[skip_rat]

Great work on that folding rear seat conversion. I had been wondering if it was possible since I bought the 416. Now I need to find a set of beige cloth folding rear seats.

[gbs100]

Great just send me your address and contact details. I can pick them up next week.

[Vulgalour]

PM incoming.

---

Decided to have a fettle with the wooden interior trim and see if I could do something about it being so faded and yellow. The original lacquer had gone very cloudy, especially compared to other R8s I've seen over the years, seemingly because this one has lived outside its entire life. Usually, lacquer either flakes off in big chunks making it really easy to deal with, or responds well to being chemically or abrasively stripped. Whatever Rover/Honda used on these, however, was impervious to everything but 80grit paper in a power sander. I employed a technique I've used before where you get a chisel-bladed craft knife and gently ease it under a damaged edge of the old lacquer and sort of slow-wiggle it up. Wear eye protection, the small pieces have a habit of firing off at great speed, usually straight for your eyes.

You can see here just how cloudy and yellow the original lacquer had gone. This is the dash insert and is easily the most faded and yellow of all the pieces on the car. There wasn't much sanding required because the lacquer had gone quite brittle so it all came off in this way.

20180902-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

I had tried a few methods to remove the old lacquer including a bench mounted wire wheel (no really! Don't do this, it's too easy to man bits it up), and a polydisc in a grinder that I then clamped into the vice (this works well, but don't do this, it's too dangerous and too easy to take too much material off without realising it). Eventually, I settled on a combination of 80grit paper in a mouse type sander, a hand-sanding block, and the craft knife technique above. Chemical paint strippers, thinner, and various potions wouldn't even touch whatever it is. Mike and I wondered if it's some sort of epoxy resin rather than a more traditional varnish, especially with how sweet and plasticy it smells when you sand it (wear lung protection when sanding, kids).

Anyway, with a couple of pieces now back to bare veneer, I hit them with a coat of acrylic varnish. I've used ordinary automotive acrylic varnish before for wooden handles and bits of wood that are exposed to a lot of sunlight and not had a problem before with bleaching or cracking so it seemed a sensible option here. Things like beeswax or Danish Oil aren't really suitable since I want a very low maintenance finish and the satin varnish I've got is going to be the wrong finish for the style of the interior. There is, unfortunately, some bleaching of the wood for the dash top piece, there's not a great deal I can do about this so I'm just accepting it as part of the car's ever growing character.

20180902-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

I would have liked to do more today but stripping off the old finish is incredibly time consuming and applying the new varnish requires drying/cure times between each coat since it needs sanding between each coat to get the finish I want. I did get far enough that I could compare a few pieces together and I have to say I'm quite surprised at how good the trims look. There's no stain or dye employed here, I'm just taking off an old yellowed finish and applying fresh clear finish which brings out the colour and pattern of the wood amazingly well. I genuinely expected it to all look bleached, but smart, not this nice, interesting dark wood I've ended up with instead.

20180902-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

20180902-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

I'm planning to apply a total of 4-6 coats of varnish to get the finish I want. It should be another job that ends up looking like I haven't done anything but that also improves the look of the interior considerably.

[Vulgalour]

Rather than doing more woodwork, I've been dealing with other stuff in my mission to get the decks cleared. That meant stripping the useful bits off the spare doors so someone else can make use of them. I wanted the glass most of all to replace the few scratched ones on the car. These are slightly awkward to do because you have to unbolt them from the window mechanisms which is much easier when you can actually operate them, which when they're not connected to any power is quite difficult. I cheated by unbolting the mechs, dropping them into the doors and then unbolting the glass that way. The rear door glass needs a window guide to be unbolted and the rubber seals to be pulled out before the glass will come out of the door, which is about as annoying as you can imagine. Still, a full set of glass that matches the tint on my car ready to fit when I have the motivation to dismantle my doors and fanny about with this in the future.

20180903-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Then it was a case of salvaging the door seals. Not something I need right now but something that will definitely be more difficult to find in the future. I also salvaged all of the funny little clips that hold them in because they seem to break fairly regularly. I'm guessing these seals are a Honda thing. They don't go in with glue or clip on an edge, instead they squidge into a channel around the window frame and then have these little T clips the go into holes in the seal and push into holes in the door. It's really easy to tear the seal removing them because of these T clips, even when you're using a trim removal tool. It is not a design I like, I much prefer the old style where the seal pushes onto an edge and you use a rubber mallet for tight curves.

