Definition Of “Restored” - Concensus?

[Estycollector]

22 minutes ago, bunnspecial said:

 

I suspect this is more true with cars than anything. I know that growing up, my dad had a 1980 Porsche 924 with enough fiddly little problems to make it inconvenient to drive(among other things, he really, really should have changed the battery ground strap somewhere early on, as that was what would cause the battery to seemingly "die" when you stopped to get gas, and it's a cheap/easy fix). In any case, he got tired of messing with it, and it sat a lot. When he finally started getting it back on the road, it was a nightmare. Fuel injectors would clog left, right, and center and plenty of other fuel-related problems made a trip across town a questionable proposition.

 

At 27 years old, when I decided to buy an MG that was older than me, he had a serious talk with me about if I'd end up paying several thousand dollars for something that would sit around and I wouldn't want to drive. He told me that if I did buy it, I needed to make a point of driving it, and thought that an MG was a bad choice since he was afraid it would always have something wrong with it.

 

I bought the car and drove it 50 miles home. I had a few testy moments, including 5 miles down the road when I stopped to get gas and it wouldn't start again. I called the guy I bought it from, who came out with a mechanic who ended up sanding the points and I was on my way again.

 

Over the course of the next few months, I won't deny that I had some fun moments with it. I had never been around points ignition before, and in the early days that was one of my biggest headaches to figure out exactly what was going on and getting it working smoothly. BTW, I still use points-I like being able to fix them on the side of the road! In any case, the current engine rebuild is the longest it's been off the road. Otherwise, in nice weather I'll probably drive it 4-5 days a week, sometimes just around town, sometimes to have some fun on country roads, or sometimes just a "It's a nice day and I'm going to go to X location and drive back tonight." Even in cooler weather, I drive it at least weekly provided that there's not salt on the road. It's not been 100% problem free driving, but I know the car well enough that I can usually recognize impending problems. I've really enjoyed having the car.

To me, letting a car sit with gasoline and other fluids is a lot like letting a pen sit with ink in it. Barring sack deterioration, a pen that's cleaned, dried, and put away should more or less work the same when it comes out of storage and is re-inked.

I read through your post and have a well maybe or maybe not thought. 

 

A vehicle that is left unused has its essental lubricants left to drain leaving the parts unprotected. An electircal system left to the  neglicted battery. 

 

My comments are general and not necessarily related to poor English designes.....LOL!!

 

 

[bunnspecial]

17 minutes ago, Estycollector said:

 

A vehicle that is left unused has its essental lubricants left to drain leaving the parts unprotected. An electircal system left to the  neglicted battery. 

 

Not to disrupt your point, but out of curiosity have you ever pulled apart an engine that hasn't run in a long time?

 

Back last fall, I bought an MGB bottom end that had come out of a left-in-a-field rusting 1965 GT. It's hard to say when it was last running-probably 30+ years ago if even that recently. It turned over by hand, but wasn't tested beyond that but past a visual as a good rebuildable core. The guy I bought it from, per my request, pulled the oil pan(makes for much, much easier hauling in my trunk). Once he pulled the pan, he spent an hour in his garage with a propane "torpedo" heater trained on it to get as much oil and minimize the mess as he could.

 

It still leaked a decent amount on the way home. Even more significant, though, is that when I pulled it down all the bearings and everywhere else you'd expect still had an intact oil film. Even though the outside of the block was rusty where it wasn't greasy(I never degrease blocks, heads, cranks etc. before I put them into storage for that reason), the crank, bores, rods, etc were all as clean and rust-free as the day the were made.

 

To a point, I'd agree that a constant supply of fresh oil, chassis grease, and fresh gasoline flowing through the fuel system is good(gasoline in general, and modern corn juice especially, sucks up water that can corrode the tank, line, carburetor bowls, and anything else). Unattended brake fluid fills with water and corrodes everything, In English cars, the chassis rust prevention system that functions any time the engine is running does not operate .

[stoen]

Hi,

May I please feel free to speak from my limited but fair experience. I’ll do my best to stay on-topic as much as I can. I’ve been servicing pre WWII Pelikan pens, 100 & 100N. These marvels of early 20th century engineering and industrial design deserve to be preserved, remembered and used as meant to be. Fortunately, their being made of standardized parts may help illustrate some key points I have encountered in pen restoration tasks.

 

In this experience, restoration often means no less than the following:

 

- making a pen ready to use by restoring its full functionality, serviceability and modular build

 

- restoring its original form and cosmetics

 

- cleaning everything and repairing damaged parts without visible repair signs and without impaired function, structure or serviceability

 

- replacing broken or improvised parts with original ones (often involving some work in finding them).

