A Car Story

I know I have said it before, but I feel like I have to keep saying it just for my own peace of mind.  The thing I worry about most with the “Ultimate Restoration”, is that people will get the idea that a restoration can be done in a very short period of time.  I guess it can, but it would cost a lot of money.  That isn’t what we want to do here at the shop.  We want customers to have an affordable restoration, and give them a quality product at a fair price.  What concerns me is that there will be some who want the quality product, the fair price, and have it done in a week.  Oh well, I guess we’ll deal with that as we go along.

For now, I thought I would show some before and after shots of a few things so that you could get some idea of what takes up the most of the time when we do a restoration.  The cleaning, repairing, polishing and painting of all of the parts to be re-used on the project takes, what seems like, forever to get done.  Here are some pictures of the light assemblies I have just gone through-

It took just over three hours to complete these assemblies.

These took about an hour and a half.  The end results make it worth the time.

Enjoy the ride!

The month of July is drawing to a close, and the body work on the GT-6 is done, and it is getting ready for paint.  We were lucky that there was very little rust repair to do, the battery box was the only thing.

We decided to just cut out the old box, and insert a new one.  The rest of the car had only some small surface rust spots, and they were easily sanded out.  Since we are going with the original color, we left some of the interior color as is.

The hood turned out very nice, and the underside actually shows the final color.

The British Auto Works challenge of restoring a 1972 Triumph GT-6 keeps moving forward.  We tore down what was left of the engine.  The head had already been removed years ago.  In fact, I found that I had sent it in to have the valves ground, and new guides and valve seats installed.  Wow, that was lucky.  Not that I had already had the work done, but that I was able to actually find it.

Anyhow, here are some pictures of the block and parts.

I have to admit, things are pretty rusty.  If I had continued the repair on the rest of the engine, none of this would be an issue.

Here’s a great example of what happens when car parts are neglected.  As you can see by the picture, there are five piston assemblies, and of course this is a six cylinder motor.  Well, number six is soaking quietly in penetrating oil, and we are all hoping for the best.

The frame is back from powder coat, and we are beginning to fit the front suspension parts.  We are going to powder coat the suspension parts which we are going to re-use.  The other parts will be new.  Our main goal now is to try to find component packages that will allow us to have certain groups of parts that will create a “sub-assembly” if you will.  These will then be fitted and ready for the assembly process at the show.

Here’s the frame as it looked back from powder coat-

Remember, this is what it looked like-

One of our E-Type projects is continuing.  We have the body and paint work completed and we are ready to clean and paint the frame, and get the engine and transmission back together and start putting in the interior.

We have sent the chrome off to be re-done, and we have ordered the new gaskets and seals for all the lights and trim.

Here are some before and after shots of the body.

This is the original color for the car, and it turned out really good.  Here are a couple of other pictures of the paint-

Posting the pictures of the latest E type restoration reminded me that I haven’t posted the recent pictures of the earlier restoration of an E type we are also working on.

This car has a bit more rust damage, but after the paint was stripped, we found some other damage in the rear quarter panels, and some in the hood.  For the most part though the body is in pretty good shape.

Our plan now is to cut out the rusted areas, and replace with new metal.  Most of the body panels that have been filled with Bondo, will be cut out and repaired with new metal.  This is the most time consuming part of any restoration.  It is also the part that receives the most attention.  We have to make the car look good so that every time you walk up to it, you think “wow, that’s a great looking car”.

All of us here at British Auto Works are trying hard to get as many classic British Sports Cars back on the road as we can.  Here are some pictures of one of our latest projects.  It’s a very nice Series II E type.  The customer has owned the car for several years, he is actually the third owner.  The car has had some suspension repair, and the engine has been gone through, but the interior and the paint needed to be done.

One of the best things about this car was that it had been well taken care of, and there was no apparent body or frame damage and there was only slight rust spots.  The sills and rockers were great.  We started by stripping everything off the car.

Once we got the carpet out, we did find some rust through spots in the floor pans.  These were small enough that we could patch the area with some fresh metal, and it would be better than new.

The next big thing was to get the motor and transmission out.  Typical Jag, taking the motor out is an all day project, but you do have to admire the engineering behind this car, it really is impressive.

After all this was done, it was off to the body shop and we got started on what few minor body imperfections there was, and prep for paint

Stay tuned to see the pictures of it painted, it’s the Carmine red.

This is one of our customer’s car that we are working on.

It is a Jag E type.

Click on the image below to be taken to the full album

Watkins Jag

OR Here’s the slideshow

Happy to report that a Austin Healey BJ 7 is back on the road. This is a car that came to us in December, back from an extensive stay at the body shop, all painted and ready to go back together.

The restoration had started back in 2002 at another shop. They had completed much of the frame and engine work, and had done a very good job of getting things started. Their quality work made it easy to take of the task of completing the restoration. The body shop worked hard to get the doors, hood, boot and fenders to all fit properly. For those of you with Healey experience, you know that is a very difficult task. The car came back primrose yellow with white coves. The customer had made the choice to go with the red interior. This would not have been my first choice, but once it was done, it really worked on the car.

The customer has owned the car for about fifteen years. They had saved up for the restoration, and he knew exactly how he wanted the car. This really helps in any of the restorations we do, whether it’s a MGB, TR 6, Midget, Spitfire or any other car, if the customer has a good idea of what they want, things go a lot faster.

It was a real delight this Saturday to see him and his wife drive off with big smiles and knowing they have a great car, and one to be very proud of. I know our crew and myself are very proud of the job we did. I’ll be posting pictures soon of these restorations.

Today was a good day. First of all it was my grandson’s sixth birthday. He is a great boy, has a lot of character, and is a lot of fun to watch grow-up. He has much of his father sense of humor, and at this age, he still seems to be the life of the party. His mom and dad are going to have an experience when he gets to be a teenager. I know every grandparent thinks their grandchildren are the smartest and the cutest, and I am no exception. He’s a great little boy and I am very proud of him.

The distant second good thing about today is that we finally delivered the beautiful 1600 MGA. It was the dove gray car with red interior and top. I hope to have a slide show to show you soon, ( I have to learn how first). This car is absolutely gorgeous. The customer has been very patient, and he has expected a very nice car, and Simon and the other guys at the shop have given him just that. The car is as close to original as we could have made it with two hidden alterations. The paint, interior and other details set the car off like few others we have had in the shop.

This is one of those with a story in that the customer had seen a picture of an MGA that was this color and these features, and he fell in love with that car. Now that he is able to afford that car of his dreams, he put his heart and soul into the car that he wanted. He painstaking researched every detail, and made sure we produced the car he wanted. At the end, he has that car. He cannot be any prouder of it than we are. It’s beautiful. I hope you will get to see it at the Concour’s in Forest Grove, or at the ABFM, I think you will like it too.