Previous history
of the car; how I found and bought it (1994) .. |
Diagnostic
inventory, dismantling, survey work to be done (1995-96) |
Mechanical matters (1997-98) |
Body repairs (1999) |
Painting (1999-2000) |
Begin reassembly (2000) |
Reassembly continued |
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Click on the
required page |
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Problems with the top |
At last the upholstery! |
Getting wired for music |
Still
more reassembly (2001)) |
Seats and door panels go in |
First venture out of garage; lining the top |
After 7
years, roadworthy! |
The
Story without end .. (4) |
Posted on January 10, 2000
Lets review the story so far: at my place I
have a rolling chassis, with a restored engine and transmission and redone front
suspension, which has travelled approximately 200 km since the summer of 1998. (In
reality, the rear wheels are raised off the ground and an Imperial odometer is attached to
the steering box.) The chassis actually has travelled about this same distance during
various visits to body shops but always on a trailer!
The impetus for the next phase came in September 1999 when, after an astronomical
estimate of more than 85,000 Francs (= $ 12 000.00), I despaired of ever finding a
craftsman capable of returning the Crown to its former glory. A friend told me that an
avid collector who was at the same time a professional body man had just opened a business
in the vicinity, specializing in restoration of collector cars. Since he was only 10 km
from my home, I lost no time in getting together with him for an estimate. It seemed to be
reasonable and in no time I brought him the Crown, mounted as always on its wooden
chariot. Mr. Bertrand Hughes (thats his name) planned to complete the work by the
end of 1999 and, given that the Imperial occupied a great deal of space, in no time he
was putting the grinder to the bodywork, full of holes. The task turned out to be more
difficult than predicted, or at least of longer duration, because all of the lower body
had to be cut out. Whats more, it turned out that damage from a earlier side
collision had been hastily camouflaged with a thick layer of body filler so that the shape
of the right rear fin bore only a distant resemblance to the original. Once the sills had
been cut out, it was evident that they had been the subject of a restoration by a previous
owner who had probably never heard of an arc welder nor a grinder. His idea of bodywork
was to take a piece metal and solder it into place, with a blowtorch, of all things.
Without wanting to be slanderous, I must say that this "hand-crafted
masterpiece" must have taken place in the back yard of a Ghanaian shanty. Bertrand
carefully saved the remains so that I could one day display them in a showcase alongside
my trophies
(Oh, oh, Im counting my chickens before they hatch, but after 5
years of waiting, what can you expect? Surely you can forgive me for going off the deep
end now and then.).
This all happened during the Christmas holidays (remember, Im a
teacher) and the the comings and goings between my home and the body shop increased as we
fitted chrome trim to check the body shape, discovered and then filled non-original
"ventilation holes", removed the "African undercoating" from the floor
of the trunk, refitted the doors and the fenders, flattened and aligned the trunk floor
(damaged by the sandblasting), fitting the hood from the donor car (by now a wreck) since
mine was too badly damaged, and so on, and so on
.
But as we were positioning the doors and hood and trunk lid, a problem arose: nothing
fit! The doors wouldnt close and the trunk lid overlapped the bodywork by a
centimeter on one side. It was obviously impossible to adjust all the pieces without
putting the body back onto the chassis! And, of course, once everything was adjusted
properly, taking the body back off the chassis was out of the question. So:
1) paint the insides,
2) mount the body back onto the chassis,
3)adjust the fenders, doors, and so on,
4) finally sand and paint the whole thing.
I wasnt too excited about this sequence (how were we going to mount all the
pieces without damaging anything and how were we going to avoid painting the motor and
chassis once everything was in one piece?) but it was the only alternative.
The choice of colours (white with a slight green tinge) had been made early in December
and the interior of the body as well as all of the minor parts were painted just before
Christmas. Because Bertrand had already spent more time than he had planned, he had to put
in overtime to finish the Imperial because there were other cars on his agenda for
January. So the week between the Christmas Day and New Years would be critical. The
chassis arrived on the 27th and that day was devoted to mounting the body onto
the chassis. Just as we saw in films from the fifties, the chassis was gently lowered onto
the rolling chassis. Well, all right, maybe instead of 10 workers and a remote controlled
hoist there were only 4 of us and a whopping great block and tackle. I was careful to put
the radiator and air conditioner evaporator into place first, knowing from experience that
it was almost impossible to do it later.
Remember, December 27
! Doesnt that remind you of something. Of course. It
was the day of the storm. The late afternoon was marked by great gusts of wind but luckily
only the sign was torn away. In any event, by 7 p.m. the electricity was cut off but by
then the body had been solidly bolted back into place. And I returned home in the
windstorm, zigzagging around the fallen tree branches on the way
.
Other pics:
Thanks to "Tony" (Magister Max on the IML) for
the translation ...
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