 

- if original parts are not available, replacing broken or improvised parts with newly made spare parts, either remanufactured to strict original blueprints, if available, if not, reverse engineered from good original parts, using materials which are the closest available match to the original, and up to 0.03mm in measurement tollerance. There are few experts who can do this.

 

- refraining from using any glues, modern epoxy glues in particular

 

- refraining from milling and filing original parts

 

- refraining from “sacrificing” parts.

 

- using sealants which don’t behave agressively to the materials

 

In practice, the following problems do occur:

 

- original materials change over time, celluloid may shrink and become brittle, ebonite may oxidate. Parts which would have originally matched may not match after 80+ years anymore.

 

- all materials show some tear and wear after decades of use.

 

- many of such vintage european pens have been damaged during WWII, when original spare parts were not available anymore, and repair conditions, quality of available materials etc. were really poor, especially in the countries where the war was fought. This often resulted in many of such pens having been given “first aid” and tweaked, often using improvized spare parts.

 

Therfore, restoring vintage pens often becomes a trickier and more complex, time and resource consuming task than it may appear at first sight. It often includes subtle practical understanding of materials technology, chemistry and history. Acquiring such knowledge may require months of hands-on learning experience and a decent mentorship.

 

So, restoring such pens often means nothing less than putting them into mint or nearly mint condition. Although I don’t sell pens (I only do this only for myself and my friends), I prefer using this word sparingly, knowing what it means to me. Therefore, someone’s using the word carelessly, loosely and irresponsibly in vintage pen selling business may misguide the buyer and backfire on the seller...

 

Thanks for reading this. Please, pardon me if I have forgotten to say something important.

[Beechwood]

35 minutes ago, stoen said:

Hi,

May I please feel free to speak from my limited but fair experience. I’ll do my best to stay on-topic as much as I can. I’ve been servicing pre WWII Pelikan pens, 100 & 100N. These marvels of early 20th century engineering and industrial design deserve to be preserved, remembered and used as meant to be. Fortunately, their being made of standardized parts may help illustrate some key points I have encountered in pen restoration tasks.

 

In this experience, restoration means the following:

 

- making a pen ready to use by restoring its full functionality, serviceability and modular build

 

- restoring original form and cosmetics

 

- cleaning everything and repairing damaged parts without visible repair signs and without impaired function or structure

 

- replacing broken or improvised parts with original ones (often involving some work in finding them).

 

- if original parts are not available, replacing broken or improvised parts with newly made spare parts, either remanufactured to strict original blueprints, if available, if not, reverse engineered from good original parts, using materials which are the closest available match to the original, and up to 0.03mm in measurement tollerance. There are few experts who can do this.

 

- refraining from using any glues, modern epoxy glues in particular

 

- refraining from milling and filing original parts

 

- refraining from “sacrificing” parts.

 

- using sealants which don’t behave agressively to the materials

 

In practice, the following problems do occur:

 

- original materials change over time, celluloid may shrink and become brittle, ebonite may oxidate. Parts which would have originally matched may not match after 80+ years anymore.

 

- all materials show some tear and wear after decades of use.

 

- many of such vintage european pens have been damaged during WWII, when original spare parts were not available anymore, and repair conditions, quality of available materials etc. were really poor, especially in the countries where the war was fought. This often resulted in many of such pens having been given “first aid” and tweaked, often using improvized spare parts.

 

Therfore, restoring vintage pens often becomes a trickier and more complex, time and resource consuming task than it may appear at first sight. It often includes subtle practical understanding of materials technology, chemistry and history. Acquiring such knowledge may require months of hands-on learning experience and a decent mentorship.

 

So, restoring such pens often means nothing less than putting them into mint or nearly mint condition. Although I don’t sell pens (I only do this only for myself and my friends), I prefer using this word sparingly, knowing what it means to me. Therefore, someone’s using the word carelessly, loosely and irresponsibly in vintage pen selling business may misguide the buyer and backfire on the seller...

 

Thanks for reading this. Please, pardon me if I have forgotten to say something important.

 

You have obviously put a great deal of thought into this issue and your opinions are acknowledged and understood.

 

As it turns out there has been a great deal of debate and even differences of opinion on this matter which culminated in the obtaining of a legal opinion, a resolution has already been obtained and is detailed in the above thread. Away from this forum I asked the opinion of others on what they understood by the word restored and the majority had a view which made me reassess what I thought to be true.

 

However, your considerations on the definition of 'restored' are appreciated.