2010: The Mechanicals (W72)

While waiting for room to open up so that the cosmetic work could begin, some mechanical work was performed. Starting with a thorough degreasing, and then the water pump and belts were tackled as were a number of gaskets.

A general inspection was also performed to be sure that the car was safe to drive, a top priority for me considering I'd be transporting my children fairly often.

 

At this point it became obvious the car seemed to look good from some angles and not-so-great from others. From this angle it looks fairly ok, stance-wise, but from the driver's side it was horribly lopsided not to mention sagging at the rear. Whereas my older '78 had sagged naturally and evenly along all sides, this WS6 was sitting low at the rear and lower on the driver's side. I've noticed this on many old WS6 cars... I don't know if the rear springs were unique to the WS6 package, but there is something that seems to happen to these cars. Whether it's possibly the more aggressive nature of driving these cars might have endured, I don't know. But this car definitely looked sad in this respect. What a surprise... more money to spend.

The original wheels seemed in fair shape, and I ended up torn between using my poorly-restored '79 WS6 wheels mentioned earlier or refinishing these. It was clear by this point that I was going to be adding some Special Edition stripes and it only made sense to complete the look with gold coloured snowflake wheels.

I'll admit the stock sized (for WS6) 225/70-R15 tires looked painfully narrow compared with the 245mm tires that were on my other '78 since I bought it. That brought on a significant amount of research as well, when it came to deciding what to do with the tires on the car. More on that later.

Plated and insured, it was time to start the cosmetic work! Let the crazy stress begin!!!