[kasli]

In full agreement to Karl it's one of the most elegant and handsome body on any RR leave alone P2's . Too many shots in my life taken of this car to put up here and really thankful to Ragtop for putting a thread up dedicated with snaps of the restoration process to the finale.

It will be a great learning for all of us . It will be great help if he can once finished put the list of parts and process suppliers to assist everyone for their future restorations .

Look forward to more learnings and photographs

Cheers

[Ragtop]

We were now done with the easy past! The sand blasting uncovered all sorts of little gremlins that needed to be sorted out. The painstaiking work of cleaning up the lines and hand sanding the body to get the desired surface would now begin. This stage alone took a good few months more than planned to arrive at the desired result. The goal was to clean up the body as far as possible to minimize the use of Bondo (lambi) to mask the surface irrularities. During this process we also tried out some paint samples to see how the green would ultimately look.

Some of the issues highlighted with 2 different green samples, both of which seemed reasonable close to the original shade we had found on the car. – I did not like either!





The work to clean up the body lines took a lot longer than expected. Although there were no major issues, merely getting the alignment of all panels right took a lot of work. We had to remind ourselves that even 75+ years ago, this was a hand made body that was bound to have some inconsistencies that we would never be able to get perfect. Now obviously, I will never tell where those inconsistencies lie...

While we have never used the spats on a regular basis, (felt they made the car look too heavy, especially with the black/cream combo) they have always been with us since the car was purchased. We now intend to incorporate the spats into the build. Fortunately, we also had the chrome embellishments that will ultimately be mounted on the spats. The design of the chrome embellishments also carries through to the interior of the car to ensure continuity of design.





Once this was done, we had to take it up a notch to get all edges to look sharp and precise. Over the years, painting and repainting the car had taken its toll and edges and curves had worn down. We had to make wooden templates for each of the different edges and curves that were used while sanding to achieve a consistent finish.

The process of identifying flawed areas begins:

[wasif]

If I may say so the pale green shown in the original GN rendering is far more pleasing to the eye than the color on the front wings you shot as a sample.

Pale green and cream would be such a nice combo !

[Ragtop]

Originally Posted by wasif

If I may say so the pale green shown in the original GN rendering is far more pleasing to the eye than the color on the front wings you shot as a sample.

Pale green and cream would be such a nice combo !

My thoughts exactly. However, the desire to revert to a more original shade was quite strong so we found a color that I can live with - you will see what I mean in time.

[travancore]

Originally Posted by Ragtop

Some of the issues highlighted with 2 different green samples, both of which seemed reasonable close to the original shade we had found on the car. – I did not like either!

While we have never used the spats on a regular basis, (felt they made the car look too heavy, especially with the black/cream combo) they have always been with us since the car was purchased. We now intend to incorporate the spats into the build.

Amir,

If cars can be shown at Pebble Beach in the livery of the owner's choice ( a la the Rajkot and Alwar Hispano Suizas), a little change in the shade of Green should be acceptable!

Now that the mystery of the wheel spats is over.......when do we hear of the ACE wheel discs ?

Amazing job, kudos and all the best!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is the hole with fairing above the A-Pillar for ?

[v12]

Hey Ragtop,

You have one of the most beautiful Rolls Royces in the country. The first time I saw your RR was when it participated in the 2004 Economic Times Rolls Royce Centenary Rally. Your car was one of the first ones to arrive at the Rally - but before the others (or the Phantom) could arrive - I had made up my mind. No other RR that enters the gate would be as imposing and beautiful as yours.

At first I thought that this car too was owned by the Poonawaala's since it had the same color combination as the PIII.

Originally Posted by v12

The Rally was really good. All the cars that participated in it were in immaculate condition except the Corniche which was in quite a bad shape. The best car of the lot was none other than the Poonawalla's Phantom III, another Black and cream Rolls and a red/cream Rolls. And of course the 2004 Phantom.
Here are the cars that participated in the rally :

Star of the show :


Rolls-Royce Phantom II Continental. The same car was driven by the BSM team here . Was really one of the best Rolls I've ever seen.

What is the hole with fairing above the A-Pillar for ?

I guess the hole would have been for the sun-shade or hunting lights.

[Ragtop]

Originally Posted by travancore

Amir,



What is the hole with fairing above the A-Pillar for ?

Attachment 1038040

That is a drain hole for sun-roof runoff. There is one on each side of the car.

[Ragtop]

While we working on the body, we had started working on the upholstery and host of other areas as well. In staying with the green theme as per the original, we went with green upholstery. The build sheet specified ”Green leather – unpleated”. We found remnants of the original leather in the seats as we took them apart and matched the new leather accordingly.






