What does £2500 of Rolls Royce look like? Not bad actually..

What does £2500 of Rolls Royce look like? Not bad actually..

Author
Discussion

J4CKO

41,287 posts

199 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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jamiebae said:
I hope there isn't too much work hiding away out of sight, and admire your bravery taking it on, I don't think I could bring myself to risk it personally!
Suspect it's worth that or more as parts, but it does look viable, it runs and has minor issues, hopefully that battery box is the only rust.

I love old Rollers, wonder who lashed all that money in 1981.

e21Mark

16,205 posts

172 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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J4CKO said:
I love old Rollers, wonder who lashed all that money in 1981.
I usually fire off one of these. Well worth a fiver. smile

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/v888-re...

uk66fastback

16,457 posts

270 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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Not much MOT history on it which probably means it was on a private plate ... a few advisories on the last one (four years ago) but nothing to worry about really ...

Great project!

Hi

Original Poster:

1,362 posts

177 months

Friday 26th May 2017
quotequote all
uk66fastback said:
Not much MOT history on it which probably means it was on a private plate ... a few advisories on the last one (four years ago) but nothing to worry about really ...

Great project!
Yes it's plate was something like 1HBW - worth more than the car, hence the car came to me without numberplates as it had apparently only been transferred off at the last mot (since which it has been sat).

Harveybw1984

128 posts

93 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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Topic is being "watched"!.....I'm happily settled in to see this take shape. Great find, well done.

only1ian

684 posts

193 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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I got my wife to be on board buying a year 2000 convertible Jaguar XKR as our wedding and honeymoon car. Bought unseen of eBay for £5400. Spent £2000 making it perfect and sold it for £9500 after a sterling 4 months of rolling project usage!

You certainly have bigger balls than me but the basic plan is solid! Hire of a similar vehicle for your wedding will off set any costs and you will almost certainly make a profit on it at the end!

Spencely

9 posts

152 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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I swear my Father had a 1981 Spirit identical to that about 20 years ago now! If it's got a badge bar on the front and a scuff on the front left rubber part of the bumper (where I caught the garage door frame with it!) then it might even be the same car! I will dig out a picture of it when it was mint!

Jex

837 posts

127 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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Well played - will look out for updates.

smn159

12,448 posts

216 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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J4CKO said:
Suspect it's worth that or more as parts, but it does look viable, it runs and has minor issues, hopefully that battery box is the only rust.

I love old Rollers, wonder who lashed all that money in 1981.
Lets hope that it wasn't Jimmy Savile

hehe

CDP

7,454 posts

253 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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smn159 said:
J4CKO said:
Suspect it's worth that or more as parts, but it does look viable, it runs and has minor issues, hopefully that battery box is the only rust.

I love old Rollers, wonder who lashed all that money in 1981.
Lets hope that it wasn't Jimmy Savile

hehe
He had a converted Range Rover, described in some detail here...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2086103/Ho...

Wiccan of Darkness

1,838 posts

82 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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M3333 said:
Wow, i was expecting to have a laugh at your misfortune but that looks really honest, complete and in tidy condition, well done and good luck with it thumbup

This one however, get some beer before embarking on this thread!

http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/130482/roll...
I'm reading this thread now. Dear God, I'm halfway through and all I can say is fk me, this guy has no idea what he's doing, I can't tell if all the support from the others in the thread is genuine or whether they're egging on a useless clown. I mean, when it went outside the damn wheels didn't fit in the wheel arches. I've got no clue myself on restoration of old cars but even I know that you can't replace an entire panel with bits of smaller panels welded together. I only know that because someone did that to their own car and it fell to bits on the M50.

It's insane, are people really this naive?

  • edit* Just come to the end of the retro rides thread, noted the thread started in may 2012 and it's now may 2017. If that guy isn't careful, some of the new plates will start rusting. No update since october, I'm wondering if he's seen sense and shot himself? Left the car to his worst enemy in his will with the explicit instruction to complete the restoration...
Edited by Wiccan of Darkness on Friday 26th May 19:53

2 GKC

1,884 posts

104 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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Lot of comments on here about the size of OPs balls. He's only spent a deuce and a half on it and I'm fairly sure he can afford to lose it should the worst happen.
I love these cars, truly magnificent. But it needs garaging, and most garages need extending to accommodate one.
I went round the Crewe factory when they were making these, the craftsmanship on the leather and wood is just fantastic

edo

16,699 posts

264 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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balls of steel! In for the updates.

