Chrome on the car was hit or miss. Much of it was in really good shape, but the lights, door handles, and a few other parts were pitted or rusted.


There is a local place here in San Antonio that handles Chroming, and they sub it out to a place in Dallas. Turn around was two weeks, and everything you see in the picture was only about $300. I would rate the quality as OK. The pieces look really good, but if you inspect some of them very closely, you can see small signs of a few of the old pits, and some grinding marks.- so they are not like new, or better than new. You kind of get what you pay for with Chroming. There are places like King of Trim that make parts look better than new, but the work costs almost as much as buying a new part and can take a lot of time.
I am building a fun driver that I can enter in local shows, but don't plan on taking to Pebble Beach

 

Pebble Beach requires a truck load of money with that crowd.
Even after spending 10.s of thousands, the competition is stiff and the judges will always find something wrong.

There is a place in my neck of the woods called Victoria plating, they do a great job and people from all over the planet send stuff to them, but they are expensive.
I would guess that those bits in the photo would be around 700 to 800 bucks Can.

Quality is in the eye of the beholder, I bought a used (new old stock ???) left bumper section for my Bentley and the quality was not that great. I guess the technology in the early 50's wasn't that great, but who knows.
Looks OK from a distance or just standing in front of it, but very close inspection reveals tiny flaws and minor pitting.

I have some old Jag hub caps that are in pretty bad shape, one of these days I'll try that spray on chrome and report back here.

 

When I get my car running I'm probably going to start sending parts out too. There's a lot of stuff I won't do myself. So yeah, Chrome... Upholstery... I'd call that progress.

 

Too quiet on this forum the last few days,so here are a few pictures. I have the seat bottom completed, and am working on the seat back. I have been studying the Kriss Motor's progresslog as I do these upholstery projects in particular. It is a great resource for the Mark II community and I have never seen anything quite like it. It is like having a step by step tutorial and I really appreciate it!

Pictures include the seat bottom prep and parts, the completed seat bottom, the seat back in progress, and the pile of materials from the seat back. Pictures don’t capture the smell of the old foam and upholstery- so you are in luck there.

I have started the body work, and have the right front fender prepped with the replacement parts ready to be welded in. Hope to finish this part this weekend.

 

Quiet, yes. Looks like you're lighting a fire. Love it!

 

csbush,
here's what I have on visor pics. I can take some of the visors out of the car and the hardware if you like.

 

Thanks very much for the pictures. I would appreciate pictures of the visors and hardware. They are different from what I thought.

 

Here's the visor pictures I snapped today. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks so much for the detailed pictures. I'll have to keep an eye out for these parts. I wonder if these are unique to the 1960 MK 2 or a carry-over from the MK 1?

 

Your welcome.
Might be carry over. I do not know anything of the mk1's. The car was ~2000 of 4000+. It did have stamped steel upper control arms.
The visors are cool. I'm putting the wood back in, and the visors - not much else.
When you read about jag, they used up everything. If they were out of a screw, down to the hardware they'd go. The aluminum sill plates were held on with three different fasteners.

 

Working on stripping off the paint. I am going to spray it with an epoxy, followed by a high build primer.


The stripping is going well. Doesn't look like the car had ever been repainted. There is the white layer of paint, a light grey primer, and then the red between the primer and bare metal. The chemical stripper really don't take the red off. I assume it is some kind of metal prep or epoxy base?


While I will sand the red smooth, and it is very thin anyway, is there any reason to take it all off? It seems like a good base for the epoxy.


Thoughts from anyone who has worked with this before?

 

Csbush,
Even with glass blasting, sanding with 80, then 180 the red could be seen in the pores of the metal. Reminds me of tinners red my grandpa painted inside the spoutings.

 

On the rotisserie, the red layed hidden in the stamping stretches of the roof.

 

That body shell of yours is a beautiful thing!

 

Still making some slow progress. Half done with the welding and paint stripping on the body. Making progress on the upholstery. I have finished the back seat, and am starting on the front seats.I am motivated by the smell of the old ones stinking up my workspace. I stripped the seat back and repainted the frame.The seat back I bought did not have a center armrest in it, but I also bought one of those off Ebay. Eric’s blog (Kriss Motors) on how he did the upholsteryhas been very helpful. With the seatback now fully finished, I can focus on the front seats.The seats I have did not come with the picnic tables so I was hoping Eric’s blog would help me figure out how to install them. Unfortunately he has different model seats. His seat back is flatter across the top, and has a board on the back.The seats I have are a little more curved on the top, and have a large rubber trampoline like device to provide the spring for the back of the seat. I’ll have to fabricate a metal piece to put across the top of the seat to make it flat enough for the picnic tables. In the meantime, I’ll sand and paint the seat frame to get it ready for the rebuild. I took about 50 pictures to remind me how it all goes together and where all the clips, nails, and hooks go. I have the bottom spring all cleaned and de-rusted, primed and painted, so I am ready to start its re-assembly. Fortunately that part is more like Eric’s so I have a good guide to follow. Here are a few pictures of the back seat, and the front seat dis-assembly.

 

The pieces you have worked look gorgeous! I can't wait to see the whole car assembled

 

Finally got some time to work on the body. I fixed a rust spot that had been hidden by the back window. That leak around the back window an likely other places did some other damage that I discovered today. The back seat pan was worst than I thought, so I am going to have to fabricate some pieces. The spare tire holder is also worse than I thought, so I am just going to cut the whole thing out and replace it since SNG Barratt sells a replacement piece.


Seat pan is pretty bad- the frame pieces underneath are just fine.



I thought it had a few holes I could weld up- nope.



After the patch



Before the repair

 

Usually that much rust in the seat pan would indicate that your leaf spring pockets are gone.
Fortunately this is not the case here.

 

yea- it is not very rusty from driving, it is rusty from sitting and having water seep in. The rockers are very solid, as are the jack points, etc. Just the normal rust behind the wheels, and odd places. Back doors are very rusty, because water got into them too.

 

Glad to see your skills are up to this challenge Chuck. I'm afraid all that cutting and welding would put me off. Hat's of to you!