The Adventures of 42137: A Shipwright's Tale

On my previous 308 I used the boots for a BMW, I think 5-Series. Those have the boot permanently attached to the metal flange. No leaks, no clamps. I went OE style this time for no real good reason. Next time I think I'll try the BMW style again. Hopefully a long time in the future.

 

Wow, it's been a long time since I've updated this thread. Because I've been driving! I've done about 1,000 miles since getting it back on the road. The car runs and drives great.

With a bunch of mechanical stuff out of the way there are a bunch of cosmetic issues I'm going to slowly go after. First is the trunk carpet that is peeling off of the firewall. It is very visible because I removed the zipper trunk cover. The zipper is shot and needs replacement. But first get that carpet back in place. I masked all around the area, shot it with 3M interior adhesive and clamped it all up. I gathered all of my C-clamps for this. Even I was surprised how many C-clamps I have. And I didn't even use a few of the really small ones.
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Proof that I've been driving. Two pictures from the drive to February Blackhawk Cars and Coffee. I picked up Rob in his 308. Note that it is about sunrise in February and I'm driving with the roof off. I admit I was a little cold with the heater on full and an electric jacket, but if it isn't raining the roof stays off.
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There are at least four problems with the center console and it is time to fix them.

1) The hand brake lever.

2) The re-dye is just as bad as it could possibly be.

3) Power windows are slow. I know what you are thinking, but no, slower than that. WAY slower.

4) One vent control lever is broken.

I bought the kit from Leatherique. And I didn't buy tan, I bought black.
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I had to disconnect the parking brake cable from the wheelie lever at the back of the car to allow the handle to rise enough to get the center console out. I removed all of the switches and cables from the plate they mount to. That plate is held in by the ash tray screws. From there it pretty much comes right out.

I found a couple of things I wasn't expecting. The first is that the center console has been redyed twice. I'm sure that two coats is part of the reason that the interior shows no leather grain. But the second coat is so incredibly thick that I'm not sure it matters.

The second thing is 98 cents in change, so that's a nice surprise.

So how bad is the second redye? In the first pic you can see all three colors the leather has been. Folded up inside the console is the original tan. Showing right next to the stainless shoe panel you can see the second layer of darker tan. And then the brown, applied "close enough" to the metal plate.

The next pic shows the brush marks, uneven coating, grit and a hair embedded in the paint. That's generally what I've got going on here.

Last picture shows how none of the switches were removed. This is the cigarette lighter plastic bezel painted right over. The edges of the switch plates are painted also. None of the parts were removed from the car for this redye and it shows.
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Lacquer thinner does a stunningly good job at stripping the leather down. It took a lot of wiping and scrubbing to get all of the dye off. I used a fine toothbrush to work it out of the grain and to get it all out of the stitching. Look, there is grain under all that paint! Beautiful leather!

OK, not all beautiful. There are stains that won't come out. I don't know what caused them, but they very well could be the reason for the first re-dye job. Also there is a repair where the leather was worn right through. I don't know what caused it and I didn't know it was there. The lacquer thinner pulled the rubber repair compound right off also. I certainly would have preferred to leave it in place if I could. I bought a 3M leather repair kit at Autozone mostly for the texture pieces they include. I have the patching compound from Leatheriqe's kit.
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After getting all of the dye off I soaked all the leather in the Leatherique rejuvenator for a week, applying a new coat every night. It did a good job of softening the leather, but with a hard-backed panel it is both hard to tell and not terribly relevant.

I bought a cute little spray gun from Eastwood. I wanted something a little better than Harbor Freight for this, but in all honesty I'm not sure it isn't the exact same sprayer.

With the dye thinned about 30% with distilled water I sprayed one light coat, waited two hours and sprayed another. Look, there's still grain this time!
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Now on to all of the other things lurking under the console. The broken vent control is broken like they do. I bought one of Verell's metal lever bezels at least a year ago just waiting for this day. It is a nice piece. Too bad so much of it is hidden.

The windows are slow. Even too slow by 308 standards. It takes probably 90 seconds to go down and doesn't come up at all without assistance. I don't know what all of the issues are but I know this wiring mess isn't helping. Factory wiring leads to a butt splice to some small-gauge wire, to another butt splice to a different colored small-gauge wire, to another butt splice and back to the factory wiring. Four times. I just don't understand.

