Eclectic Cars - Classic Car Sales and Service
Classic Car Sales and Service
After picking up the front axle from the sand blasters Martin has now started refitting it to the VW side panel van. We are going to rebuild the suspension on the car, then drop it back off to be painted and detailed when Dan is finished with his other jobs!
Our 220 SEB has been getting its paint applied over the past few days at Frankie’s Paint Shop. There is a massive amount of work that has gone into getting the panels prepared to makes sure they were straight as a die before the primer and paint could be applied. The first job is to spray on an etch primer to make sure that the primer and paint that follows has something to bite into. Once this had gone off 4 coats of high build black primer were sprayed onto the car. With the high build coats on the bodywork has a final rub down to make sure that the body is completely smooth before it is painted with a transparent sealer. The finishing touch is to apply the 5 coats of 2 pack top coat (paint code 268). These pictures were taken straight after the car came out of the oven and it already looks amazing. The car will be allowed to sit for 2 days whilst the paint hardens off and before it is rebuilt will get a final nib and polish which will take about a day to complete.
In 1989 Porsche announced that they were going to end production of the 930 3.3 Turbo with a limited edition car. There were just 50 built for the UK market and they were the only G-Platform car to feature a 5 speed gearbox. This particular car has been bought by a friend of ours who lives in the village and over the next few days we will be giving her a thorough service and detail.
We are kicking the week off with some basic servicing and sales preparation on our 356 Roadster.
Apart from needing a jolly good service there is just the usual little bits that need either cleaning up or replacing. These include countless bulbs, brake shoes, a rear wheel bearing, a front king pin and some new bushes.
When these are all done we will have a trip down to the MOT centre and after that it is the open road!
Whilst Frankie is getting on with painting the Mercedes 220 SEB Dan is busy polishing and refurbishing all of the parts that have been removed.
The Chrome on the big Merc is in excellent order so it really just needs a jolly good clean up and polish, but whilst it is off we are also protecting the underside by cleaning off any surface rust, treating the metal and painting it with silver Hammeright. This will help keep it in tip top condition for the next 20 years.
We have had a batch of parts turn up in the post today so with Martin off for his own MOT Jonny is getting on with rebuilding the brakes on the back of the Kadett. The components that are on there must have been relatively new when she went into storage because they are hardly worn, but there is a bit of corrosion on the inside of the drums which needs cleaning off and the shoes and wheel cylinders have perished due to the time they have been in active. He is also replacing the flexible hoses which have become un-flexible over the last 20 years and have cracked!
We have found a great source of parts here in the UK from a company called North West Opel who have been very helpful. You can call Andrew on 07977 950044 for assistance.
Also many thanks to the Kadett forum who have been very helpful with the project.
With Jonny off at college today Martin is cracking on with our newest bit of stock. The 356 has spent a good deal of the last 20 years in a collection and although in very good order we must give it a thorough check over and service to make sure it is up to scratch and won’t let it’s new owner down.
After a long inspection Martin has given me a list of basic service items to buy and whilst we are waiting for these to arrive he can get on with cleaning up the brakes. When he has finished that we will get Dan to clean and detail the underside of the car before Martin cracks on with the service work.
Over the past 48 hours Martin and Jonny have been busy undertaking a 5 Speed Getrag Gearbox conversion on this 3.8 FHC Jaguar E-Type. Now, this is by no means a quick or easy job as it means removing the front clam shell, removing the engine and gearbox which you then need to split, removing the prop shaft, fitting the new gearbox (by modifying the bell housing) and then bolting the whole lot back together. Before we got started we thought it might be a good idea to take a selection of photographs for reference, and marking up all of the wires and tubes before dismantling the car.
Removing the clam shell, is in itself, a pretty easy job, and takes just a few bolts, but it is jolly heavy and dropping it would be a very expensive mistake, so four people held the clam shell in place whilst the boys undid the bolts taking car to note which shims came from which mounting brackets. With the bonnet safely stored in the parts department out of the way we could then get on with the rest of the strip.
