Well, almost three years (and a job change and a wedding) later, and my pet project finally has some real traction again! You thought I abandoned this project, didn't you?

One of the primary difficulties was trying to work on a car stored 20km from one's home. Well, we bit the bullet, and made it fit in the one garage. Don't underestimate the difficulty in trying to work on such a large car in a townhouse complex, where one is not allowed to - say - work on the car outside the garage.

I have installed some decent super-bright lighting in the garage, made a large hanging shelf in the roof to store parts (currently most of the interiour of the car) and we are good to go.

This past week-end, I basically completed the removal of all interiour fittings, including all the side windows, door lock mechanisms, chrome bits, etc. It looks bad, I know... but may I refer you to earlier posts, still showing the plushly-fitted, complete car :-) We're going to make her like new again.

It is just such a relief to be able to step outside the house and spend a few moments tinkering with this lovely old machine. You know, when the effort to get there to start working on it outweighs the effort of actually working on it, the fun is rather spoiled. But no longer!

I also spend a lot of time studying old mechanical repair manuals (Chilton's, etc) to prepare myself for the uncharted territory that awaits next - the removal of the drivetrain and the engine...

The Long Lost Update

It struck me today how unreliable I have been in updating this blog! How is the restoration progressing, you ask? Slowly, but surely... At least there isn't a month that goes by in which some decisive restoration event doesn't occur.

Wood:

The preparation is complete (every single last piece), and I have also acquired the tools (compressor, spraygun and related equipment, as well as the necessary paint and chemicals) to complete the job - that deserves a post on its own.

Leather:

All the seats have been removed, and J has completely (and carefully) stripped all the upholstery from the leather, and the leather from the seats. 95% of the leather is salvageable (and in remarkably good condition) but one or two panels will have to be replaced - with a similar type and exact colour. I suspect she has a rather long task ahead of her!

The seats of this car is upholstered using natural fibre (from South America, I believe) and the springs in them would make for a wonderfully sturdy mattress. A nice find inside the seat was a card from the upholsterer, indicating the date and place of upholstery.

Interiour Disassembly

Most of the doors have been disassembled: Looking at the before- and after-image of the left rear door, it is hard to imagine the hours of effort required to removed (without damaging) the many rubbers, window glass, window frames, opening and locking mechanisms, etc. Here again can be soon the remarkable completeness of this car, right down to the little plastic covers which keep dust and moisture out.

All seats and carpeting have also been removed (not visible in the earlier image above) leaving a rather empty shell. The carpeting in this car is thicker and softer than any short-hair carpet I have even seen (even in a house) but sadly, has been ruined by water (the carpet appears to also contain a lot of natural fibre). I shall have to shop around for a replacement, and cut it to size. I am a bit concerned at getting the curvature (over the transmission tunnel, etc) right for a carpet this thick.

Next steps:

• Start finishing the wood (staining, coating, repeated wet-sanding and polishing)
• Rip the old and brittle stitching from all the leather, find replacement panels for the one or two damaged ones, and start stitching it all up again - by hand, mind you, as a machine will effectively cut through the existing stitching holes, destroying the panels.
• Remove all exterior trimmings and chrome, and send the car to a panel shop to perform minor repairs and replacement of rusted panels

Time will be very pressing, as the intended first purpose of this car is to serve as wedding coach to the hard-working couple restoring it :-)

Project Relocation and further ramblings

Well, the donor car has finally been relocated closer to me (to the business premises, in fact) so I expect to be able to spend a lot more time on it. The interior is already mostly dis-assembled, but I have been eager to get cracking on the seats.

This is such a remarkably complete car, even the insides of the doors still contain every last plastic dust cover , the thin ones stuck over the holes to reduce dust and noise. The boot (trunk) contains all the original lining and carpeting material. The list goes on and on...

The task at hand is now to completely disassemble (to the ground - or, rather, to carefully- labeled, photo-referenced boxes) this well aged machine. I just know that it will be a lot easier than putting it back together again. But what a pleasure!

For the first time, I have been able to do a fairly thorough bodywork inspection, both for rust, and general condition / straighness. Apart from a small dent or two, everything lines up perfectly! This is great - because don't you just hate that "wavy" look of a poorly panelbeaten restored car?

Becker Europa TG (Photographed)

The restoration effort is at gaining some well-deserved momentum early in the new year, with the donor car being towed to me (for further disassembly) soon. As promised in the previous post, here is what the Becker Europa TG looks like - a real beauty, no?

This is by far the largest and heaviest car radio I have ever seen, but then again - this is also the only car radio from the late 1950s and earlier that I have seen. I can't wait to rig it up and see if it works (as advertised).

Radio: Becker Europa TG

Though we have truly not had much chance to work on the wood or leather any further (due to work pressures) I have made one significant addition to the project: I have acquired a working Becker Europa TG radio, the model that originally came with the car.