At 2500 you cant really go wrong, its worth more for the major working parts.

stuttgartmetal

8,108 posts

215 months

Friday 26th May 2017
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"Ramming speed!"

dinkel

26,887 posts

257 months

Saturday 27th May 2017
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Mate has a 6.3 for sale: took a while and quite some money to get to perfection.

Good luck with the project sir.

rtz62

3,340 posts

154 months

Saturday 27th May 2017
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BlueHave][quote said:
British craftsmanship at it's finest laugh
Crewes attempt at using the Lotus approach; "add lightness"....

Hugh Jarse

3,486 posts

204 months

Saturday 27th May 2017
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rtz62 said:
BlueHave said:

British craftsmanship at it's finest laugh
Crewes attempt at using the Lotus approach; "add lightness"....
Its a bit harsh to moan about that, very specific to battery acid due to a leak.
Rotten sills maybe you can gripe about, but still its 30+ years old.

ScoobyChris

1,667 posts

201 months

Saturday 27th May 2017
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Hi said:
Yes it's plate was something like 1HBW - worth more than the car, hence the car came to me without numberplates as it had apparently only been transferred off at the last mot (since which it has been sat).
1 HBP biggrin

https://cazana.com/uk/car/ULA933W

Chris

405dogvan

5,326 posts

264 months

Saturday 27th May 2017
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Hugh Jarse said:
rtz62 said:
BlueHave said:

British craftsmanship at it's finest laugh
Crewes attempt at using the Lotus approach; "add lightness"....
Its a bit harsh to moan about that, very specific to battery acid due to a leak.
Rotten sills maybe you can gripe about, but still its 30+ years old.
Do you see that hole in the middle - the bit with no metal at-all in it? That's what's left of 98% of vehicles made around the time this was - and probably half those made since...

Rolls of that era are WAY better made than people give them credit for - they were designed for people who used them little and kept them long - there are probably 'first owner' cars from this era still on-the-road!

Only thing really wrong with this is that it's recent owners gave-up on it - that only happens because values fall to the point repairs are 'money down the drain' but Rolls values have spiked a bit and seem to be continuing upwards (James May famously said when he sold his Rolls it was the ONLY car he'd sold for more than he paid for it - ever!!)

Hi

Original Poster:

1,362 posts

177 months

Saturday 27th May 2017
quotequote all
Another little update, I managed to blag a couple of hours car time today, but off for a family BBQ now!

Thanks for finding the old reg Chris smile

The battery tray did actually have two 4" diameter holes in the battery tray as standard, I am not sure why, but you can see where they both were.

Anyway, I set about removing the carpet from the remainder of the 'sunken' boot partition. The carpet was a bit fragile and starting to go rotten, the underlay was a bit wet. Thankfully I have generic replacements for both in the shed when it comes to putting it back together.
P1010573 by Hi, on Flickr

A close up of the affected area:
P1010574 by Hi, on Flickr

From underneath:
P1010576 by Hi, on Flickr


The rot was very much confined to what you can see, the only place it went further then expected was on the bottom left seam in this picture, meaning I had to cut out the central reinforcing section. I don't have a bead roller so I will have to come up with another solution to reinforce the new panel.
P1010579 by Hi, on Flickr

A fair bit of metal removed:
P1010580 by Hi, on Flickr

I then set about removing the lip, there was a fair bit of rust between the two layers of metal:
P1010581 by Hi, on Flickr

I was very pleased to see it clean up so well and leave lots of shiny metal! There's still some cleaning up to do and a little more cutting out required.
P1010582 by Hi, on Flickr


Annoyingly I might not get much done tomorrow, despite having time, as I have run out of cutting discs for my angle grinder and the sheet metal I have in the shed has probably been there a bit too long and is past it's best, so I need a new sheet of that too! Bummer!

Ah well, next week should be more fruitful.

Edited by Hi on Saturday 27th May 17:48


Edited by Hi on Tuesday 14th November 20:28