Anglia105E

Oh I see, Jose . . . " Milk, Eggs, Avocado " . . . Yes, I made the sketch drawing on a shopping list note paper ! David

The interior dashboard mirror has turned out reasonably well, keeping in mind that I needed to avoid using super glue. I placed a small piece of double sided tape onto the back of the mirror and then positioned the metal stalk in the centre. A small piece of orange tape was then placed on top of the stalk and pressed down onto the double sided tape . . . Both sides of the styrene mirror have now been chromed, and the stalk fits into the hole on top of the dashboard. Moving on to the auto shifter that mounts onto the steering column, I found a part that is roughly the same shape. This is a piece that I cut off one end of a propshaft from a Monogram 1931 Rolls-Royce Phaeton . . . Then, a short length of metal paper clip was used for the auto shift lever. Some random spare part was placed in front of the dashboard with the steering column passing through a hole in the plastic part. I applied some black permanent marker to the red plastic part and PVA glued the assembly in place . . . David

41 years . . . That is a long stretch. I was self-employed as a technical support engineer from 2004 until I retired in 2018, and I shall be 72 years of age 4 days from now . . . David

Interesting that you started out by working at a Chevrolet dealership, as my first job when I finished school was Motor Vehicle Partsman for a Ford dealership. This was in 1970, and to begin with I was working within the truck side of the business, before moving over to the car side at the workshop counter and also the retail front counter. Following a motor vehicle apprenticeship and a short time working as a motor mechanic for a small garage, I went on to work in the parts department for a large dealership that sold Jaguar, Rover, Triumph and Land Rover vehicles . . . I ended up in later years driving long distance trucks up to 7.5 ton gross, and then settled into computer mainframes leading to technical support for PC's as the mainframe computers ended. David

The Bonneville and the Parisienne were true classics I think . . . Very much an " aircraft carrier " . . . My Parisienne was registration number FCK 33 and finished in pale yellow, with a brown vinyl roof. 5.3 litre ( 323 cubic inches ) V8 engine.

Oh yes, I really enjoyed driving that car . . . Just under 18 feet in length ( 215.6 inches ). Trouble was, I only got 12 miles per gallon of petrol. I think it might have been P R N D 2 1 . . . This was 49 years ago ! David

Back in 1977, I had a 1968 Pontiac Parisienne but I can't remember the auto shifter positions. The car was RHD from Canada and was a 4-door version. David

Jose . . . I noticed there was only N ,4 , 3 , 2 and R positions on the auto selector, so I did some research and it turns out there was no true ' Park ' on the GM Hydramatic auto transmission. Apparently, when the engine was stopped, the gear selector is moved to the ' Reverse ' position which is effectively in ' Park '. From 1953 to 1978, British automaker Rolls-Royce manufactured its own versions of the General Motors Hydra-Matic transmission for use in Rolls-Royce and Bentley luxury cars . . . I don't know if the GM auto transmissions manufactured in the United States had a ' Park ' position, but the auto boxes produced by Rolls-Royce were heavily modified versions of the US ones, under license. My research information applies to the Silver Cloud I, II and III models specifically . . . David

The interior dashboard mirror and stalk are being prepared to mount on top of the dashboard in the centre, where I have drilled a hole at an angle. This mirror needs to be chromed on both sides and it is made from a short length of metal paper clip which is glued to a small piece of sheet styrene . . . Having removed the masking tape from around the windshield, I can see that there is some bleeding of the chrome along the top edge. I am in the process of tidying up this excess chrome, and the two front air intakes have been chromed. These are being improved also, where the liquid chrome has run into the intakes. At the rear of the driver's side door strips there was a small amount of excess chrome that I have removed successfully . . . Some marks on the passenger side front wing were removed by further polishing, but in doing so, I caused the sill molding to fall off. This is now glued back in position . . . None of this is particularly interesting work, with most of it being cleaning up or correcting errors. Progress remains rather slow. To the right of the steering column and behind the steering wheel, there needs to be a stalk and triangular shaped box for the automatic gear selector. This will be quite a tricky part to make, but I am hoping to find the best way of doing this ( see last photo of the following series ). David

Thanks Mark, and as I half expected, there is some slight bleeding of the chrome along the top edge of the windshield. The masking tape has been removed at 24 hours, and I shall post some photos later today . . . The small amount of excess chrome should be cleaned up with a cocktail stick tip and polish (toothpaste). David

Some nice work there on the roll cage, gauges and seat mods Mark . . . You sure are putting in plenty of scratch building and improvisation as you go along with this build. The car and the story that goes with it does make an interesting project . . . David W.

Now that the clear screen has set overnight, I prepared to apply the Liquid Chrome . . . Rather than attempt to use the silver Sharpie which has a 1 mm tip that is too large for this job, I chose to use a CD marker that has a thin tip. By dipping the tip into a pool of Liquid Chrome I was able to apply the chrome precisely. I used some blue masking tape and the orange fine line tape to protect the area of the bodywork around the windshield molding and wipers. First of all the molding around the windshield was chromed, followed by the wiper arms and blades. I managed to avoid getting any chrome on the clear screen, and the thought then crossed my mind that the obvious thing to have done would have been to apply the chrome BEFORE the screen was glued in place. Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course . . . Once the wipers were done, and not wanting to waste the pool of liquid chrome, I applied some chrome to the boot lid handle, and also the door strips on the passenger side of the body. This will be allowed to dry for 24 hours before I examine the overall result . . . David

Having decided upon a method of putting together the windshield for this car, I am not yet certain this will be successful . . . The plan is to fit the clear screen to the inside of the body opening, and then to mask off the area surrounding the opening on the outside, which will allow me to apply liquid chrome using the silver Sharpie tip. The chrome will be applied to the windshield molding that is already molded into the body, so to begin with I am not attempting to add the half round styrene molding . . . Once this has been done I shall be able to see if the screen looks right, and if I am not completely happy with the result, then I can modify the approach as required. So far, the clear screen has been glued in place using Crystal Clear glue and this can be allowed to set overnight. David

Even if I build two Silver Cloud models each year, there are enough engines here to keep me going for the next 6 years ! David

The Shapeways service used to be really good, and I had quite a few pieces shipped from the Netherlands and delivered by UPS at a very reasonable cost. Then they shut down their business, and after a couple of years reopened the business but in a totally different format. You cannot place an order for specific pieces any longer, which is a real shame . . . I did assemble my own 3D printer from parts supplied by an Ebay seller in China and somehow it actually worked well. Two years later the 3D printer exploded in my loft room and I haven't done any 3D printing since. The Rolls-Royce engine that I designed in FreeCAD at 1:24 scale was printed by Shapeways before they closed, but I only had two engines printed. Recently, a fellow member on MCM Forums has kindly printed some more engines for me in black resin which are really nice. The Shapeways printed engines are a white material that is not resin . . . I did manage to mold and cast one engine in resin, but I don't do molding and casting now because of the high risk chemicals. Three photos below of black resin 3D printed engines . . . David