Saturday, May 16, 2009


Left side is the instrument panel as it was when I got the car. I obtained a better lens from another Bianchina owner and went to work on it. I used a plastic polishing compound and a loose rag buffing wheel and ended up with what's on the right. I can live with it. I don't have any pictures but I also rebuilt the fresh air vent valves by drilling out the rivets, replacing the rubber seal and re-riveting them after painting the metal parts black. The heater/defroster diverter valves were next. One of them had no valve blade and the other had a cracked blade. However it was enough to get the "master machinist" a pattern to make two new blades out of springy shim stock. They work perfectly. Black paint again. After spending hours in the cabin, I realized that the plastic hose I kept moving out of the way was, in fact, the fuel line to the engine. Naw, they wouldn't run a fuel hose through the passenger cabin, would they? I replaced all of it with 1/4" ID steel tubing, replacing all the rubber grommets along the way. Lot's of tricky bending but I got'er. I had to put a coupling in the middle because I just couldn't feed all that bent line from one end of the car to the other. Looks good and I feel a lot better with steel instead of what looked like Tygon tubing. That's the stuff they use for air hoses in aquariums. Talk at ya later.

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