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1966 404 Coupé Injection Restoration


Mike T

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The paint I am using on the suspension is really strong and controls rust, plus it looks just as good to my eye as powder coating.

Left rear fender is now welded on, as of February 8th, after the inner fender work was completed.

The three rectangular holes cut into the dashboard to the left of the instrument binnacle are now gone, replaced by a round hole as per the original.

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Wiper frame is de-rusted and repainted in Rust-oleum and the two new wiper spindles (unique design for the 404C so I was lucky to get a pair) are remounted.  The wiper motor drive axle is the original but after flushing it with Würth HHS it was as smooth as butter.  Greased it up and mounted it back together.
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The cover of the AEG fuel pump was rusty and needed a good quality of hard paint because it's clamped on by a wire that uses friction and sits in the dimple of the cover.  So I bought some silver POR-15 and applied it by brush. with only 83,000 miles on the car, the electrical part of the pump is in good condition.  I will take the hydraulic part apart and regrease it. 
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The framework of the AEG/Kugelfischer pump was also very rusty but now looks better and is painted in silver POR-15 applied by brush.
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Sunday I replaced the seals in the differential unit, to be specific, the input shaft of the worm drive.  These leak over time and the torque tube fills up with rear axle oil!  The mating surfaces between torque tube and rear axle unit were sealed with Hylomar Blue.  The crown wheel in bronze is in decent shape with a few pits but not worth changing at this time.  So my new worm and wheel will remain on the parts shelf.  Refilled it with Castrol R40.

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These photos were taken Friday around 5 PM.  Major front end surgery is underway!

Front fenders are cut off!

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Detail of cowl panel, not rusty at all inside.

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Inner fender panel was not in that bad of a condition, some repair was required near the bottom.

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Dashboard with three rectangular holes gone and one round hole for the new - original type - wiper/washer switch!

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Taillights fit, good!

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Drilled out spot welds and removed outer McPherson strut tower skin.

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Repair panels welded into the nose panel on both sides.

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Interesting perspective!

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When professionals are involved things do get done right, very impressive workmanship, much more rust than i thought, couple of things, the link to :coachwerks is not working, and if your T16 service manuel has anything about the rear suspension pump can you share.

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Friday afternoon I visited Coachwerks.

The new front crossmember is on, some significant repairs were needed on the driver's side inner fender and that fender is now tacked in place, with fine-tuning and possible future adjustments to follow. Next week I have to take the rubber seals down for panel alignment purposes, as well as the grille.

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The old front crossmember didn't look all that bad but when it was off, the bodyman in the photo above showed it to me and shook it, and it sounded just like a Maraca 1f642.png:)

They will be painting the front brake drum backing plates, the Hydrovac vacuum tank and the air inlet grille. I will repaint the brake drums myself in manifold paint.  I had them blasted at Blast-it in Victoria today and I even did the vacuum tank blasting myself!

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Don't ever buy a 404C unless you are planning to do a full restoration like this one, or it has a photo-documented restoration from the past 15 years.  All the Pininfarina cars are the same - lots of rust traps.  By rebuilding it completely, the metal all ends up being protected as it never was before, and more than 50 more years of use in good weather should be possible.

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Today's visit to the shop was very interesting, even though no work to speak of had been done to the car due to some time off for the main bodyman. The Hydrovac tank, brake backing plates and fresh air intake grille were all painted in satin black and ready to go. The tank in particular is on display in the engine compartment, so the finish has to be good.

Mike said that the target budget estimate is still valid, despite having done a very thorough amount of metal work to this point, perhaps a bit more than originally anticipated.

After the metalwork is finished, there are about 200 hours of labour involved in doing the preparation for painting and the paint itself and of course none of that has started yet.

There was a Porsche Turbo 930 version from the eighties in the shop after a hard front end hit. Mike said that its repair would probably come in at $60,000 for its rebuild. He encouraged me to buy as much agreed value insurance as possible, to ensure that any eventual collision is likely to lead to a repair.

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  • 2 weeks later...

March 31st: major welding is all done. Next week it will be a full coating in epoxy primer, then a few weeks of blocking and priming, followed by a topcoat in Dark Blue 1057. Exciting times!  Oh yeah that's me in photo 1, a bit older than the car ;)

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Congratulation Mike, body shell looks like new, the shop did an outstanding job, now make sure to protect it from rust good, i have a neighbor how undercounted his car with beeswax in the early 70's that car has absolutely no rust at all and those cars are prone to rusting, one thing he told me is that is very important to spray the wax in all enclosed parts such as the frame rails rocker panels.

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Its looking very nice Mike. Looking forward to seeing it with the paint on.  A little rust proofing for that age never hurts.  On the car too !

Cheers

 

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The first bit of paint is on, the engine compartment, trunk and underbody.  The entire car is primed with epoxy but the blocking still remains to be done.  The Dark Blue mix was based upon the paint colour chip (actual paint) from 1966 and an interpretation using modern materials of the appropriate mix.  I love it!

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In comparison, here is my friend Tim's car, which he says is about one shade too light:

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