Our normal workload you can pretty much guarantee we will end up fixing somebody else’s problems. This week we have a little selection of the basics being fitting incorrectly or not even fitted at all.

Customer Cars

We were asked to do a few jobs on on this Fastback, one of which is to fit the trunk rubber in the correct place. In other words on the deck lid and not on the channels of the rear quarters. This would trap water and cause rust issues as well. Not only that it’s a quick way of doing it. AS to do it properly the truck lid has to be removed and stuck on correctly, then the alignment has to be done. The other thing is that it looks a little messy as well if it’s not stuck on with perfectly straight lines.

The next job was to sort out the window regulators, which usually involves the rollers and replacing the grease or the mechanism depending how badly they are worn.

First thing is the membranes was missing which causes all sorts of damp issues. We removed the entire mechanism in order to see what the problem was. The usual springs had lost tension, pretty worn and the mechanism had a lot of play. So we couldn’t save these ones and new ones were fitted. We also checked the door mechanisms while we were at it too.

The fitting of the water shield is often left of as it can me a little messy with the gasket seal for it. All back together again on this side then we check the other side as well. As there is significantly less where on the passenger side we suspect this wont be as bad. We won’t know until we dig it all out again.

Starting Issues

Another car that had some pretty random starting issues was left with us for a few ours. Starting from the starter motor is a good place as any to find the problems, we didn’t need to look much further. The wrong starter motor was fitted, and in order to make it fit some spacer was used.

Surely the time and effort it takes to fabricate something like this would have cost more in time and effort than to just fit the correct part. Needless to say the correct starter was fitted and the customer drove away happy a few hours later.

Suspension Issues

A ’67 coupe with us has needed a bit of an overhaul all round. This suspension would need to be stripped down and fitted back together again properly. The big problem was that the spring perches were on the wrong way round.

We haven’t finished the tear down yet but from the looks of it the bushes in the perches are shoot so a new pair is on the cards at least. We will need to get the springs out to see if there is any damage as well.

The brakes are needing a once over as well. With such fundamental errors on the suspension there is no way we will leave the brakes unchecked.

Once we have that little lot sorted out we will need to check the steering as well then of to the Geo workshop for alignment.

Keeping It Stock

Some customers want to keep as much of their car original as they can. One of those requests came with a leaking power steering pump can. More often than not it’s far easier to swap out. Yogi likes a little challenge and started to do a little fine brazing on the original can. The leak was small but enough to make a mess under pressure.

The working innards were removed from the can to see if it could be saved. Which of course Yogi managed to do. Obviously time consuming but the original was saved.

A rub down to remove the old paint, undercoat and top coats it will look as good as new again. A nicely restored power steering pump can.

As you can see, the basics are essential, if they are not correct, then we get very suspicious of the rest of the car. Cutting corners, lack of knowledge, laziness we don’t know the history of course. But what we do know is that if the car comes to us, it will here how it should be, often better than the factory builds!