Practically Classics Forum

Before you get stuck in with polishing compaunds, would claying get those pollen marks off? Worth a try.

It'll get some of it off, but I think a light compound like Farecla G3 would make easier work of it. I didn't finish fully compounding and polishing the section that has the worst marks so the paint is shiny, but still a bit porous, where I spent more time on the roof the pollen wiped off with minimal effort. I'll try the clay first and see how it goes.

So I finally got the top coat on the dashboard done.


All about the details too. It bugged me that the insert here didn't match the dashboard, so I've rectified that with some careful masking, making it blend into the dash a lot better.


I've got to remove the dashboard from the car anyway to do the welding at the front and to investigate to see if I can find out what's going on with the water-in-the-vents randomness I get that I've never got to the bottom of.


Today, gave the Xantia it's first proper clean since moving up here. After being sat around getting covered in workshop dust, tree pollen and other detritus it was looking pretty rubbish. The quick wash it had made it look cleaner, but not clean enough so I spent 2 hours getting as much of the ingrained muck as I could off, it's now everyday-clean, but needs more work to be as clean as I want it.

I've got to get some touch up paint and rectify a lot of the minor paint issues on the car. A full respray is pointless because the paint is overall in very good condition, just needs some careful touching in. things like the stonechips on the leading edge of the bonnet.


This scratch on the front wing has been touched in before, but not as well as I'd like. Pretty glaring this one, and one that people point out to me more often than I'd like.


Fido Dido! Properly 90s wagon now.


You can just make out the wibble in this rear quarter. This is one of those bits of damage that keeps needing going over a few more times, the white makes it difficult to see the damage until the light hits it just so and then it jumps out very badly.


There's some dents on this front door too, but everytime I try and find them they disappear. I always seem to see them just as I walk past the car and they jump out badly. There's a similar dent on the rear door on the same side. Nuisance to repair, I may see if one of those dent-be-gone places can do it so I don't have to worry about the painting side of things. You can't even see the dents in this picture anyway, but you can see how well the paint comes up.


The roof panel is finally uniformly shiny. Needs more work yet to be as good as it ought to be, you can feel it's not quite as glossy as it could be, but at least bugs and dust just slide off now so it shouldn't attract tree pollen.


Lovely and clean, two hours later. Glass is one of the things that really makes or breaks a clean car, I like it so clean you can't see it or the sun shines off it blindingly. This glass is perfect now.




Rear number plate looks horrible, I absolutely must sort that out.

Today the Xantia made an unpleasant grabby manoeuvre in the clutch department, this is a job I've been putting off for the better part of 2000 miles so I've done well to last as long as I have. Rather than chance it further I forked out as much as I could on a replacement kit and when it arrives I have the joy* of performing what I'm told is a six hour job that involves a lot of swearing. I'll do the LHM at the same time, six litres of that arrived recently so I could clean the system through and hopefully resolve the brakes and occasional suspension hardness.

The MoT is due near the end of November so it'll be nice to get these jobs done ahead of that and it should drive even nicer than it does now. Amazingly, I've never done a clutch change before either, so I might as well get in at the deep end.

Changing out the clutch is easy. Getting the decks clear so you can get to the clutch is something else.
If it was something like a FWD Chavalier, you could do that in about an hour (pop off a cover, retract the first motion shaft, turn the engine over by hand whilst inserting clips to hold the assembly together, rotate again undoing bolts.
Try not to drop clutch assembly on foot
Reinstallation is the reverse of removal

Not all cars (or 4x4's) are the same

New clutch kit arrived today, it looks okay as these things go so it should do the trick. I'm fortunate in that I've got access to a lift and lots of tools and someone who has done clutches before so we're quietly confident that when we set a day aside to do the job it can be done without too much hassle. If we encounter any weird Citroen-y problems we're extra-lucky in that there's a Citroen specialist http://www.citromatic.co.uk/ literally around the corner who were not at all phased when we asked them about some niggles with the car that are, apparently, perfectly normal behaviour and easy to rectify.

Feeling pretty positive about the old bus really, even if it is a bit on the dull side.


In Princess news, I found this picture of a Plymouth hot rod (sorry, that's a bit big isn't it!). I lurrrrve the purple and the fact that the beige/cream on it is very similar to what Champagne Beige should look like. I'm sorely tempted to use this as inspiration for my repaint, I just need to figure out what colour is closest to that delicious purple.

That picture you posted is a 1934 Plymouth 4 Door Sedan Street Rod + Small Block Mopar Engine
Metallic Purple & Cream fvr (2006 Dream Cruise) CL
http://freakwallpaper.com/1934-plymouth ... cruise-cl/


I was thinking of "Wheeler Dealers" and the hot rod 103e as these guys used a paint shop that specialised in the paint options for hot rods(I think!)

Car painted in one of the original paint schemes from the famous "Pinball Wizard" Ford Popular[4] with Medium flake Purple for the base coat and Holographic flake Gold for the stripes.

Look at number 83
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wh ... s_episodes



Maybe a search for those detail might point you in the right direction?

I cannot remember ever having seen anything as purple as that Plymouth, it's quite the purplest thing ever, there's nothing purpler in the whole world.
The Wedge must be painted in that colour, even if it's only used as half of a two tone scheme that would be better than no purple at all.
How about a two tone purple/orange metal flake combo? Very similar** colours but they'd work, IMHO.
**And for anyone who can't see the similarity between the two; find me a word that rhymes with either.

Slurple and Blorenge

Next.

OK, an English word as opposed to a Welsh proper noun and a bizarrely intriguing demonstration of mutual affection. (And *..*enge doesn't rhyme with *..*ange.. )