<VV> "Numbers Matching"

[Les]

Apparently, that's not all there is to restoration....

""Boy, it really galls my threads when these ignoramuses go off about how
the Corvair crowd is 'over-restoring' cars! I say, restored means
*exactly* as the factory did it, no matter what. I spent 95 weeks last
year doing an accurate and complete ground-up restoration on my '67.
And, let me tell you, some of those rubber and glass pieces are *really*
hard to restore after grinding them up!

For some folks, simply applying a bit of overspray while painting is
'good enough.' I scoff at this. I meticulously copied onto the mufflers,
droplet by droplet, the exact overspray pattern that was there
originally. Even the runs and sags at the bottom of the door panels were
duplicated. Your average 'restorer' will just slap some new paint on,
calling it 'original' if it is the same color. Jeeez. I chemically
removed every vestige of *the original paint*, then broke it down,
reformulated it, and re-applied it. Sure, I had to use substitute
volatile carrier (thinner), but since it evaporates anyway, I claim that
it was not originally 'on the car' when it left the factory gates.

Some folks think using the 'correct' fasteners is good enough. Ha! I
made sure to cross-thread the left rear upper transmission crossmember
bolt, just as the (sometimes inebriated) factory worker was known to. I
removed the third from the right lower grille attachment screw, which a
previous owner had erroneously installed, in spite of the
well-documented fact that none of these were installed at the factory
until after 3:43 pm on October 17th, 1966. I made sure to scratch the
frame in the appropriate places, just as the handling mechanisms at the
factory did. Some previous owner had removed the scratches, in an effort
to make the car 'perfect.' What was he thinking? I even installed the #3
cylinder's exhaust lifter upside down, which was a rare (1 of 3 such
built), but documented occurrence. Sure, it runs like hell, but hey,
it's _original_!

Some folks get a new set of tires that LOOK like the originals, and call
that good enough. Not me. I got THE ORIGINAL tires out of a landfill,
ground them up, and restored them. I was able to find about 91.7% of the
rubber which had worn off, by vacuuming the roadside dust over the roads
the car had travelled, and separating out the correct molecules from the
other debris with a mass-spectrographic double-diathermic
isopropadiaphanometer molecular identifier. NOT cheap, let me tell you.
But, correct is correct. Some folks put on new valve stems and caps, and
away they go. We purists know that it IS important to align the seam
line on the valve cap to the correct angle, just as it left the factory
('indexed' valve caps, Section T-26-B.5 of the Official Sniveler's Guide
to CORRECT Corvair Assembly).

Changing the oil is considered routine by some 'restorers'. They throw
out the old, slap in some new, maybe even 'improved' oil, and a new
filter. Not a real purist. I have the original oil broken down and
re-refined. The old additives are removed, restructured, and re- added.
I even recover as many molecules of the burned or dripped oil as
possible, and add them back in. This means the filter must be
dismantled, which ruins the case, so it has to be remelted and reformed
into a filter. Re-using the original paint, of course.

Some bozos throw in a Sears Die-Hard, and off they go. Some so- called
restorers buy a reproduction 'tar-top' battery, and call THAT good
enough (*scoff*). I found my original battery and remanufactured it. No
wimpy replacing the innards with new, either. I melted down the original
plates, then recast them in the correct factory molds. Saving the
original electrolyte, of course. Now, you might think, gee, that seems
pretty far-fetched, this guy is extreme. Well, you ain't seen nothing
yet. I also was able to procure the original ELECTRONS which had come
with the car, and reinstall them. It seems that over the years, the car
had given and recieved a few jump starts, and some of the original
electrons had thus transferred to other vehicles, and some from other
cars had contaminated my car. Thankfully, there is an electron sorting
and ID accessory for the molecular identifier, which allowed me to
correct this blatant slap to true_ originality.

One thing holds me back from being 100% correct. Some fool of a previous
owner had changed the tires, and did not retain the original air. I
know, hard to believe, but it happened- some folks just don't 'get it.'
Now, I have located about 24.6% of the original air molecules with the
Mass-Spectragraphic double diathermic isopropa diaphanometer, but many
of them have been sucked into other engines, combusted, and turned into
CO, CO2, NOx, etc. If anyone is aware of a device to spot the correct
air molecules after they have been broken up and combined in other
chemicals, please let me know. I guess I COULD settle for some air
molecules from the Willow Run tire-mounting area vicinity, captured
about 9:47 am on September 5th, 1966. Ah, well, it's only a few points
off at showtime..."