Once in a while in the disassembly stage you have to do a bit of clean up. Since I had just ripped (literally) the seats out, it was time to take the shop vac out to get rid of all the rotted carpets and mouse mung. However, before I did that, I wanted to take advantage of one of the few times you get some of your investment back from a project car. Although this is a very, very small portion back - every little bit helps. So I took a screwdriver and rooted around in the carpet and found 96 cents in old crusty coins. Hey, enough to cover a toll in Illinois!
As I started cleaning further and taking out more bits in the interior, I found more and more coins. Some tucked under the seat rails, some stuck in the console, some slid behind the carpet in the back. All in all, I think I got about $3.00 in grubby coins on one of the things in life I hate the most - the toll-way system! I used to save all my pennies just so I could use them in the tollbooths to make things more difficult for them. Nothing against toll-way people personally. I just think the concept of having everyone stop every couple miles to throw in coins is ridiculous! It wastes gas, time and polutes to boot. Since they started letting you get through with the I-Pass, it's not so bad. I still wonder how much is spent just to support itself. Oh well - our government in action. Now I'll have to take the coins to the bank with the rest of the change I put in all old road racing trophy/mug/jar every night.
It's funny how certain trophies bring back memories. I got this particular 2nd place trophy from a Midwest council road race back in 1980. The memory I remember about this race was that I didn't stick around for the trophies..so our club president handed it to me next spring at our annual medical examination. Midwest Council racing requires a medical check up annually and since they actually had a few doctors in the club, they arranged to have a February meeting where the doctors would do the physical check-up for free. Everyone would show up at the Prez's house with a case of beer. We'd take numbers, sit down to watch either porn or videos of car crashes. The Docs would always complain that everyone's blood pressure was high! So anyway, I'm paying my dues and signing up for the medical examination and the Prez hands me my trophy, a nice ceramic mug with a drawing of Blackhawk Farms raceway on the side. The part that I didn't like was that it was full of his and everyone else's cigarette butts - Yuck. So the mug is clean now of course, I just flashback to that moment in time when I see it. But I digress...
As you disassemble a project car, you take a mental inventory of what parts are good (if any), what parts need to be rebuilt and which ones are completely trash or missing. Some are major, some very small. Sometimes the small ones are the details that make a restoration special. With my Lotus Seven project, one of the highlights was finding a very nice pair of Windgard taillights at a reasonable price. One of the low points of that restoration was when I attached those taillights to the fenders they both cracked when I tightened the screws because they were so brittle! On this Europa, I could see that the wheels were missing the little plastic center hubcaps. They are only about 2 inches in diameter and not usually noticed by most people but just another detail that I would be looking to take care of. I already found one (need 4 total) on ebay. Cost me $42 for that little bugger. Now I only need 3 more. The good thing about selling junk on ebay and putting the proceeds into a Paypal account is it gives you play money for buying more stuff. Sometimes selling the old junky parts is a way of partially financing the new parts. It's like trading them in on new models. If you sell junk at a good price, it kind of gives you justification in your own mind, to spend too much on other stuff.
One of the slightly bigger items that I have to deal with is the radiator. The one I have is complete. It's also completely rusty. A radiator shop guy is selling new aluminum Europa radiators for $355 on ebay. They look real slick. I would probably spend at least $150 getting this old one repaired, so I think I'll pick up the aluminum one and sell the old one on ebay.
Attaching seatbelts in a fiberglass car is always a challenge. The inside belts are bolted through the body to the chassis. No problem there. The outside belts however just go through the fiberglass to some steel that is glued inside the body. Of course, after 32 years of humidity and water, that steel is just crusty rust. So as I unscrewed the belts, I got a lot of crunch, crunch, crunch noises and the floor became littered with rust dust. I'll have to fiberglass in some new seat belt supports later.
Next - Europa Euphoria, Part 5
