3 Ideas To Keep An Original Look With Antique Cars That Are Hard To Find Replacements For
Posted on: 12 September 2016
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If you are doing a car restoration, you may want to preserve the original look. This can be difficult with some cars that are more than 50 years old. Sometimes, these cars may not have parts available for repairs or not have all the original parts. To keep an original look, you may need to do things like rebuild and use parts from different cars. Here are some tips to help you keep an original look with parts that may not be from your model car:
1. Getting Seals To Rebuild Original Parts Like New
The rubber seals on different parts of antique cars will most likely need to be replaced. There are parts like carburetors and water pumps that you can get the rebuild kits for to make parts like new again instead of replacing them. If the parts are hard to find, talk with a parts dealer about the items you need to rebuild a specific part. Sometimes, parts can also be custom made by a machine shop for your rebuilding project, such as the metal components inside a pump or brackets and gears that often break.
2. Using Parts From Different Make Cars That Are Similar To Yours
When you are rebuilding a car, you may find that the parts you need have not been manufactured for decades. This can be a problem, but sometimes there are other more common model cars that you may want to resource for parts. It may even be a newer model car, which has parts that can work on your restoration. When you do this, try to use parts that work with minimal customizations and that are as close to the original as possible.
3. Restoring And Painting Old Parts To Make Them Look Like New Again
With all the different parts and rebuilding things on your car, you may find that there are a host of different colors that do not match the original car. You can remove parts that do not match and paint them the color that they should be. Many auto paint shops can help match colors for things like engine compartments that may be difficult to find. You can also have parts bead blasted before painting to get them perfectly clean before you repaint them.
These are some tips to help you keep an original look with the parts on your antique car restoration. If you need parts to give your car an original look, contact a used parts dealer such as 422 Auto Wrecking to get what you need for your repairs.