Waaijenberg Canta LX - New Management DRIVE BELTS 25/10/23

Regarding the damaged gel coat parts and the missing glass, how about spare parts from the netherlands?

Body panels are changeable on Smarts quite easily so lots of them about over here in germany.

What is the spare parts situation like in its homeland?

I read in a corvette resto article that gelcoat resto isn't that easy sometimes. Although these vettes are much older today, I don't know how that technology has evolved.

Right…….

Where were we?

Kinda behind on the postings and updates by a few weeks due to various unforeseen circumstances.

So we got to this point, and I actually did record a bit of it.

Glued the bits of film together, more as a record of where this Canta has been for future reference.



I actually reported on these bits before, but had not thrown the YouTube video together and was not planning on doing one.

But I do know that some guys to enjoy the detail, in order to be able to comment and give advice.

So here you go……,,,





Sorry for those who do fall asleep along the way.


Better, up to date, update maybe later today.


.

Way too small for my oversized body.

But I do like a Messerschmidt

Another Easter weekend entry.

Remember the scruffy Nissan Micra I had last year?

Thread: forum.retro-rides.org/thread/222766/grizz-nissan-scruffy-daniels-complete

It needed so much cleaning and remedial work, but once done, it made a huge difference.

Seats were a case in point.

From this…..



To this…..




Well, the seats in the Canta were clearly treated with as much disrespect as possible…….

So I decided to first clean out all the dirt in them, followed by a dry vacuum cleaning.

Both of them had a handful of dirt between the seat back and seat base, these seats are non-adjustable, so have pockets where dirt collects.

No idea how one can go to this level of abuse.



So once they were dry vacuumed it was time to get out the Vax Wet cleaner, an amazing tool, as previously proven with the Nissan Micra seats.

If one repeated the job a second time, I am pretty certain they would come up even better.



So ready for action.

I started with the fabric surfaces, and Vax machine.

Once that was done, I used an ammonia based cleaner for the vinyl sides and backs which were also damaged, due to the car being used as a mobile wheelbarrow for building rubble and garden refuse, plus the rest of the smelly stuff I had removed previously.

The result was worth the few hours spent cleaning up.

So I started with these.



And after the first round, this was some of the very murky waters it resulted in.



And for the lazy ones who prefer a movie……

All captured, along with some advice and description of how to get the results I got.



Of course there are different better ways to do stuff in everyone’s opinion…..


But this works well enough for me.


Next up of course…..


Interior.


.

Saturday I brought the Canta up to the house, closer to everything.



More vacuum cleaning and hard brush action.



Interior looked like this….

So a bucket of warm water, some dishwashing liquid and a lot of wash, rinse repeat was needed.

This thing is as filthy as you wished your girlfriend would be.

Just really bad.













I think the best part of the job was the fact that it was a decent day outside, dry, warm and no wind.

Good for the morale when working alone.



So here is an example of what you start with and what you end up with…..

Start



Wash, disassemble where possible…..



Clean up all the parts



Reassemble and grin.



Add wax based furniture polish……



And repeat for the whole interior.

Clean glass, repeatedly till you can look inside.

Wait for interior to dry.

Then wipe down all surfaces with polish and grin madly at the transformation.









Seats back in.





Of course the floor carpets look like absolute Sh!t but that is a job for another day.


More in the next report tomorrow ……


Starting to feel this now.


Happy Easter.

Ahhh yes, it really is small.

Excellent work on the clean up jobs Grizz

Sometimes a car is just a tool, particularly if you lack the ability, knowledge or care to do anything other than use it to go places.