Great DIY's on the MB Forums restoring wood trim. T

 

If it needed a total respray I wouldn't have lobbied Mark so hard to buy this car, in the Ebay pics (and the other pics of the car from various SITM threads, yay internet...) I was pretty sure the paint was in decent condition under all the dust, which for a DIYer is the most important thing. Everything else I've done to this car has been minor mechanical maintenance and intensive cleaning. (Yeah, the engine came out- probably didn't need to for 'just' a TB/WP/intake/OPG, but hey, real men pull engines!)

The thread about this car probably reads way worse that it is 'cause I've condensed what most people would take to rehab a new-to-them 928 into about 3 months. And every little ditzel repair that most people wouldn't post about gets mentioned 'cause it illustrates how much work a 25 year old car takes if you want to un-PO all the POs' work, and for everything to work right.

T, if you can point me to a good DIY that outlines how much heat for how long will actually strip polyester finish without burning the veneer, and the details on products and conditions for re-spraying, I'm all ears. The polyester resins are pretty toxic, I'm a little nervous about even going there. There's a ton of _discussion_ about wood refinishing on the MB forums, but precious little _tech_.

EDIT: Project content: Driving the car with the rear tint removed made me realize how crappy the side window tint is. So it's coming off too:

 

Rob, These 2 pages will get you started. T http://www.benzworld.org/forums/w201...-refinish.html

 

Thanks for the link, Tony- That particular guy is refinishing with Marine varnish which is a whole different ball of wax than polyester, though I did find some writeups I hadn't seen that do talk about polyester removal and the refinish and polishing process. From my reading, you absolutely cannot sand off polyester without destroying the sub-millimeter thick veneer underneath. So the process of figuring out how much heat to use on an essentially irreplaceable piece, as a newbie, is a little intimidating.

http://www.w126-wiki.de/index.php/Holz_aufarbeiten

http://www.motor-talk.de/forum/zebra...-t4346719.html

 

Some reassembly today after the last of the tint removal:






Finished swapping the horn buttons onto the recolored wheel:



And installed in the car (37 ft lbs, cringe while connecting the airbag connector....)




Couldn't get the PSD pump to flush while mounted in-car, so out it came, am setting up a test station:



And made a little progress on the speaker wiring. This pic shows where each of the original wire pairs in the factory harnesses plug into the 6-channel amp, for posterity:



And how the harness wires 'lie' in the car, with the door speakers and the rear mid channels to the rear, and the woofer channels towards the front of the car:

 

A PSD test station ... awesome!

 

Hi Rob,
Excellent work so far. If you cannot get the wood to cooperate, I found this on ebay and might be a fall back. HTH.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PORSCHE-928-...baa9b9&vxp=mtr

 

Now that I have the console wood out, I'm appreciating why it was such an expensive option- that console piece is a really complex carving, with vacuum formed veneer on its compound curves. Must have taken some skill to make...

I'm tempted to find a shop locally that could scan it and make a decent 3-D file of it so it exists.

 

I am following along silently (mostly) with the work Rob.

With the 30k mile sitter I have, Its more just about cleaning already good pieces, but I wanted to share since you have such a large audience.

This is the best 8.99 plus tax I have ever spend on cleaning supplies....

You can siphon anything - water, mineral spirits, and my fav - the slightly diluted oil eater for driveways - and it sprays it at high intensity. With some added elbor grease, I have gotten the under-things of the car cleaner than I would have where a brush can't go. It works out my 60 gallon air compressor, but that's fine.

http://www.harborfreight.com/engine-...gun-68290.html

 

Ooh, will have to check that out- the underside of the Cobalt car is still pretty gross. It's been pressure washed but the damn washer nozzle and handle is about 2 feet long, can't get any decent angle underneath with it. That looks like a good solution.

 

Is it the black caked cosmoline? Or the softer yellow-brown cosmoline? Or just oil and dirt? I would take oil and dirt any day.

 

Blue floormats or white floormats?

 

I like the blue for the contrast. Really nice job on that interior!

 

Blue also.

White is real nice too but will be very hard to keep clean.

A dirty spot would not be nice in this beautiful interior!

 

Rob,
Looking beautiful. What did you do with wood veneer refinishing?