Don't mind the title, the car is a junk atm but we will be turning it into a gorgeous looking machine. Its original colour is "Marrone Colorado" (Metallic brown). I pretty much rescued it and will give it a new life. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Thank you for saving an Indy, looking forward to following your restoration of her! brgds Kim AM116*49*1838
F40-R, I can promise you that it'll will get worse..much worse, before it gets any better! Please have a look at this story to give you a few pointers of where to look for rot: Muscle Building (it's in English) How far are you planning to go about the job? Are you doing a nuts & bolt resto with bare a metal respray, inside & out or will you patch her exterior up and do a light restoration with reupholstered interior and a fresh coat of paint? You might want to read this story as well, to see how fantastic the Indy will feel once your restoration is completed. Heavy Mettle Kind regards Kim
That is a great article about the Indy and restoration and what I love about it is the way the car sits when its finished. Did I mention I have a soft spot for Indy's looking forward to following the story. Is the Leather redeemable? originality is worth a lot more than restored these days. Good Luck with it Graeme
Well done, difinitely worth saving. The most practical of all classic Maseratis. May we know the chassis number, and is it a matching numbers car ? Looking forward to seeing her in all her glory.
Hey guys thanks for everyone's feedback. It'll be a bare metal nut and bolt restoration. I'm looking forward to the difficult days ahead. It is chassis number 1500, nice and even. Next, we will remove all mechanics and it'll be sent to the bead blasters then all the sheet metal fun begins.
Why get scared? In the second photo there is no evidence that one can see the garage floor through the inner and outer sill. Could be much worst (recalling the Mexico that I stupidly, from the financial point of view, rescued long ago ). Good luck, always great to see such "junk" returning to life!
F40-R, Glad to hear that you will do a nut & bolt resto, she deserves it! Are you aware of this type of treatment? Paint Stripping, Rust and Underseal Removal for Cars and Industry by Surface Processing Limited you find them elsewhere as well around the globe, IMHO something worth considering. The Indy didn't have any paint on the interior of the steelplates used during production, so you may find that the inside of doors, sills, frame channels, structural beams etc to require attention on a bigger scale than the exterior will require. Even if it comes back from the beadblaster looking good, you might have to peel her like an orange to get to the actual structural rust. Investing in a high quality (HD) borescope might be a good idea to find out the status of her innards. The exterior tinned areas are most likely rusty underneath as well, given that the steel plates used at Vignale during production was weather exposed and welded into the cars with surface rust prior to them being painted! So IMHO you will want to remove any tin that you can find once the paint is off the car, tin is heavy! (the picture with the bucket is showing some of the tin that was removed from the front of the Indy, aproximately 30 pounds of it!) I have attached a few pictures of the areas that surprised me the most on my (ongoing) resto, like the door hinge structual support rusting, only visible once the front fender was cut off. The A-beams being paper thin, rotten and giving no structural support to the surounding components. At the same time the windscreen windowframe was fine and sound, only possible to see once the outer layer of steel was removed. The bonnet/hood was structurally looking fine on the outside but once starting to peel the skin we revealed that it required a full dismantle. (picture showing the top of the inner frame of the bonnet/hood) Kind regards Kim Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
AU-YT, u were asking if the leather is redeemable due to it's potential higher value, would you want to base an nut & bolt (interior) restoration over 40 years old upholstery with all the minuses that gives, like the smell stuck in it. The smoldering and lack of firmness of the foams, rusty components, carpets, glues etc or do you think its doable to restore, for example, the seat insides and carefully use the existing leather over it to preserve as much as possible? I too like originality but at the same time I want to be able to use the car without worrying about the seats ripping due to old age. I usually restore my cars to be driven, driven like they were designed for Kind regards Kim
