Sherwood Motors, 1957

The car dealership in the foreground at 1:20 in this film, Sherwood Motors, is where my 1956 Rover P4 90 was first purchased new in January 1957. This was filmed by CBC in Vancouver in 1957. My car is still badged with Sherwood Motors, and I have the original purchase invoice.
Amazingly, the purchaser lived in Victoria, BC in a house on Cook St., right next door to where my wife was living as a child at the time. She does not remember the car, and we did not purchase the car until 56 years later, with the history and connections unbeknownst to us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHCEAw0GkCE&feature=youtu.be

Rear seats only please...

I pretty well finalized the rear half of the cabin installation. Just need to clean up some wrinkles and fill in a couple of small gaps.
The front is still awaiting the proper tube for the radio, as I need to have the radio working before I install it, and the installation must precede reinstallation of the dashboard.

It certainly is satisfying to see the rear seats installed.

Before:

 After

Jig saw puzzle

Continuing work on the interior panels... some strange little fittings around the back window... 7 separate little panels around the rear of the back doors. A couple of them needed new hardboard, so I cut a couple of panels using the old panels as templates, though fortunately the vinyl is still in good shape and just needed contact cement to glue them on.
I have come to the further conclusion that the radio may not be repairable... it would be too much trouble to adapt it to fit the replacement tube, which may not make it work anyway. I may end up asking Santa for a Retrosound radio.

More trimmin's

Continued to work on the interior today. A few challenges, but progress made. I managed to refit the hard panels around the headliner above the windscreen and doors. The front one was a bit difficult and had to solicit assistance to hold the panel in place while I screwed in the visor mountings. So far I have used all of the panels from the parts car with just a little bit of cleanup.

I then went to work on the radio, as it must be installed before completing the front dashboard. It turned out that I was sent the wrong tube... it was supposed to be a 12ac5 as marked on the box, but inside was something quite different. I did try to install the 12ac6 tube that I had, it fit, but the radio still does not tune in to stations. I may just give up and buy one of the modern "retrosound" units.

Fit 'n Trim

This morning I sorted and cleaned all of the interior trim pieces. A few of them will need to have the hardboard replaced.
Then I went to work on the headliner onto its frame. All went quite well. I am using the vinyl trim from the parts car. It was not installed quite properly in that car, so I salvaged the little clips from the good car to install the vinyl onto the frame. That should work better.
At the end of the day I was able to install the completed frame back into the good car. Looking good!

The trim pieces assembled in Pat's studio.

Here are the clips that were used for the original felt headliner in the good car. A bit rusty, but they worked fine on the new vinyl.

This is why the headliner had to be replaced!

New headliner installed.

The Furflex is flying

More nice progress today, starting with installing the furflex (door trim) around three of the doors. The trouble is that I ran out after three doors. I guess I was supposed to order 12 metres, not 9 metres! Oh well, UPS needs the business.

The furflex is quite easy to install... there is narrow wood pressboard already installed around the doorways, so it is just a matter of tacking the new stuff in place.
I also installed the radio aerial, as per photo. Just a quick drill job... it took all of 10 minutes.

At the end of the day It spent an hour stripping the upholstery panels and the headliner out of the parts car. It should be quite useable in the good car, but will need some cleaning and refitting, and some of the pressboard that it attaches to will need replacing. I will use the old boards as templates for the new boards... my next project.

Progress!

I have been busy with producing a play for local theatre, so haven't taken a "car day" for a while. I made good progress today, and installing the carpets is the first major step toward envisioning the finished project.
This is also the day that I really went to work on dismantling the parts car, as I had to take out all of the furnishings and door panels. It is lucky that I got onto this, as the door panels had gotten quite wet due to lack of window seals. I think they are quite salvageable.
It was time consuming to remove the old front seat runners due to rust. Indeed I was not able to remove one of them, but I did get it loose enough to retrieve the carpet piece from underneath.
My next car day will be spent cleaning and refurbishing the upholstery as gleaned form the parts car, and then beginning the installation.
I am awaiting shipment of the furflex (round trim around doors) before attacking the headliner.