Also being worked on was the fuel tank, door handles and locks, door hinges, rear seat arm rests, woodwork and internal panels in the dickey and the like:




Fuel tank, cleaned and refurbished, ready for paint:




Also worked on procuring the missing bits in the tool-kit. Almost there – awaiting a couple more items to complete the set!







The next big step was going to be removing the body from the chassis and to start removing the engine, gearbox, drive-train, suspension etc. We had to fabricate stands with mounts that matched the original chassis for the body and engine while they were off the chassis.
Engine and gearbox stand






Stand for Body:

[Ragtop]

We were finally ready to take the body and engine off and start detailing the chassis.

Body off:



Engine and gear box ready to come off:





Gearbox out...since it had been sticking in 2nd gear when hot, we decided to go in and see what the problem was. Turned out that most of the bearings were worn out while all other parts like gears, synchros etc seemed to be in great shape. We decided to replace all the bearings. The gear box was sent off -site to get this work done.






Engine off and clean up started. Since we had rebuilt the entire engine just a few years ago and it is running like a dream, we decided to leave well enough alone and concentrate on the rest of the car and carry out just a peripheral/exterior clean-up of the engine.



Miscellaneous engine linkages, all needed to be clearly marked and boxed before being reworked ...:

[jaygeetee]

This is a beautiful car and it's the kind of work all auto-philes like us dream of doing. Just found the thread, am stuck to it now

Originally Posted by Ragtop

Why don't you stop by some time, we are not too far away from your office, I will be happy to show you everything we have done

Is this offer open to others too? I would love to visit. If ok, please let me know the address

[Ragtop]

Engine off, and now the cleanup begins.





Firewall stripped and ready for cleaning.


Axles off and being restored...




Shocks off and prepped for paint...


Chassis blasted, prepped and primed for paint:

[Trojan]

Awesome, thank you Ragtop for sharing these intricate details.

The level of detailing is mind blowing, the snaps shared by most of them just had me spell bound, it already looked fabulous, hard to imagine what the outcome would be.

It is a treat and feast for vehicalists like us, totally hooked and bookmarked.

Thanks once again!

[Utopian]

That's an awesome restoration report. Thanks for sharing. Attention to detail is awesome.
I wish I had the moolah to transfrom my jelly bean Zen-maybe some other day.

[Ragtop]

It was at this stage when someone noticed that the camber on the front suspension seemed very depressed. One consequence of this is a hard steering, which is something this car has suffered from for years and which I had just learned to live with and complain about! We compared the exiting camber to the original specs as per the build sheet and found that it was definitely off. We explored the possibility of hammering out the leaf-springs (as is traditionally done in India) to increase the camber and restore it to original specs. Further research highlighted the folly of our thought process and we learned about metal memory. Apparently, leaf springs that have lost their original camber also develop a ‘memory’ which cannot be extinguished simply by hammering it beck to shape. The spring will shortly return to its depressed state due to its memory. The only way to fix this is the put the spring through a heat treatment process that will delete the memory entirely and restore its original shape. After much homework, we located a local company that manufactures leafsprings who graciously helped us out with putting our springs through their process and restoring original camber. They even invited us to witness the load testing to prove that the springs had indeed been restored to their original specs. This is an image of one set of leaves being tested. The machine compresses the springs at a uniform rate and a guage measures the exact amount of load being applied to the springs. The springs need to compress a predefined amount for a given load. This is repeated a few times to ensure that thee springs do not go weak again after prolonged usage.




Other bits that were being worked on:
Axles painted and ready for installation:



Engine nuts / bolts being detailed (nickel plated in house) one by one....yikes!!


Engine – coming together nicely. As we buffed individual components like the dynamo, starter, lubrication pump etc, we found the base to be in great nick! In some cases, all the part needed was a good buffing. Amazing after almost 80 years! We had the option here to sand/grind down the surface layer and re-chrome to conceal ALL the pits, dents etc. but this is where I was truly opposed to spoiling a good thing and messing with originality for the sake of short term gain. We decided to stick with a simple buffing.









Now the fun part, the rebuild begins: The chassis was painted and all tubing for lubrication and fuel lines were reinstalled after being cleaned, buffed and re-plated where necessary:







Engine bay bits, buffed/chromed and ready for install.





More assembly of various lubrication / fuel lines onto the chassis:

[DKG]

A spectacular car getting loads of tlc ! It's just so wonderful to see you amongst a new breed of owners who have the understanding of cars and their mechanicals to go into such detail to ensure their cars are in top shape. Truly amazing