It is 5 weeks since I reported on first impressions of the car, and I’ve now got a much better idea of its true condition, and what work is needed on the body. I’ve also been thinking about the plan for the car.
I mentioned before that water must at some point have got into the cabin of the car. An initial inspection showed what looked like quite a lot of surface rust on the interior floor panels. It was clear that the interior would have to be entirely removed, and the car ‘stabilised’ before things could get any worse (although the car is indoors, an English barn is still a pretty humid place in winter, and unprotected metal will grow a coat of rust quite quickly).
The underside of the car also needs to have all the underseal removed for the same purpose. There’s less surface rust under the car than in it, but it is a laborious exercise scraping away the dirt and bituminous gunk – best done in 30 minute chunks – though there is some interest and pleasure in uncovering pristine factory spot-welds, and in getting to understand better how the car was made. One thing I’m really pleased about is that it’s clear the car has never had any body repair work done, so whatever is needed now, it won’t be the re-doing of poor, incorrect ‘bodges’…
Most of the door and door-aperture trim panels are now removed and carefully labelled (including bagging and categorising all the fasteners that came out whole). The seats were hard to shift, as the screws that held the runners down were in the worst corrosion zone, so a few needed to be drilled out, and will have to be tapped.
But the overall, the body condition is pretty good.
You can see some of the original mid-blue colour on the A-post door shut on the right; on my computer screen it looks a bit darker than in real life – it’s really a lot brighter than the traditional Lancia blue, perhaps half-way to a sky blue (not very technical description that, but colours are tricky). I found a picture online of a pair of contemporary D23 spiders, that appear to be painted a very similar colour (but has the photo been hand-tinted?).
D23s at Monza, June 1953
Who knows about ‘original’ B20 colours? I should contact the Cliffes and see if they have a chart. Anyone else… who has got a colour-wheel that I could look at? No doubt a customer could have any colour he wanted on special order… Anyway, having planned, before it arrived, to take the car to a pale metallic green, I’m now convinced that it should go back to its first colour state, which I think will both suit the car and mark it out from the many silver / gunmetal / dark blue cars around.
Back to the rust… the right-hand, outer ‘plinth’ for the seat runners is quite badly corroded on the inner side. The construction is curious, in that there is what seems to be an afterthought strip on the left-hand side, made of thinner metal (you can see the join in the photo above) and with a curved corner at its front end. This additional piece (it’s the same on the passenger side, outer) is rather amateurishly tack welded to the floor-pan, or rather was, as the surface rust has popped these welds to the point where I was able to pull the section off with my bare hands. Thankfully the floor underneath isn’t much corroded.
I’m planning to treat surface rust with a rust-converter product before painting – the product (from Bilt Hamber, I’ll write more about it at some point) is claimed to penetrate body seams which sounds like a good idea. A couple more weeks of interior cleaning should get the car to the point where this can be done, and then it will be time to really address the underside properly.
Here’s another picture of the driver’s side floor, with the old sound-deadening panel just removed, but no scraping or cleaning done yet. Still quite a lot of black factory paint in evidence:
B20-2959 