Rolls-Royce No Chemicals, No Paint, No Harmful Glues

[MarkJ]

Wow, David. That chrome around the windshield looks outstanding. Great job masking the moldings first before coloring the moldings.

[Anglia105E]

1 hour ago, MarkJ said:

Wow, David. That chrome around the windshield looks outstanding. Great job masking the moldings first before coloring the moldings.

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

[Anglia105E]

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

[MarkJ]

David, your sketch for the automatic shifter looks like it should work when you create the actual part from the sketch. All in all, the interior is coming along very nicely.

[Big Messer]

That auto shifter pattern is odd: no park? AFAIK Rolls-Royce used GM transmissions. Did they make changes to the shift pattern?

[Anglia105E]

2 hours ago, Big Messer said:

That auto shifter pattern is odd: no park? AFAIK Rolls-Royce used GM transmissions. Did they make changes to the shift pattern?

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

[Big Messer]

I had a 1958 Pontiac with auto trans and it had the old P N D L R pattern, just to add to the confusion... In 1959 (I think) changed to P R N D L . The old pattern was supposed to help move a car stuck in snow or mud by making shifting from R to L faster. Probably another instance or engineering misfiring...

[Anglia105E]

1 hour ago, Big Messer said:

I had a 1958 Pontiac with auto trans and it had the old P N D L R pattern, just to add to the confusion... In 1959 (I think) changed to P R N D L . The old pattern was supposed to help move a car stuck in snow or mud by making shifting from R to L faster. Probably another instance or engineering misfiring...

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

[Big Messer]

22 minutes ago, Anglia105E said:

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

Had to be either P R N D L or P R N D 2 1. And probably driving such a land yacht was quite the experience...

Edited Saturday at 10:35 PM by Big Messer

[Anglia105E]

8 minutes ago, Big Messer said:

Had to be either P R N D L or P R N D 2 1. And probably driving such a land yacht was quite the experience...

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

[Big Messer]

A friend of mine had a Pontiac Bonneville, roughly from the same era.He called it "The white aircraft carrier"...

[Anglia105E]

8 minutes ago, Big Messer said:

A friend of mine had a Pontiac Bonneville, roughly from the same era.He called it "The white aircraft carrier"...

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.

[MarkJ]

Yes, standard sedans back then including Impalas and Caprices were major aircraft carriers to be driven on the streets. I knew they were hard to drive back then but I just figured that's the way it should be. I started working in a Chevrolet dealership in LaPorte Texas in January of 1972 for $2.50 an hour and thought I was making big bucks back then. Enough to buy a 1968 Corvette convertible with a 427 and 4-speed transmission for $1995.00. That same car in great condition now adays would probably go for a least $30,000.00. Maybe more.

[Anglia105E]

2 hours ago, MarkJ said:

Yes, standard sedans back then including Impalas and Caprices were major aircraft carriers to be driven on the streets. I knew they were hard to drive back then but I just figured that's the way it should be. I started working in a Chevrolet dealership in LaPorte Texas in January of 1972 for $2.50 an hour and thought I was making big bucks back then. Enough to buy a 1968 Corvette convertible with a 427 and 4-speed transmission for $1995.00. That same car in great condition now adays would probably go for a least $30,000.00. Maybe more.

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

[MarkJ]

2 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

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

Looks like you had a much better climb throughout your working years then I did. I slaved with tools for 41 years till finally retiring in 2013. 

[Anglia105E]

32 minutes ago, MarkJ said:

Looks like you had a much better climb throughout your working years then I did. I slaved with tools for 41 years till finally retiring in 2013. 

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

[Anglia105E]

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

[Big Messer]

On 10/10/2025 at 7:26 PM, Anglia105E said:

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

A Rolls-Royce to run an errand to the grocery store?. Didn't know that you are so rich...

[Anglia105E]

18 minutes ago, Big Messer said:

A Rolls-Royce to run an errand to the grocery store?. Didn't know that you are so rich...

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

David