apart from whatever is done our cars here like any special chemical treatments etc or special coatings or something like that is what i ment.Do have a look at the Restoration pictures of the bentley when the body was being fitted back to the chassis and you would have a fair idea of what i am saying.the link to it is http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/vintag...pu-sircar.html (Calcutta-Restorer/Collectors-Bumpu Sircar)

[karlosdeville]

I came across these 2 factory (?) photos of this magnificent car.

[alpineeagle]

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

I came across these 2 factory (?) photos of this magnificent car.

These are the photos we had access too. and also the factory build sheets

Steve


Note from the Team-BHP Support Staff: Kindly remove images from original post if quoting a reply. This causes inconvenience to the dial-up users.

[Indiaman]

Originally Posted by scooby05

"I Hope this thread Shows our Indian Restorers how restoration needs to be done!!

That remark is quite uncalled for, There are quite a few restorers in India who restore cars to original factory standards, The RR 94 RF ,is I agree extremely well restored, but there are vintage car collectors here who have brought cars with no bodies on them, and restored them to factory specs, by means of old photographs and factory blueprints where available. Here in Bangalore we had the late Mr Ravi Kumar who did very authentic restorations in his time, and now we have Dr Ravi Prakash, who has completely restored a Lanchester(Ex Ravi Kumar) and a Delage, almost entirely from drawings and Photographs. Mr Manvendra Singh Barwani is another top notch restorer, there are MANY more to name.