20180903-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

20180903-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

20180903-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Then Mike and I squidged some sealant around the broken clips in the A pillar trims since that's easier than trying to source and fit new clips and will do the job just fine. Tape is just there to hold everything until the sealant sets.
20180903-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

That was it today. There's minor jobs to do, nothing that's particularly vital. Plenty of paint to sort out all over the car which I'm leaning more and more towards paying someone else to do piecemeal since you can with this colour scheme. Interior needs the rear arch trims either side of the rear seat fitting, the wood to be reinstalled when I've finished restoring it and eventually the parcel shelf needs redying so it matches the seats properly. There's a couple of popped stitches on the rear bench that needs fixing, a little bolster hole in the driver's seat that could do with being repaired. Mechanically it would benefit from the minor oil leak being fixed and new lower rear engine stay bushes being replaced. Or I could just ignore all of this because it doesn't affect the functionality of the car in any way. We'll see how much spare time I have before the house move as to what gets done.

Here's a random unit car park picture.
20180903-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

[Vulgalour]

MoT ready now on this one. Decided not to address the very minor oil weep on the cam carrier before the MoT, it shouldn't cause an issue but will probably be an advisory. Shakycam employed to illustrate where the leak is here. The K series has the usual sump and headgasket seams, but it also has a cam carrier seam above the head gasket and a top cover/rocker cover seam above that, so Rover maximised the potential for oil leaks with this design as a result. It's weeping from the rear passenger side corner (impossible to photograph without taking parts off), and the front driver's corner has just started to be a little wet, though that could be wicking around from the back.

20180910-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

The other job was to fit the new wiper blades, since I've got a new windscreen, and while I was at it I repainted the wiper arms which were looking very grey previously. There wasn't a lot of paint on the arms and after repainting them and refitting them I found that the driver's side one doesn't catch the bonnet when you open it now. There is definitely some play in the wiper mechanism somewhere, but the play goes away once the wipers have been used for a bit and doesn't stop the wipers working so I'm not faffing about trying to sort that until much later. I suspect it's a worn bush or rivet somewhere in the construction.

20180910-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

So yeah. That's about as exciting as things have got here lately.

[Vulgalour]

Got the woodwork finished off today.

20180911-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Toddled over to the unit in my free time and noticed there were a handful of other small jobs I could do so got them done at the same time. Emptied out the boot, threw some rubbish away that was in there, and then got to grips with the remains of the old spare wheel clamp. It seems all of these are blue, regardless of the colour of the car.

20180911-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

To prevent it seizing and destroying the plastic wheel in the future, I applied lashings of copper grease.

20180911-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Now the spare wheel is secure. This isn't really necessary though, the spare wheel doesn't really move about.

20180911-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Then I just went around and refitted all the wooden trim. It used to look like this.

20150721-14 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

20150721-12 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Now it looks like this.

20180911-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

20180911-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

20180911-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Took the roofrack off now I have the boot emptied out and reinstated the gutter trims that I had put off refitting because I wanted to paint the roof first. Getting the roof painted isn't now going to happen until next year so to reduce wind noise and make sure I don't damage the trims, they're safest fitted to the car. Went back on with minimal fuss.

20180911-08 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

All ready for the MoT tomorrow.

[lemix1924]

Greetings from Athens, Greece! Would you be interested in a boot fllor cardboard, genuine new old stock? part number to confirm, EAS10016

[Vulgalour]

Mine is fine so I'm okay for now, but thank you for taking the time to make a direct offer. If you haven't already, it may be worth putting a post in the Wanted/For Sale section on the forum.

[lemix1924]

Thank you, I will do. As I have more than 25000 lines of parts in stock, if I start posting separately for each one the forum will collapse I suppose!

[Vulgalour]

You may be able to help me if I come unstuck looking for some parts I'll need to get soon. I'm hoping to get them locally, or at least in the UK, since postage Greece I expect won't be cheap on bulky/heavy items.

----

It is an PASS

Rear brakes work but aren't as good as they could be, excercise recommended for them.

Emissions a pass but it was a war getting there. Looks like the new catalytic converter I bought after I failed emissions last year isn't doing as good a job as it should, and is apparently a bit of a rubbish part anyway which I didn't know when I bought it.

Front shocks to replace. One front shock looks like it started to leak at, or on the way to, the MoT, which is a bit disappointing. Probably a result of the car being stood around doing nothing for so long.

Still, it's a pass. I'll take that. The jobs to do aren't massive and shouldn't be hideously expensive, they're just annoying.

In other news, since replacing the door seal and fitting the new interior wind noise is reduced, except for the new top seal/trim on the windscreen which seems to cause quite a bit more wind noise than the old knackered one. The seats were very comfortable for the 80 miles I did today. The 50mph dashboard buzz is gone, don't know why and I'm not complaining. Driver's door jingle is muted now, still there, but muted. Car is no longer an absolute dronefest at speeds above 60mph and 70mph can be done without the insistent drone which is a big improvement, though I've no idea what I've done to make that happen.