It’s been a while since I had a dedicated space to work on my cars. I thought I could do with one car and one parking space. I thought I could keep my tools and parts at my dad’s place. My acquisitive nature has thwarted those thoughts. I now have: Giulietta Sprint, Glas 1700 GT, Lancia Appia (plus parts car), Toyota Stout, NSU Prima IIIKL Scooter and a 1963 Honda Trail 55. As the Byrd’s paraphrased in some old book: there’s a time to gather stones together. I moved out of my one car garage and storage space and signed on with another acquisitive Giulietta owner for a nice big space for very reasonable money. Check it out -it’s why I haven’t been posting much (besides Rufus)!
The space. 1000 sq ft. High ceilings. Lights. Skylights. Giulietta’s waiting for help.
Where the delicate stuff occurs. Dig these old Steelcase desks. I don’t think they could make these today for less than $3000 each, these were a cheap package deal. Two bags of oranges! Shelf holds a lot of Glas, Lancia and Giulietta parts. Laurence is responsible for the tool box happening.Â
I spent all my spare time this week so far scrounging up furniture, tools and the like, and this afternoon after lunch I was done. The floor was swept, the shelves organized, and all the Lobo and Fontana (and a few RIBE, DORN, KAMAX and blank) fasteners picked out of the ‘used’ bag for tumbling. What’s a good first job?  How about a set of gauges that the new inserts for just arrived… I dig fixing up gauges.
How you find them: inserts yellowed, needle plastic yellowed, weird discoloration on the polished aluminum center button, dust, oxidation and well, lots more. They tend to work in this state, but in a restored car let the rest of the car down. How does the trip reset cable come off? It unscrews…
It’s sort of like an analogy for the whole car. I use some secret approaches to the paint and it comes back. You can see here it’s looking better from about 1 to 4 o’clock.
In its own right not amazing, but way better. I need to get some paint this color. Red dots are shift points for the Rev counter illiterate.
Okay, glossed over a bunch of details like filing the edges of the new insert so the trim ring would fit, wiping everything down with IPA and waxing the face. Compares well to the tach.
See, the face isn’t perfect, but you don’t look at the face -it’s the needle you care about.
Taking the tach apart. Paint is peeling a tiny bit on the ring that lives behind the number insert. Amazing how yellow the inserts go.
Wave magic wand and voila!! done. Well, a chunk of hours occurred in between. On my list: o-rings that fit under the chrome trim rings; paint for the face and glass holding rings etc. Note I painted the tach and speedo needles white. Might have to open the tri-gauge back up and paint its needles too. The next victim waits in the background. Does ANYONE make inserts for late 101 gauges?
Okay, I haven’t tested the function, but that comes as soon as I set up a test station. I have big box of gauges to fix for myself and others, so stay tuned.
Liking the new space.