442 W-30 Documentation

[retengw31]

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Tim, if it was Sebring Yellow, that was the one! I was amazed how good that car looked in photos, but once you got up close, it had Bondo in the 1/4 panels, paint bubbling on the lower front fenders and trunk lid, and the doors (or fenders) were somehow bowed, creating an 1/4" gap at the beltline, but good alignment at the top of the fender and bottom of the fender. Looked as if someone squashed the fenders down from on top, causing them to bow out at the middle! Really strange... The driver's door handle took two hands to depress the button, and the door creaked and moaned as I opened it. Another reason never to buy a car sight unseen from an auction, or off of E-bay, without seeing it in person.

But I did see the documentation in the trunk, and I saw the original broadcast sheet showing the W-30 option, and it had manual brakes (as it should with a 4-speed W-30), but I wasn't interested in it enough to see the rest of the documents, the car really needed too much work.

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I've seen a couple of old amateur restorations like that that are falling apart now. Probably from the last "bubble" in the collector market in the late 80's.

Assuming those are original fenders, that gap is easy to fix with an additional 1/8 inch shim under the bottom mounting bolts. If aftermarket fenders or ones siamesed to fix the lower rustout, who knows?