To remove the engine the majority of the ancillaries, exhausts, pipes and wires need to be disconnected and removed. We elected to drop the engine out of the bottom of the car onto two strong pallets and leave it in the middle of the workshop, so when it came to putting it back in the engine would be in exactly the right place, saving time and the heavy job of trying to move it! Whilst removing the parts we noticed that a few of the coolant pipes had seen better days and the header tank was holed, so we whipped up to David Manners for some replacement parts.
The Getrag kit was supplied by the very helpful team at MandC Wilkinson. The gearbox is commonly found in a BMW E30 and is a remanufactured unit. It seems to us that you save a whole lot of time and effort by buying the kit from them as the prop shaft needs to be modified and a new gearbox cradle fitted to the transmission tunnel of the car. Unfortunately the wrong gearbox mount ended up in the kit, but M&C quickly got the correct part dispatched to us. the other advantage of doing it this way is that you have all the original components, unmodified, should anyone wish to put the old Moss gearbox back in at a later date.
Whilst the new gearbox was being fitted to the engine, Dan got to work with the wire brush, cleaning up the suspension arms, painting the block, radiator and other under bonnet furniture that was starting to get a bit of surface corrosion as there seemed little point in putting it all back together looking scruffy. He can then give the engine bay a final detail when we have finished the job. We also noticed that the transmission tunnel was flaky, so it was degreased, rubbed down and coated in a light covering of schaultz to protect it for the future.
Fitting the gearbox was a reasonably straight forward job with just the holes in the bell housing requiring making a little bigger for it to all fit together. With this done it was time to offer the engine back up to the body and bolt it back in place
With the engine and gearbox back in the body it was time to start bolting everything back together. Unfortunatly the inlet manifold gasket turned out to be incorrect which meant we couldn’t finish it today, but one will be with us in the morning so the final fitment of the carbs can be done tomorrow and then we will have to get the clam shell back on! After we have finished the gearbox job, we will be giving the underside of the car a good rub down, clean up and protecting it with body coloured schaultz. She will be back later in the year for a rear differential rebuild so we will leave detailing this area for now as we will need to remove the rear sub frame then and will do a better job when it is all out of the way.
Dan’s first job was to clean up the front suspension and give it a fresh coat of black paint. With the clam shell removed this is a quick job and makes the world of difference to the aesthetics as well as protecting the components for the future
With this done he can crack on with rubbing down the belly pan of the car. With the metal prepared, he sprays on a rust killing primer to make sure that none of the surface corrosion is left untreated or removed. When this has cured we painted the underside with a Forch grey under seal. This very fine product leaves a tough yet smooth finish and is perfect for painting body colour when it has dried out. The secret to a good finish is to put it on in a number of fine coats, building up the protection without loosing any of the features of the belly pan. Thick under seal looks rubbish and makes people wonder what it is hiding!
With the under seal allowed to go off over night it was time to wrap the body in plastic to avoid over spray and then the top coat can be applied bringing it back to body colour. The final coat is done off the ramp with axle stands under the sub frames so no area is missed before the whole underside is lacquered. The finishing detail is to polish the exhaust before it is replaced.
The Jaguar has been finished today and we have been out for a short test drive. Wow, what a difference. In all we clocked 30 hours on the project including preparing and painting the underside of the car. That’s not bad for disassembling the whole drive train and most of the interior of the car and then putting it all back together! Whilst it is not a job you could tackle at home it certainly is not a difficult job, just one that needs the right tools and a bit of forethought so the car goes back together quickly and correctly. We are delighted by the way she drives now and the gear change is now rifle-bolt accurate. We will take a short video of the car when the weather cheers up towards the end of the week.
