Rover SD1, The Small Details.

With the car polished, I can finally reinstall the missing trim.

Since I purchased the car its been missing the LH chrome headlamp garnish. It’s a small thing, but it’s bothered me. The car came with the trim, but the clips were broken and had been mostly painted over at some point.

When I polished the car the other day I also levelled the excess paint from where the clips were, using some sandpaper and a razor. This allows the new clips to fit correctly, as previously they wouldn’t sit flush.

I started with a bundle of new clips from Rimmers

And a bonnet with holes in it

The way the trim attaches is actually somewhat over complicated, but works well. The small clips fit into the holes via an expanding stud (which expands when a pin in the centre is pushed through), and the clips have sprung edges that clip into the metal trim, to hold it on.

And like magic, we have trim!

I still want to re-add chrome to the strip under the edge of the bonnet, but that’s a mission for another day (gosh I want some fog lamps too 😥 ).

In the meantime I also added a couple of other small things I purchased from Rimmers.

A new dash light adjustment knob. The old one was cracked.

And I got some spare glovebox stud things. These are used to attach the straps that limit how far the glovebox opens, and they tend to break if you’re a bit rough on the glovebox. The driver’s side one is also missing a strap completely, so I will need to sort that. The remaining one had a broken tab and didn’t stay in place.

I’m slowly getting there.