1986 Rover SD1 3500SE Police Car

Another fiddly and irritating job that i have been putting off was to fit a reclining mechanism to the drivers seat. For some reason it had been removed, as had the adjustable lumbar support bar. I was contemplating giving the job to a professional trimmer but instead i bought some Hog Ring Pliers. This has now become one of my favourite tools. So simple and yet so effective. It crushes loops of steel wire around fabric trim, which is how the majority of the sd1 seat covers are fastened.

This is the driver's seat. Hard to see in the photo, but the recline mechanism on the left side (right side in photo) is missing. Also missing was the rear seat cover, which is a shame as finding one in the correct brown will be next to impossible. Strangely on this seat the original rear cover was a sheet of textured card, a bit like the door cards. Most sd1' have the card covered with matching fabric.



I thought i would start my foray into trimming by replacing the faded headrest cover with a slightly less faded one. I didnt actually need the hog ring pliers for this, its held to the base with staple gun staples.

Before



During



After



Then it was onto the seat itself. Here you can see mine and the donor seat together. I had to do quite a lot of stripping to get to the parts i wanted. It took about 1 1/2 hours but i got it done eventually. Very fiddly and lots of head scratching and scraped knuckles.



This is the bit i was after, proper burried in there.



The cat came by to inspect my work, got bored and wandered off again.



This is the hog ring pliers and rings. Plenty got used!



Then i fitted a new rear cover. Colour match is totally curse word, but in a way i quite like it. I guess the Police cars in the field would have had random bits fitted to replace anything that broke. I was watching old re runs of Road Wars or Police Interceptors and a couple of the old Vectras have mis-matched seats, so i think its rather in keeping. Plus when the Police jacket is across the rear, no one will see it.



And the finished seat. Then i fitted it to the car and.....sat in it in a comfortable position for the first time in the owner ship of the car! When i first got it, it was so rotten i never actually sat in it. So this was actually quite a moment. I ever put the seat belt on and did some gear changes and wiggled the steering wheel!



Next on the list was the drivers window winder AGAIN. As i was loading the car at the NEC to come home, i wound the window down and very annoyingly the glass slipped from the runner. I wedged it up for the drive home, but now it was time to fix it properly.

These things are a proper pain in the balls. Not much room, several things to hold and manipulate at the same time, and half of it is done blind. Got it back together and then tried to work out why the winder could go down so low that the bobbins could slide from the tracks. There should be a bend in the quadrant that prevents it from going too far, but on mine this was missing. I didnt have enough access to put a new bend in its, so some lateral thing=king was in order. Now look away as this i admit is a bodge. I put a bolt through the guide. Not pretty but it works very well and now the glass doesnt fall out!

Possibly, and no comment! 🤫

Love the work so far well done

Hi Jim.
I have followed your build from the very early pages, and have just been in awe of your work.
I was lucky enough to meet you at the NEC a couple of months ago.
We walked past your car and as I did so I remember thinking that there cant be two Rover SD1 Police spec cars ( areils and beacons) that looked so good! So we came over and introduced ourselves.
We had a bit of a natter and you showed me and ny companion the folder with all the photos in it.
And you told us to hang around to hear the horns go off at the end of the show.
I have many friends who are older Police officers who remember with great affection the SD1 police car (although mostly with Staffordshire Police). And I intend to show them your thread on my tablet at our next get together.
Just wanted to say a belated hello and to say again what a fantstic job your doing. And i look forward to seeing you and the car when done.
All the best.
Jeff Warren (Trimtechniques)

Heres a video of the horns, its the last pair i tested that actually made it onto the car.

I like the last ones beat a proper NEE-NAR

Look, a guanine White Knight torch for an emergency vehicle. Actually got this from a colleague at work. All i need now is the correct cradle for it. The tryas are apparently very rare, so i might have to make a tray out of steel, paint it black and use that. We shall see.

well it wasn't finished for the resto show...

Or is that the point - cars in the resto show should all be ready for the classic show in November?

Spent about 15 hours on the car last weekend. Was great, not too hot, a bit of a breeze, and the World Cup on radio 5 live.

I thought i would trial fit the exhaust and see if i had enough sections to go together. I had....

1 x pair stainless downpipes for standard manifolds
1 x stainless y-piece for the above
Full Rimmerbros stainless exhaust system with tubular manifolds, link pipes, big bore y-piece
Large bore swan neck tail pipe
Full pattern part v8 exhaust system with swan neck tail pipe

I wasnt sure if i wanted to keep it all original or fit as much of the performance system as i could. So i played around with it all.

Ended up with the stainless down pipes on standard manifolds, linked to the big bore stainless sports system and the large bore polished stainless swan neck exhaust. Looks fantastic and fits pretty well apart from the nearside down pipe sits a bit low. I migh also have to heat and bend the y piece 'open' a bit more so its not straining the downpipes.









Fitted the under bonnet lights. This took ages as i had to repair some of it, and the wires, and then find all the correct metal clips to hold it to the bonnet. Then fitted the insulation panel.



Also fitted the engine loom, after first repairing a couple of cracked wires like below



Sanded my replacement rad and then painted it black. One of the captive threads for the fan shroud was stripped, so i cut it out and welded in a new one.





Cleaned up the fan shroud, taking care not to destroy the Austin Rover sticker!





I did lots more, but just little fiddly things that consume time and yet arnt worth really photographing.