I removed the factory spades from the connector, opened them with a dental pick, cut out the splices and re-crimped them back on. They look a little used up close, but this is going to better. I also used some Caig spray in the switches, all the connectors up the wiring harness, and at all the fuse ends. Windows are now up to standard 308 speed - slow, but they work. Voltmeter says that the circuit only supplies 9 volts to the motors, so there is still room for improvement.
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The handbrake lever - I think this has a few design issues. In this case the U-section collapsed and then it has no sideways strength at all. I used some metal bar and worked the U back apart and it mostly straightened. It is far from perfect. I think the only real solution is to replace it. I've added it to my junkyard list. For now it is straight enough I'm going to go with it, but I think it is probably forever weakened. Also the light didn't work. Could it be the air gap? Looks like the wire was ripped right out of the socket. And the rest of the wire was unplugged from the connector in the console and was missing. So someone thought this was too much trouble to fix and just left it off. A minute with the soldering iron and a spade crimped on a piece of wire and we're back in business.
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I didn't have a gap but I have a guess on what causes it - the ash tray screws! There is a steel frame inside the console. It goes from side-to-side right under the gauges and the ash tray screws to it but isn't necessarily sitting right on top of it. So as you (over) tighten the ash tray screws they pull up the steel frame eventually bending it. When it gets bent it pulls the sides of the console in slightly. The thin fiberglass piece under the gauges has to bend along with the steel. If it bends down you get the gap. That's my hypothesis.

 

I've seen the smooth Connolly leather also. Apparently that's what is in all the Rolls out there. But there are a couple of articles I came across that mention that the 308 had more "casual" leather that showed the grain.

In any case brush marks are not oem!

 

The one other thing I did while in there was clean out the shifter. There was a bunch of dirt, fuzz and hair mixed in the crusty grease. And it felt sort of grindy The steel shaft on aluminum isn't a great bearing surface but grease helps. There's no rubber boot or anything to keep the grease in place. A bronze oilite or delrin bushing would make this silky smooth. If I had any wear or slop you know I'd be dong this. But I didn't really have any wear. I took it all apart, cleaned it, used a little scotchbrite on the steel bearing surface, re-greased it all and put it all back. I'd guess shifting effort went down maybe 30% - I was really surprised. And it feels smoother. Totally worth the effort.

And the rubber bushing was in perfect condition so I didn't change it. I did replace the other one next to the engine with one of Verrel's delrin bushings. I don't quite understand why these are rubber isolated to begin with. I doubt they eliminate any meaningful vibration.
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I didn't like the alignment of the shift gate in the console - it was too low. My first solution was to put a couple of washers between the shifter and the floor to raise the whole thing. Turns out this doesn't work - the console sits on top of the shifter as is. I wound up putting a washer between the gate and the shifter box. It lined up the gate better with the level of the console. In dong all this - I must have put the console in and out a dozen times altogether - I scratched the new black surface. Even after a week the dye is still fragile. Hopefully it will toughen with more age. But I touched it up with a fine brush and it looks fine.

If I re-do the seats I will buy Leatherique's "clear coat" dye that puts a protective layer on the dye. I think it would be the only hope to keep the seats from getting the dye scuffed right off.

 

I considered an aluminum piece exactly as you describe. I even dug through the scrap bin and pulled a piece out that I could cut from. It is still so bent up I think I want to replace it. But I think it is a good idea to put in the new one!

 

Thanks for the lead. I have no idea what it should cost, but $200 is higher than I was expecting. I'll make an offer and see what happens.

Did you see the picture of the car it came from? That must have hurt. I hope the driver is ok. One less Euro on the road. Looks like an '84-'85 QV maybe?
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Being a Euro QV I'm not surprised you knew about that exact car, Mark.

I hope the head injury wasn't more than a little bonk.

 

I haven't updated the thread but I still work on the car, that's for sure. And I had been driving it quite a bit also. I put a lot of miles on it this summer.

Right now the car is trapped in the garage as there is construction in my front yard and I'd need a Humvee to get from the garage to the street. But my contractor promised I could get the car out for the Delta Dash on Jan 21.