11/21/07 Making transmission seals

11/26/07: Engine detailed and ready to be installed. Nickel plated manifolds. All the components are the original color scheme

12/04/07: In paint and back at our shop...at last!

Heater assembly going together

Engine

Firewall details

12/17/07: All hardware has been painted separately

1/02/08: Front fenders done!

Nose...DONE!

Rear doors on

Hood...DONE!!

Doors being fitted

1/15/08: Hans and Tom riveting vent window seal to stanchion.

Vent window rubber riveted in place-special technique required

New vent rubber in place on the body

Wing vent rubber installed

The wing vent rubber done

Fitting the nose: radiator support cushions and body ground

Fitting hood and damper spring

new cowl rubber installed

The nose job

Everything fits perfectly

Brand new vent seals

It looks awfully nice in there...

1/18/08: Nose going together...hood on

Wiper linkage and squirters going in

Backs of bumpers covering like new

1/24/08

New door lock cylinder installed

New windshield with a new gasket and new chrome-a job only a few surviving technicians can do

Windshield chrome junction

1/29/08

Hans repairing bumperette, ready to send out for plating

Rear bumperette installed

Side glass installed, side chrome installed

Detail of reconditioned (painted original color) seat frame. Both front seats had this done to them: seats were stripped of original covering and padding, sandblasted frames and painted. New padding and new skins will be installed.

1/31/08

Fender welting in place

Hood lace in place

Rear area finished

2/5/08

V-O-L-V-O new letters from our friends at VP-this is the Golden Age of Volvo restoration thanks to excellent repro parts availability

Directional base being fitted

There is a knack to this...

Directional assembly completed, and done correctly

Side chrome, door handle and lock cylinder installed (note that the door handle is IN place, not drooping like they usually are)

Detailed heater motor

Setting up the head light assembly

Headlight buckets and trim rings-the right parts going together in the right way

Headlight bucket installed...grille surround installed...and a girl in the grille

New chrome grille surround installed...almost there

New seat covers, as well as new seat padding, installed on reconditioned seat hardware. As original, as good as it gets!

2/11/08: Grille, grille surround, letters and emblem installed

Fresh air intake: new hose

2/19/08: Halogen headlamps

Correct reproduction radio antenna installed

2/26/08 Driver side door panel installed

Passenger side door panel

Original wood panels, refinished (by the original owner even!!), being installed

Hans' "seamless" work in the wheel well

Beautiful, original wood-well cared for all these years and lovingly refinished by the owner

Everything works-down to the interior light

Left rear side panel refinished and installed-also the wheel arch covering starting to be stretched and fitted

2/28/08: Seldom has the meeting of wood and metal been such a functional yet beautiful design. These vehicles were designed as and primarily used as work vehicles. This car is the rare exception, so this wood is pristine original, lovingly refinished by the owner. The great color-shown here-is the result of careful care since new. This vehicle is still in the care of the original owner.

Still a work in progress, but almost done. nice original wood is complimented by accurate colored and textured reproduction upholstery panels.

B18: Simple, rugged, functional

Squirters: one of the car's few luxuries. Again, work perfectly-for safe driving in mud season

Fuse box and brake fluid reservoir: reconditioned and ready for service

Rear floor folding panel and hardware sandblast stripped and ready for paint

3/3/08: A Hans-original, custom designed exhaust hanger. The best exhaust is a liability without good hangers.

Even though this folding rear floor section (the rear seat back) is most covered with wood slats on one side, the seat on the other side, it is still a strong design element in the cargo area of this car. It begged for a thorough cosmetic treatment. This will show up in the next set of pictures trimmed out with the outstanding original wood restored by the car's owner.

This is the last item to have been painted-often, when a job is started, there are pieces of the job which seem to not require any processing. As the job progresses, these once acceptable parts start to look tatty in relation to newly processed parts. This now slick folding rear deck floor section looked too good to need processing until everything around it was refurbished-then it stuck out like the proverbial "sore thumb" and cried for redoing. This is a frequent occurrence on "nut and bolt" high level restorations such as this.

Down to the last details-Hans has painted the new exhaust components with high heat paint and fabricated a better-than-stock mounting system so the exhaust should give years of quiet service.

An often neglected detail of a great restoration such as this is to properly coat and hang the exhaust system so it will resist rusting and ride quietly.

Personally, I enjoy looking at a well detailed undercarriage as much as a nice finish or interior.  Much more work goes into this aspect of the job to preserve functionality. This area of the car is, however, seldom appreciated.

Early on in the process we opted to paint the frame of the 210 "Frame Black" as opposed to body color which would have been stock. I'm glad we did. The subtle color contrast-particularly with the dark body color-is outstanding.

Details, always details. These folding rear seat parts were painted original color and will look great against the restored wood of the seat back.

3/19/08: Rear seat back details. What a lovely marriage of wood and metal

New stainless steel hardware accentuates the nice job that Hans has done on the 210 rear deck

Fresh and new

Petina-esque

Hans' hands at work

Dash: new in appearance

Rebuilt heater control cables-most of these quit working long ago and gave heat in the summer and cold in the winter...

Reconditioned heater distribution box/ranco valve-duct and firewall insulation installed

New heater control cables installed

Re-chromed bumpers-now comes the jewelry

Seats and side panels-it all fits like a glove

Interior trim

New speaker base-necessary because of the relocating of the speaker...the speakers have a cone-like backing and need a hole behind them in order to mount flush-since the speaker is being moved forward on this project, we had to create something that would raise the speaker up off the side wall enough to mount!

Speaker re grilled and rebased to be remounted

Renewed instrument cluster in place

Kick panel in place, driver side

Fog lights installed, after some modification of the mounting bolt...beautiful though

Floor mats, as original

"Custom" original speaker with appropriate mounting plate

Let there be light!

03/31/08: Almost there. The details seem to never stop as we approach the end-reminds me of the 5th grade math puzzle-if a frog starts jumping at one end of a desk and takes hops half the length of the prior hop how many hops will it take Mr. Frog to hop off the edge of the desk?

Much better directional switch!! (the one on top)

4/01/08: Reconditioned dash

The light at the end of the tunnel. Front interior light assembly

Replaced directional signal stalk

Perfection

Under dash: like new

Replaced overhead light switch

Another fine reproduction part which looks and fits just like original. Rear interior light

Engine splash pans reconditioned

Nice paint-The spots are sanded "nibs"-In an effort to maintain the original feel and look of the air dried paint, the flat mirror look, the very few (inevitable) dust specs are individually nib sanded and polished. The paint still has the original very slight textured look that these cars had when new.

Nib sanding the hood

4/21/08: Seatbelts-one of the finishing touches

Rear interior door handle

4/24/08: Original mirror-new convex glass (just like original)

New antenna (may pull in Rap stations...)

Original glass is actually not as nice as the rest of the car-with this high level of restoration, the few flaws in the glass stick out