Revealing my 27 year project : 72 3500 s

Barten

Active Member
Hi. I am in the process to doing up my long term project car. A 1972 3500s sold new in Norway in 1972 and in my posession since 1989. I was a student then. I got my first job the year after and bought a house with a garage. I started on the restoration in 1991 after I had done some work on my garage. I then did all the bodywork in the period from 91 to 98. That included replacing the lower parts of the sills and a lot of other sheet metal. I reckon 3- 4 m3 of sheet metal replaced. I learned to migweld on that car for shure!
The work included several trips to England to buy parts. One of my first "investments" was a full new carpet set from Ray Weekley - what an optimist I was. In 92 I was in England again and got most of my chromework done at the Standard Chrome company in Coventry . It has been waiting for a long time to be seen after that. It was a cracking job! I bought new wings, new quarter panels and lots of parts I thought I would need.

Then in 1998 i moved back to my homeplace and built a garage and a house in 2002. All this took its toll and I did nothing on the Rover for many years. Then in 2005 I bought an original brown Rover to at least be able to taste the Rover at its best. Then in 2007 work started to progress again with overhauling the engine. The previous owner had already put and SD1 engine and gearbox in it, but I did not know how good the engine was. So I ripped it apart . More to follow tomorrow, its bed time!
 
......and we need photos also :D Look forward to reading and seeing more.

Graeme
 
I always admire all those long term projects. I would never arrive to wait for such a long time for a project to be finished.
 
Here are some old photos I have scanned : I never took any proper before Pictures to show how badly rusted it was, but all the lower parts of the sill were gone. The Complete car With my wife back in 1990 before work started on it. You can see the seemweld just below the sill stiffening profiles. 001.jpg

I was quite proud of the reconstruction I did on the D-post on each side.

The photo below is showing the work after the Whole side was done.
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You can also see one of my bumpers in New chrome. This was in 1992. And after I took off all the underpinnings, I got most of it blasted and primed, and I then painted them in two-pack semi-gloss.

I built this smart sandblasting cabinet out of an oildrum I got for free, I has been very valuable for all the small parts I need to smarten up for the rebuild. 003.jpg
That was as far I had got when I moved from Stavanger back to my homeplace in 1998. Thankfully I did treat my rust repairs both with anti rust primer and also treated all the sills inside with 3m antirust fluid. It was a large truck that mowed our stuff, and they thankfully got the Rover and all the parts with them.

What had I aquired of parts : I had 4 New wings, 2 New sidelight units, 2 backlight units, full carpet set, 4 better doors from a parts car I bought, a spare heater unit in not too good condition, a full set of polybushes, and many more small parts, most bought from Colin Gould .

As I said most of the Welding was done now, the last big job I did on it was patching up the boot floor. More in NeXT episode!
 
really nice looking car, love the colour too. Will that be the final colour?

Graeme
 
Thanks Graeme, yes it is the original Monza Red, maybe a little more orange then original, it had been repainted at one stage before I got it. It is Monza Red still.
Regards, Barten
 
looks a little like paprika at the moment :D
Hopefully it won't take another 27 years to complete, really nice looking car.
 
In 2007 I began overhauling the engine. All New piston rings, and bearings, plus New hot cam from RPI and dual timing Chain. I also put in adjustable push rods and renewed the rocker gear.
The head were ported after inspiration from an American hot rod Magazine and all put together then set aside waiting for the car to be finished.
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The finished result is in the Picture below. I had got 2 P6 style rocker covers when I bought the car and I wanted to use those.

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In 2011 I started to work on the body, and test mounted the Outer panels. I also installed a so called australian kit to strengthen the structure of the car. This year I also built a Rotator to help me working on the cars underside. Pictures tell more than Words, so here I go :

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Now it is approximately 2012.
 

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Nice thorough work. I like your blasting cabinet! I just got a small one but had thought of making one myself, I decided I'll just extend/enlarge and upgrade mine when I need to.
Did you fabricate the exhaust headers or buy them?
Jim
 
Thanks for the nice words guys! I have had lots of very good adwise from this forum.
The headers were purchased from RPI and then sent to zircotec for ceramic coating inside and outside. They were a relly tight fit though. I had to put the engine in first, then very carefully shoehorn in the headers. And as can be seen in the picture, I had to modify the engine mounts.
 
In 2012 it was the year I put on the Paint. A good friend who runs a garage let me rent their painting facilities including a Nice area to work With sanding etc, and a spray booth. It was very hard work but I learned a lot in these to weeks I was working there. Obviously all the panels were sprayed off the car. And when they were finished I was really nervous to scratch them, so I rented a big trailer to get the home safe, spread all over the floor of the trailer. The garage had a visit from their Paint supplier and he was not happy With the way I had stripped the panels. I used fiber discs on an angle grinder and he was probably right, it scratched a bit deep in the aluminium panels. To compensate for that, I sprayed filler primer, then let it sit for 6 weeks for the filler to sink in, and then sanded them Down again. I was reasonably happy With the result. The Paint was solid 2K PPG in Monza red of course!
Finished With that I built up the suspension, brake system and fuel system. I decided to modify the fuel system following the direction from P6 news from the october and december issue from 1994. Inspired by Quattro and Sowen I rebuilt one of my heater boxes. It was quite rusty but I was able to dismantle it enough to get it all sandblasted. I then painted it With sinc primer and rustbuster 123 2 k epoxy Paint. It came out well. But is is still not Connected up!
More to follow!P1000404JPG.jpg P1000418JPG.jpg P1000797JPG.jpg P1010544JPG.jpg P1010545JPG.jpg P1010547JPG.jpg P1010549JPG.jpg P1010566JPG.jpg P1010566JPG.jpg P1010589JPG.jpg P1010598JPG.jpg
 
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Unfortunately I am not able to extract the photos on my old phone over to my computer. Therefore I just have to put in a present photo of my latest achivement : I did a lot of work on Friday With help from a good friend. Put the roof on, and front and rear screen. During the weekend and monday I have put on the brightwork around the roof, Im not 100% satisfied With the way the rubber seal sit in the RH corner (see two photos) Does anybody use some kind of glue to keep the rubber where we want it? And I am in doubt which way the bracket in the middle of the rear screen shall sit. I ended up With the last Picture. 20170314_210843.jpg 20170314_205752.jpg 20170314_210059.jpg 20170314_211708.jpg 20170314_211729.jpg
I want it to sit like this!

So it is getting nearer to and end of the 27 years, its actually 27 1/2 year since I bought it. I have only driven it about a mile back in 1990, but I still remember how good it felt.
So when I am sick and tired of Rover related problems I enjoy my self (since 2005) With this beauty: My 3500 1971 which has been a great car for me. The only serious problem was a broken driveshaft but thanks to Harvey and Wins I fixed that problem, and learned a lot about final drives too!
Regards, Barten
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Unfortunately I am not able to extract the photos on my old phone over to my computer.
If you have your e-mail set up on the phone you can send the pictures to yourself and then take them off your PC, or go into the phone and save them to the MicroSD card and then with the adapters you can load them onto your PC via the slot for the standard SD Card.
 
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