Barn yard find Archives

March 6, 2018March 13, 2018

It was all too hard

Someone somewhere is saying this very thing every minute of every day for just about any subject you could think of. In this case it was a 1994 306 Peugeot that we had been told had broken down on a nearby highway and the nearest place to get help was a farm with a farmer who had some mechanical know how, but not enough to get the 306 running again. So there it sat in his farm shed ever since, for some years.

We spotted it on a visit to the farm while there for another reason, but it caught our eye. Why? the car seemed out of place against the rest of the items on the farm. We worked a tentative deal with the farmer pending on whether the car started. We did an assessment of the car to see what it would take to get it back on to the road. Below is our initial list.

First look list

Fuel pump has left the building. Not even in the car and the fuel tank has been exposed to the elements. (the driver door has been open all this time)
The fuel lines are cut in the engine bay
The inlet snorkel is not around
Battery terminal have take a beating (not sure why this would have been )
The car has 3 steel wheels and 3 alloy wheels
Battery is missing
Drivers door panel hanging off the door (hence the door open all this time)
small dent in the drivers door and a scrap mark on the drivers rear quarter panel.

It was all too hard — Slight damage to body

Next job

Was to see if the engine will start so fitted a battery carried out the standard checks before we attempted to fire the engine. We sprayed “Start Ya Bastard”into the engine and it fired up straight away and sounded sweet for the short time it ran under test conditions.

We now know that the car had a fuel problem of some type but what specifically is still not known but highly suspect that the fuel pump failed.

Next job was to find a donor car so we visited the local wreckers where we found the same model car that had the same parts we needed to get our project car going.

Fuel sender unit with pump
Air tract snorkel
genuine tool kit
Good battery terminals and leads

Now all the elements are sourced we can determine whether the project is viable which we think it is, but not by a lot.

Our plan is to get the car mobile in situation on the farm then drive it to get it registration checks.

We may even go as far as to carry out the NDG renovation treatment on the car on the farm.

Lets get going on this.

We will update this Blog as it happens.

Update 12th March

We removed the donor fuel pump and connector and headed out to the farm where the car was located. Installed the pump, sorted out the bad wiring, installed the battery and tested for power which there wasn’t any. Found the fuel pump fuse which was unmarked and the car fired up first go.

Reversed the car out of the shed and gave it a quick pressure wash and pumped up the tyres and took it for a short drive.

All the drivers door hardware was on the floor of the car but all the bolts and screws were missing so we taped the door closed and fitted the unregistered car permit to the windscreen and drove to town for the next phase.

Something got the better of us. The car was terrible to drive and a fuel line sprung a leak so fuel was spray in the car interior. A quick fix and then an idea occurred to us. Take this car straight to the wrecking yard!

We didn’t make it to the wrecking yard. The car stopped on the side of a lonely country road, refusing to go any further. Not giving in we sent back our pilot car to get our SUV and a tow rope to complete the final few kms to the wreckers, which we did and got there just before closing time.

Our wrecker friend would not let us abandon the car but instead offered his workshop and a special deal on the donor car in his yard to get the job completed. He is a big supporter of our Blogging work and he said that this is all part of the story and to go away and think about it overnight.

We left the car in his yard to go away and think about it.

February 26, 2018March 7, 2018

Lost, but still very worthy

We were alerted to a car that was iconic as the fleet car of choice in the long country and city roads of Australia. In their day you would be hard pressed not to see at least 1 of these Australian built Mitsubishi Magna’s on any drive anywhere.

Here we have a wagon version of this car. Super versatile with being a very reliable 3.5ltr v6 and fold down flat rear seat made it excellent for travelling sales people to securely transport their samples to show clients.

The cars were good for well over 500,000kms of hammering without more than the normal service items which in this case were very cheap in comparison to other vehicles.

Enough of the preamble and into what we found.

Lost, but still very worthy — Been a long time since these were cleaned

We found an excellent low milage example of one of these 2001 Australian produced Mitsubishi Magna that had been sitting in the spot we found it for 8 years and was owned by an elderly couple of almost all it’s life. Before coming to rest here the car was a daily commuter and didn’t leave the city of 50,000 population so it idled along.

The DIY work begins

First thing to do was check the oil and coolant levels and put in a fresh battery to see if it would start. It had a full tank of fuel which would be stale but enough to start the engine.

A few cranks to get the oil pressure up and then we went at a proper start which it did just like it was driven the day before.

4 washes later we had something we could move to the DIY driveway and get on with seeing if we could get the showroom new look using our NDG products.

https://ndgproducts.com/lost-but-still-very-worthy/ — 4 Mega Gloss Washes later

6 hours were spent on the car to detail it inside and out but it turned out looking brand new. A sensational result!!

The Before & After Images

The car will head to it’s new owner soon enough and will be a good solid workhorse.

We are tempted to keep this one as a low cost reliable, useful car.

July 22, 2017July 23, 2017

Barn Find restoration

For this Barn Find restoration we found an old 1974 Mercedes 230.6 in a shed covered in a vine and spider webs. The challenge was to take the car from the spiders and using only NDG Nano products bring the car to roadworthy levels in 1 day.

First was to drag the car from the abyss and have a look at what it will take.

The Chosen treatments were.

NDG Mega Gloss Car Wash (scented in Old Leather)
NDG Clay Bar
NDG IPA
NDG Genesis Compound
NDG Instant detailer
NDG Hyperseal
NDG Vinyl & Leather treatments
NDG Long life Tire Shine
Shield 120

The end results

At the 24hour mark the finished product rolled out onto the streets to go for Registration/Title testing. It passed first go and a street cruise was a mandatory conclusion.

Before

After

First Event invitation

There are many cars that could have been asked to attend a photoshoot for the reopening of a long ago closed Drive-in. The Mercedes balanced the mix of predominately US classics.