GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS
Taking a car apart is largely a matter of patience, logic and common sense. It certainly won't hurt to reiterate some basic truths, though. Firstly, our primary focus tends to be on cars from the 1950s to the 1980s. That means for most likely candidates there will be a Haynes manual available, and this is essential reading before tackling each major task. Just remember to make sure you are reading about the correct model. For example, often the manual will detail first one engine family in section A, then another in section B of the same chapter. Remember also to check in the Supplement chapter at the end of the book, as there can be some quite dramatic changes in here for later models – my Fiat Panda manual for example details the earlier cars' tubular back axle and leaf springs in chapter 11 on suspension, and you only find details on the Omega axle and coil springs fitted to my car in Chapter 13 – Supplement: Revisions and information on later models.
Having said that, there is a limit to how much of the finer detail you will find in a workshop manual. If you can find an original Manufacturer's Parts Catalogue for your car, then grab it because the exploded diagrams it contains will be invaluable. (Some of these will be reproduced in the Haynes manual, but not all of them.) And if you have internet access, be prepared to check online for descriptions and How-To videos for particular tasks.
Stripping out and removing the major mechanical components should not be too challenging if you read the manual, do any research and examine the item on the car carefully first. A bigger problem is likely to be fixings that are seized and won't undo. Your first three weapons in this war against rusty nuts will be a wire brush, a can of penetrating fluid and a dose of patience – clean off any rust or muck, give a generous squirt of fluid and leave it a while to do its thing.
When you give it another go, make sure you have the right size spanner or socket for the job and that it is a snug fit on the fixing to minimise the risk of it rounding off. You may find that the spanner or socket you want to use is hard to get on the fixing because accumulated grime and rust have made it effectively larger – ironically this can be a bigger problem with high quality tools that are machined to finer tolerances than cheaper ones. If so, give it another clean. Then try undoing the nut or bolt a fraction, tighten it back up and then undo it a fraction more. This is slow and laborious, but is less likely to cause the fixing to shear than if you simply unwind it with as much force as you can apply. And sheared studs or bolts in blind holes, while not insurmountable problems, are definitely a major hassle.
We did look in Part 2 at the various tools available for shifting stubborn fixings, and as you escalate through these you are more and more likely to damage a fixing. That is not necessarily a problem, and indeed it is sometimes the only way, but always pause to think about what you can best sacrifice. If there is a choice between two or more potential victims, you want to choose the one that is cheapest and most freely available. Never, though, throw anything away until your restoration is finished. Even if something is damaged beyond repair, it can still provide useful information to confirm that the replacement part is correct, and witness marks from years of being fixed in one position can help with orienting that new part correctly.
Metal fastenings can be a pain in the proverbial because of corrosion and decay, but you are likely to have bigger problems inside the car, especially if you have something from the 1980s, an era that saw increasing use of plastic clips. The problem with these is firstly that they are usually hidden from view and there is a particular technique or leverage point you need to know about to get them off safely. Linked to this is the second problem that aging plastics tend to be brittle, easily broken and no longer available for love nor money.
This is one of the areas where the internet might come to the rescue. In general though, try never to force anything that really does not want to move. Sometimes you will have to apply a fair amount of pressure to pop a clip, but if the plastic itself is bending and the clip still won't pop free, then you should back off and approach it from a different angle, or look again for hidden screws holding it on.
Finally, do not rush the stripping stage because the care you take now will repay you ten times over during reassembly. So always take lots of digital photos, and file them logically on your computer with a back-up. You will be amazed at how often you need to refer back to these during reassembly to see whether, for example, widget A goes above or below widget B, and often it is in the background to the photo you took of widget C that you will find the answer.
When storing items, try to group things together that belong as a unit, fitting nuts and bolts back loosely where they belong if possible. Store these items in logical sets in cardboard boxes, plastic bags, old Chinese takeaway containers – it doesn't matter what you use, but make sure you label every container clearly. And in this regard, do not rely on masking tape with a hastily written note on it, because over the length of a restoration the tape will lose its stickiness and fall off, while ink will fade or get covered with greasy fingerprints until it is illegible. My preference is to write on the outside what a box or a bag contains, but to repeat this info on a small label and drop that inside. I know it sounds time consuming and duplicated effort, but believe me that you will later have occasion to be extremely glad that you took such a methodical approach.