New 145 Restoration Project Of 'Margo'
 

Well, after many months of searching for a 145, I’ve only gone and done it……Many thanks to BicycleBoy for the lead to the car, although I’m still not sure if I should thank him or swear at him…..

Many apologies must go firstly to the many viewers and contributors of the ‘Seriously’ thread in the 200 Sales Section, as the quest had been taking up rather a lot of space on 145, rather than 200 matters.

Bit of background, I fell into Volvo ownership around 3 years ago when I needed to replace my old 2006 Audi Allroad 3.0 Tdi, lovely car, but due to all the electrical gubbins, the maintenance costs were getting astronomical, several thousands in the last year I had it.

Ended up picking up a great 1 owner 1994 68k miles, 940 2.0 Turbo Wentworth Estate, and joined this illustrious club and forum. After a few months, the simplicity of 940 life became clear, and 3 years on she has never let me down. I use it as a daily van for my part time handyman work, and weekends/holidays she shines up nicely and takes us all over the country normally rammed with camping gear, roof box, hounds etc.

Well the appeal of a even more back to basics estate, to ferry us around on weekend trips taking our hounds for walks on the beach, became something I started to think about even more & more…… oh dear, this is where it all started

As I took semi retirement earlier this year, I am in the middle of extending our single brick garage into a large 6.2m deep x 7m wide brick/tile garage/workshop. In the back of my mind is a desire to do a full bare metal restoration , don’t know why, but I was buying Practical Classics magazines back in early 90’s and the idea of doing a full restoration is something I would relish, especially the learning new skills. I had done some Mig welding on rough Minis some 30 + years ago.

Meet CWW 395H or rather ‘Margo’ as you may tell, I was a child of the 70’s, rather a shiny little thing indeed, having had a recent quick cover up spray job. Would normally not have bothered at looking at, but the asking price was not too bad, at an asking price of £7k.

I will take a load of other photos of ‘grot spots’ probably at the weekend.

Went to have a look around a week ago, and yes there is obviously a load of surface rust hiding underneath the new paint, the one really positive I took is that its had a brand new MOT with no advisories for corrosion in its MOT history, the four jacking points were fairly solid, box sections and sub frame felt good, door hinge posts also felt solid.

Way way better than one I’d looked at in Devon priced £4500, and another £1000 pile of rust in Poole, unfortunately both of those were wasted journeys. Undecided, but I took the plunge,

Bad Points:-
Rot on OSF upper inner arch and where it joins the front panel.
OSF bumper corner twisted, will probably see if I can find a good used one.
OSF front parking light broken, needs new lens at a minimum, can find lens but no sign of the actual light unit.
Had LPG so tank where spare usually goes, no spare wheel and carpet for that section missing as the tank was larger.
Runs very unevenly
Window winders don’t stay on the spindles.
Missing rear wiper arm
Was a 2.0 DL out of the factory but over time its had a twin carb set up.

Margo is living in my brother in laws barn until my garage workshop is watertight, so probably 4-6 months away, so the plan is to find the missing parts, run her for a year to identify issues, and get the engine running better, also by that time the rust should start showing up.

Plan would be to do a full back to bare metal restoration, get the bare shell onto a rotisserie and bead blast and repair sections around the shell one at a time, as all will be done as far as possible at home.

My ideal would be to keep her as original as possible, but I know I will upset the purists as I would love to perhaps make the following changes:-

Spray her in a very dark midnight blue, think Bentley Continental S1 in dark navy blue that you can almost lose yourself in the finish. Yes yes, I know that as someone with no prior spraying experience, this is probably being unrealistic, but I am happy to invest in air fed mask/basic extraction etc. and practice and practice .
Tan leather interior done to the same pattern as the original seats and door cards. Boot carpet re-trim in matching colour.
Audio - I love the appearance of not having a radio, as it retains its original bank plate, but a hidden radio/Bluetooth etc would be convenient.
Heated seats, would be great if I could somehow incorporate 240 heated seat pads with hidden switch.
Wheels, I like the standard steels with hubcaps, but I’m unsure if the track could do with being half an inch wider each side, need to mull that one over
Engine, not too fussed about tearing up the tarmac, but a few more horses would not be turned down if a simple modification could easily be incorporated.
I would ideally want to incorporate modern soundproofing products to make driving more enjoyable.
Re-wire - probably will need to rewire, so would consider doing a new loom, and getting it braided . Unfortunately companies like Autosparks don’t seem to do looms with variations from factory, so hence heated seats/audio might cause issues. Would be a rather daunting project, but I think they do on sort of a large peg board with looms stretched out around pins.
Would like to add towing capacity if needed, and my 940 has a great system with removable ball and a natty plastic cover, could this fit a 145???

