1966 404 Coupé Injection Restoration

3 minute(s) of a 255 minute read

The nice thing about the 404C is it has massive frame channels, shared with the sedan.  Add the welded fenders and it's massively stronger!  Yeah it makes restoration expensive.  But she is so pretty.....

The car is completely stripped now:

12-5-2016

Thanks!  Up to now it's been more of a "de-build" and will soon be a "re-build" at Coachwerks (which is the shop that does Rudi & Co.'s cars) and thereafter a "build"!

I have to do a lot of work to get the car ready for the build-up.  A lot of the parts are tired and need works themselves.

12-8-2016

Last night the car was trucked to Victoria; today it is at Coachwerks' shop.

Coachwerks will be mounting the shell on a cart/casters and removing the suspension, then forwarding the shell to Island Quick Strip for media blasting, then back to their shop for epoxy coating and eventually the commencement of restoration work early next year.

They (and I) recommend strongly against dipping any shell.  It basically destroys the whole thing.  The acid is never properly neutralized inside the tightest seams and eats the car from the inside out.  They had a customer with a Ferrari from the 60s who had the car dipped before the restoration and within a couple of years the car was basically scrap due to seam rust exploding everywhere.  Also, I know someone with a Renault 8 Gordini who had Redi-Strip in Richmond BC dip his shell and after the car was painted, the panels previously thought to be sound were all weeping orange stains forever after.

12-10-2016

Friday I got an email from Coachwerks stating that the suspension was ready to take home (the car just got there Thursday morning!).  So I borrowed a friend's pickup and drove down to Victoria to get that stuff and to my surprise, the 404C was already welded to its cart (high up in the air so the media blaster can get to the nether bits).  While we were there, the flatbed came by to pull her aboard, to bring her up to the media blaster this afternoon.  Mike Grams says that the restoration will begin as soon as the car comes back, probably late next week!