This was a fairly expensive optional extra, and I have never seen one in South Africa with original radio fitted (on the other hand, I almost never see fintails in the first place...). The radio is beautiful, over-the-top retro, and quite feature-rich: Station presets, and support for FM/AM and short-wave. It's a large, heavy (3kg) device, all metal, glass and tubes. Just another part of this car that is so wonderfully different to modern cars.

When the time comes nearer, I will have to find a suitable (original or other) speaker unit to hook up to the radio, and figure out in general how to get it working (RadioMuseum seems to be a useful resource). This radio is nothing like contemporary car radios - there are no friendly colour-coded or shaped plugs or labels on the rear, everything has to be soldered.

I have not taken pictures of the unit yet, will do so (and post them) once available. If anybody has further information regarding the general connection of this device, and a speaker, please give me a shout!

Slow going

We have not had much chance to work on the project over the past couple of weeks, but fear not, hopefully the next weekend will be filled with wood-stripping fun!

Restoring wood trim: Preparation

Though quite experimental at this stage, I have started to prepare the car's wood trim for refinishing. After very carefully disassembling the (many) wooden panels, bits, and pieces from the car, and labeling them, they are now stored in a big box.

Two types of wood trim was used in the interior:

• Solid wood of a very light and fine grain, carefully hand-shaped to fit around the windscreen, all side windows, and on the door panels (twenty pieces in total). This wood has been stained/varnished to have a dark colour.
  
• Thin, triple-layered veneer on the dashboard, glove compartment and ashtray (five pieces in total). This wood already has a dark colour, and simply contains a thick layer of varnish for beauty and protection.

In both cases, the coating is quite extensively cracked, and I want to remove absolutely all coating, to end up with "raw" wood which I can carefully refinish to its original luster. In both cases, it is important not to damage the wood (especially the thin, fragile outer layer of veneer used on the dashboard)

Preparation

I chose a few small pieces to experiment on (a few solid trim pieces, and one thin piece of veneer form the dashboard, under the glove compartment). The aim was to completely remove all coating, readying it for re-coating. I used the following:

• NitroMors paint stripper, claims to be friendly to wood
• Thick latex gloves for protection against said paint stripper
• Breathing mask (ditto)
• Metal pan and brush to apply paint stripper
• Plastic nail brush
• Steel wool
• ScotchBrite scouring pad (rough texture)

You can't perform tedious, noble labour such as this without indulging in some good music, and a 1960s recording of Madame Butterfly was a perfect match :-)



Solid Wood

Using a set of inserts from one of the windows as guinea pig, I applied a liberal coating of paint stripper (one one half only, to leave space for gripping each piece).




As per instructions, after waiting 5 minutes, I applied a second helping ("working" it into the toxic mush) and then leaving it for 20 minutes. After this, one is presented with an ugly sight (bye-bye 45 years of protective coating):



Using the plastic nail brush, I vigorously scrubbed the gunk off,
which easily removed most of the coating. On with the other half...



After this process, I thoroughly scrubbed the wood with steel wool and mineral turpentine, which is supposed to neutralise the paint stripper, and helped remove more of the stubborn coating. In many places, the coating penetrated (discoloured) the wood, so, using fine sandpaper, I sanded the wood until, after an great deal of effort (more then an hour per piece)
I ended up with a beautiful raw piece of wood (in this case, the dashboard radio insert) with a remarkably light colour:



Veneer

In order to ensure that my process does not damage the fine, very thin veneer of the dasboard, I used the small piece below the glove compartment (normally hidden underneath a chrome strip in anyway). Again, I applied NitroMors stripper to half of the piece.



To appreciate just how thin and delicate this veneer is compared to the thick layer of varnish coating, the following picture illustrates a high-magnification side view (and this illustrates how, in some places, the veneer has slightly separated - but not in any important areas). The coating is visible on top of the veneer, and this had to be removed without as much as scratching the veneer - sanding is definitely out.



After 20 minutes, the usual toxic gunk:



After scrubbing with a nail file, a thick rubbery layer of coating still remained - visible on the right (left side already completed for comparison):



This is where the ScotchBrite pad really worked wonders - it enabled me to remove the rubbery coating without any damage to the wood whatsoever, as the coating easily "peals" off - visible on the right (left side already completed for comparison):



Again, I scrubbed the veneer with steel wool and mineral turpentine. As can be see, the raw veneer is now exposed, and looking good (I was afraid the stripper or turpentine would warp, crack or dry it, but there seems to have been no ill effects):



Next Steps

The end result of a days' hard work is the completion of a few wooden pieces (which now appear very raw and dull, but "new"). Assuming the paint stripper leaves no long-term ill effects, the next steps are:

• Bit by bit, complete all the wooden pieces (several months' patient work, I imagine)
• Determine the best process to result in beautiful dark, smooth wood trim encased in a thick layer of transparent coating. I imagine that brush-painting will not make this possible, so I will investigate spraypainting options.