Over the past few weeks Dan has been working on this cracking 205 GTI 1.9. Between Christmas and new year we undertook a large service on the car replacing brakes, pipes, suspension rubbers as well as giving her a full cam-belt service and fluids change. With mechanical side taken care of she was dispatched to our body shop for a small amount of cosmetic paintwork below the rubbing strip to get rid of some small rust blisters forming around the edges of the arches and stone chipping that would, in time cause some issues.
With the car back from the paint shop, mechanically on the button we then turned our attention to a selection of pin dents that peppered the flanks and bonnet of the car. We use a local cold dent removal company who take their time to make sure that each dent is pushed out and the paint is not cracked or broken.
Once all of this was complete the car was handed over to our detailer, Dan who got to work on the underside of the car, the paintwork and the interior trim.
You very rarely see the underside of a car and few people see the value in cleaning it up but this is one area that you really should not ignore. Over the years road salt and grime build up around your subframes, suspension components and up underneath the plastic trims and skirts and start eating away at your car away from your eyes. The first you know about it is a red slip at MOT time and a big bill for welding up the holes! This car had survived very well and there was no major damage, just surface rust over the suspension and subframes and flaky under seal down the central belt of the car. The first job is to clean all the grime away with degreaser and wire brush all of the components to remove the surface rust and damaged under seal.
With this done we pain on a rust retardant to protect the metal and then paint the underside with a factory spec under seal from Forche taking care to blend it from black in the centre of the car through to body colour at the sills and into the arches. The same product can be used on the suspension components as it gives a very light and strong coating that will protect them for the future. With this done clear Wax-Oyl is pumped into the sills via the inspection holes and lightly sprayed over the underside providing an extra protective layer. As you can see from the photographs the underside does not need to look ugly and like it has been coated with a heavy tar. This is usually carried out to disguise bad welding or botched repairs rather than protect for the future!
Like the underside of the car engine bays quite often get forgotten. Cleaning them up is a dirty business and nobody is going to comment on it when it is parked in the pub carpark, but a clean engine bay makes spotting future leaks easy and does make the right impression when you pop the bonnet for admirers who want to take a closer look.
You often see valeters blasting engine bays with chemicals and a jet wash, but in the wrong hands it is easy to do more harm than good this way. Quite apart from the chance of getting water in your electrics you also run the risk of removing some or all of the ‘good’ grease around your suspension components and steering rack. These dry out and then wear prematurely. Our preferred way of cleaning is with degreaser, a cloth and some good old fashioned elbow grease! Once the engine bay is clean the plastics are dressed these products do good in more than one way as they provide a water repelling coating, keeps belts and hoses supple and helps maintain that deep black silicon shine on the trims. You could obviously go further on a car of this age and remove and refinish some of the mechanical components, but that is for another day!
Whilst the car was up on the ramps having the underside worked on all five wheels were sent to Pristine to be diamond cut and repainted bringing them back to their factory condition. The paintwork and exterior trim and glass were then treated to a full detail claying the paint back to make sure all the fall out from 20 years of motoring was removed before being machine polished and finished with two coats of Autoglym HD Wax. The tyres and plastics were then dressed and the glass polished.
The interior was in pretty good shape given that it has had twenty years of work under its belt and needed a deep clean and the leather treating with a coloured balm. This seeps into the leather helping to fill the gaps and make it supply once again. Whilst we were at it we removed the drivers seat and re-padded the side bolsters which had disintegrated over the years. Once it was cleaned and the materials had dried out the plastics were dressed with a non-silicon dressing to bring back their luster without leaving behind a slippery film over the inside of the car. It is really important that you make sure the interior is totally dry otherwise you will promote mould and all your hard work will be for nothing!
We have chanced upon two little gems today. A 7500 mile from new Fiat 126 and a 10,000 mile from new Audi 80 LS. Which is in simply stunning condition and original down to the supplying dealer tax disc!
These will be joined later in the week by a brace of Porsche 356 Super 90′s. One coupe and one convertible. We will update you all as they arrive.
