Sills and - oh

[DanielSheard]

Thought I'd make use of the good weather at the weekend to neated up the sills on my P5B. There were a couple of areas I was a bit suspicious of.

Got the wire brush out, and the sills are solid as a rock. Very pleased. the two dodgy areas turned out to be filler lifting - when the sills were fitted filler must have been used to smooth the join between sill and BC post. The metal underneath was fine.

Unfortunately I had a close look at the A post. Just above the hinge there was a suspicious area. I attacked it with a screwdriver, and sure enough, a hole appeared. Removed the trim panel to discover that somebody at Rover thought it was a good idea to stuff the A posts with foam stuff. It was soaked and was the reason for the rusting. Fortunately I seem to have caught it early and the A post is solid except for that one area. Hope it will be repeairable without removing the door.

Just to make my day, I had a poke around the rear inner wing where it joins the D-post. Some dodgy stuff there which will need sorting.

At least the sill was OK. I'll look at the other side tonight.

[Phil Nottingham]

Yes usual problems!

Rover expected their cars to last but not as long as this and the foam pad reduced noise which the first P5's were critised for

[Deleted]

That's an interesting comment, Phil, about longitivity and not one that I have seen raised before.
How long do think a P5b was supposed to last bearing in mind that not many pre BL P5's survive?
I would imagine 15 years would have been a reasonable assumption which would have taken the last car to 1988ish. That seems to be the time I remember when most of the P5 bangers left the roads for good and the sight of an everyday car was quite rare.
I think it is more likely that they simply built a car to a good standard without much regard to obsolecence.If they had wanted the car to last a very long time they would have sorted the rust trap that is the P5 shell!

[Deleted]

Sadly virtually all British cars of the 70's and 80's were appalling rust boxes with short life expectancies.
It's true to say that most continental ones were as well., and many japanese. None of the manufacturers seemed to pay any attention to the bad rust spots on cars, like the sills. Even cars that have survived with very low mileages are still rotting away. Land and range rovers with aluminium bodies survived very well, but underneath the chassis rust was dreadful. Such a shame. I agree that 15 years was an optimistic life span which would also take a car with average annual mileage up to 150K.