Before and After
The pictures below compare the car, and parts of it, before and after the restoration.
Click on any picture to see a larger version in a new window.
I received the car in October of 2016 and completed the restoration in August of 2020. The car, as I received it, had not been abused, but it was decidedly well worn. The condition is difficult to see in the before pictures of the entire car; some of the later details make it clearer.
The interior was completely restored: seats, carpets, dashboard, panels, and so on. These pictures show the restored car without a convertible top, but I added one a little later.
The seats were completely restored, including repairing, derusting, and repainting the seat frames.
The nonoriginal seat covers showed that the seats had been recovered at least once. The outsides looked OK, but the insides were thoroughly worn out.
The entire drivetrain was restored: engine, transmission, overdrive, drive shaft, and differential.
Although the engine was in working condition, it was due for a rebuild. It got one.
The generator and starter were both restorable, but at first they looked pretty bad. Below, the starter.
Two views of the chassis, just after the body was removed and just before it was reinstalled.
The differential and the forward frame arch.
As received, the overdrive solenoid and actuating mechanism were thoroughly gunked up; it's hard to imagine that they worked at all.
The transmission oil had not been changed often enough; as a result, the inside of the transmission was coated with black residue. The rebuilt transmission included four new synchros, the brass parts in the after photo. (Only three are visible in the picture.)
The differential ring gear had serious rust pitting, and its bearings also were in bad shape. Almost all of its oil had leaked out, probably because of worn axle seals. Rebuilding the differential was a tedious job, and it required two tries to get it right. (The yellow stuff on the ring gear is gear-marking compound, used to check the mesh.)
Everything in the front and rear suspension was restored. I used Koni shocks in the front.
The rear lever shocks were rebuilt. In the pictures below, the shock link is backwards. See the Rear Suspension section for the reason.
The rear brakes with the drum removed. The axle seals were worn out, causing the linings to be contaminated by oxidized gear oil. Everything was replaced: linings, wheel cylinders, and all the small parts.
The main part of the body, before and after painting.
Brake pedals and footwell. Eventually, the footwell area was completely carpeted.
Here is the area behind the dash, at roughly the same point of the disassembly and reassembly.
The floors had small areas of rust-through and larger areas of serious rust pitting. Both sides were replaced.
At the same time, the rocker panels had significant rust and had housed some small rodents. Below, the right rocker panel in its original condition and the replaced rocker. It received a coat of primer to protect it until it was painted.
The spare-tire well in the trunk had quite a bit of rust, which had been repaired with fiberglass. The before picture shows the fiberglass removed and the trunk cleaned up a bit. I replaced the forward third of the spare-tire well and patched a few additional spots.