Loads of other stuff spinning round in the head, a nice matching colour co-ordinated period caravan cropped up thanks to ITSv40, methinks I’ve plenty on my plate without that.

Any ideas if a front wiper arm could be adapted for rear wiper that’s missing?? thinking mainly if the spindle diameters are the same?

Cheers
Steve

PS any idea how to add bullet points, when I click the icon, it opens another box??

All the good fortune in the world Steve.

Was it a Chinese chap who said tat even the longest journey starts with the first step?

Power to you. 👀 looking forward to it, no end!😁🧐👍

I like originality in classic cars,however some modifications especially if they can be "hidden"[seat heaters for example]can make them easier to live with.At the end of the day it's your car to do with as you wish and I think the mods you've so far suggested are not silly[like fitting spoilers/huge wheels/slamming it would be].I look forward to reading your resto journey when you get it home.

Good luck with the resto. The only thing I would say is stay in the moment and don't get too far ahead of yourself as what you want will evolve over time. If it's a full resto then take the time to get loads of photos before you start, strip the car and take more photos, label everything and store away neatly where it won't get damaged or disturbed. You'll need a good amount of space for all the bits. Then concentrate on the bodywork, don't start buying wheels, engine upgrades or anything else, instead collect your ideas and store them somewhere. In a resto it's easy to get distracted seeing what other folk have done or are doing and you can waste time and money.

Only media blast the floor and chassis of the body and spray it with epoxy mastic primer. That will hold off any rust. Get the shell sorted and then move onto the hanging panels. To strip the paint off A surface of the car use non-woven discs that go on a grinder; https://www.screwfix.com/p/non-woven...E&gclsrc=aw.ds. They rip the paint and rust off really easily but does create a lot of dust. I've found media blasting can either be too aggressive and damage the panels or not man enough and doesn't remove all the stubborn areas and rust. I'm glad you're getting a rotisserie, it will be the best investment in the resto and your sanity. :-)

Before you start don't underestimate the hours and money you're going to put in doing a full resto. Consider 1000 to 1500hrs as the minimum.

You'll get guys like me telling you how to do things. :-) But it's your car and your resto so do it how you like but make sure it's enjoyable. Take the time to stop and appreciate what you've done along the way, that's where keeping photos is good. Don't stress about stuff it's supposed to be fun. You'll find more rust than what you think there will be most likely, just take it in your stride and that's just how it is. Don't put a deadline on things or tell folk how long it will take. It takes as long as it takes you.

All the best and look forward to following along.

That is the best advice anyone could give you. Print off, blow up to A3 size and laminate it. Hang up in the garage for future reference or by the bed - or both.
One piece of advice I was given by an old boy when I was restoring the Bentley was: aim for 100% in everything you do - with that mindset you will probably achieve 97%. If you start out with the mindset of 97% will be good enough you will only achieve 90% as the 'that will do' mentality will creep in and the finished result will suffer.

Ah I did see this one pop on Facebook marketplace and thought someone will get a deal there for sure.

Great find.

I’ll keep plugging away with I think the Devon one you looked at :confused_smile:

Hi Robmacdob,

Ah, did you buy a grey 145 located near Yeovil from a chap at a farm down a very narrow country lane???

Think from memory he was asking £4-5k at the time, but it is several months ago now, so I may be wrong.

I know it came with some spares, are they the ones on FB Marketplace at the moment??

Guess I just need to get my garage sorted, then get cracking. I’m sure I’ll have no end of questions and hopefully we can both end up with a car we are happy with.

You should do a thread for your rebuild as I find these very interesting.

Cheers and good luck,
Steve

Hi Steve,

Yes that’s the one.

Was supplied new by Kastners in Exeter (near where I live) and was a local car all its life, which was the appeal for me.

It is indeed the spares on marketplace. Just things that are not needed or duplicates of what I’ve got.

Once Ive got things in place a rebuild/resto thread could be in order.

Rained off today, so decided to pop over to brother in laws farm to check if Margo was going to start after being parked up for a few days. Hopefully at the weekend I can get it out of the shed into daylight to take a load of photos

Bingo, bit rough idle but that should hopefully be able to be sorted with a full service, plus plugs, leads, rotor arm, distributor cap, timing check etc.

Checked operation of everything, with some snags

Heater and fan, works although once running a few minutes I had a small puddle of coolant in passenger footwell🙁. Must be leak at the hoses to the matrix or I can just bypass the matrix for a year. Whilst mopping up, on lifting the flooring, noticed perforated anti drum pads. Are these as they came from the factory?? If so then a good sign she hasn’t had floors mucked about with in the past.

No dash lights
Fuel gauge showing full.
Wipers park vertically and very slow.

Oh well the list will no doubt get longer and longer quickly.

Cheers
Steve