Project plan

Car restoration projects can easily become half-hearted, years-long affairs - some sad hulk of metal sitting in a back yard rusting away. Well not this project! I want to have the bulk of the work done in this year, which means I have about 6 months to accomplish this in. The goal of the project is to end up with an all-original, near-perfect car. The raw material is thus:

• My badly rusted but mechanically excellent 220b, currently registered in my name
  
• The newly acquired "donor car", a badly weatherbeaten but 100% original and complete, practically-rust-free 220Sb, which I legally bought, but for which there are no ownership papers available anywhere (which may turn into a bit of an administrative headache)

The plan is to use the donor car's complete body and chassis, and to completely restore its interior (to do this, I have to figure out how to sort out the ownership papers situation before having to resort to more "creative" methods). Even though this will sentimentally hurt, I will thus only use the mechanical components from my original 220b, and correctly upgrade my excellent engine to 220Sb specification. I think the following will thus be a sensible approach to the project:

1. Completely disassemble the 220Sb, starting with the interior.
2. While starting to work on the wood and leather, get a quote to completely repaint and rust-treat the disassembled body.
3. In the meantime, work week-ends on restoring the wood
4. After the wood is done (after months of sweat and toil), work week-ends restoring the leather
5. Once an acceptable quote is received, completely disassemble the rest of the car (with the help of Attie for the major mechanical components). This should be considerably less fiddly than disassembling the interiour.
6. Send the car for painting
7. While the car is being painted, start disassembling the mechanicals from the 220b, and upgrade the engine to 220Sb spec by transplanting the carburettors and intake manifold.
8. When the car has been painted, assembly minimum required interiour components (i.e. driver's seat, steering wheel, basic electrics and windows) and then focus on the mechanical aspects of the car - suspension, engine and gearbox.
9. Assemble and complete all electrics, lights, heating and ventilation, etc
10. Assemble restored interior

Time will tell whether this is ambitious for a 6-month project, but that is our goal... We are attentive to any suggested plan changes based on past experience.