1953 Rover P4 75
October 2024 - Body repaint
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The body was in very good condition with a neat patina that I initially thought I would preserve, but later decided that this P4 deserved to be restored back to its original glory. I did some body work to address a few dents and scrapes, and then repainted the car as close as possible to its original factory Ivory color using a 2008 Toyota 4U0 paint color code. Since the original primer and paint was still largely intact, I opted to sand it down and seal with a PPG Epoxy Primer followed by a 2K primer surfacer that was then sanded smooth, and finally top coated with 4 coats of single stage urethane in the Ivory color. Rather than go through the tedious process of disassembling the body like I did on the first P4 and having learned the lesson of how difficult it is to reassemble accurately and aligning the body parts and trim pieces, I opted to leave this P4 alone and use a lot of masking tape carefully around the trim and gaps to limit overspray in the gaps between panels and doors. The repaint turned out very well and the quality difference is indistinguishable to the first P4. The following video illustrates the entire restoration process.
After repainting was completed, all new weatherstripping was installed on the doors. The door sill rubbers were in good original condition and were left alone. The trunk/boot rubber was still in good condition although a little dry, I opted to leave this alone because the new reproduction rubber was difficult to install and caused the trunk door to not close flush to the body on the first P4.