This story started last Sep thru an internet ad.

Found this Convertible on a Norwegian carsite.
We exchanged emails for more than 4 months and then I decieded to take the trip to Kristiansand to pick the car up.
The trip lasted for 28 hrs, non-stop driving, with a car on the trailer.
The roads in Norway is NOT what you would expect

Still have nightmares from this trip.

So better than late I will tell the story.

This is the car.

It's a 1983 Convertible which has been totally rebuildt to an 130TC.
Everything has been moved from an 130 to this one.

The car had some rustspots, but gladly not any major, serious ones.

The passengerdoor has rustbubbles on the center.
Aswell as 3 "real" holes on the upperpart.
The driver door has been fixed before.
The car has been fixed on the left side, just infront of the rear wheelarch.
Underneath the car is very solid.

Since I'm not one for welding and paintwork, and got someone who is very good. I decieded to dismantle/strip the car and send it off.
I did this in Feb & March of this year.
Took the car down to my friend and left it there.

So this summer will be a one I remember. This is my first projekt.
In the end of June the car was wheeled into the garage to start the renovation.

My goal with this is to take it slowly, not rush.
Also it's cheaper that way, when Ingemar have time to deal with the car he will do that.
Firstly a small probs, the exhaust was hanging so could not lift the car up, but was solved with some wooden planks and then the car was lifted up.
Was quiet emotional to see the car there, being ready for a good overhaul.
I knew from Ingemar before, a colleuge did take the car indoor to have a look at it, underneath aswell.. and did not find anything major.

One thing that I started laughing at was when Ingemar brought out his "best" friend - The knife.
Started attacking the bodywork.. just to see how much and how serious some of the rust spots are.

These pics just shows what was done in the first 2-3 days of taking the car inside.
The left wheelarch I know wasn't really bad, but there has been an earlier fixing which wasn't done to a 100% satisfaction.
The driver & front left arch also needed some TLC.

As I said the first few days was quite amazing, to see the change.

More pics from the first few days.

Here's also what I consider to be the worst rust on the car.
The pax seat.
Ingemar told me, the best thing would be to change the door.
However it's not easy, since there's only a handful Convertibles left on the Swedish market.
The rust on the centre of the door would be easy to fix, however it's right where the collisionbarrier is on the inside.
We are trying to work around this problem.
There's also that the doors on the Ritmo is not 100% flat, so in order to get it look well is not the easiest thing.

Left side of the car:

right in front of the wheelarch is where the other fixing of the bodywork has been made. All the way up to the pax window.
You could see the overlapping of the body, I thought from the beginning this was a crack in the body.. but to my surprise it was not.
The tailgate is made of glasfibre as far as I know, but still needed to be looked at. Especially where the emblema had been.

More pics of the pax door.

Looks a lot worse than it is.
Also a pic of the right wheelarch

The drivers door had been fixed before.
When it was done they had used tin.
What Ingemar did was he sanded it down abit, then use a hammer and carefully knacked the bodywork.. in order to get the surface as even as possible... then use glasfibre ontop.. and afterwards flattend out the surface once again.

On the front wing was also an old welding, which turned out to be an old antenna fitting.

Left & right wheelarch:

The left one needed more TLC, so was sanded down and glasfibre was applied was sanded down to get the perfect surface.

The right one didn't need so much attention.

We have called the car the year of the rings.. this was we started to count the coats of paint that has been used to paint the car.

Think we counted 12 of them.. like how you can count the years on a tree.

Pic 3: you can see the rings

The area where the bumper are fitted ontop the car is in need for replacing. This will be done when the car has had it's first coat of paint.

The idea is to paint it black first, this is to make sure all the surfaces are in perfect condition.. just the way we want it.

So we're coming close to the end result of what's meant to be.
The glasfibre has been sanded down.
Even the "rings" are gone.
Just need to get further down, close to total stripping of the color.

24 July 08.

Finally I'm now ahead on this forum.. from now on I can tell you how all is progressing as it happens.

These pics were taken, now the car is waiting for the first coat of paint.
As I mentioned before, it will be in black to be able to see if the surface is uneven.

After this we'll move on to the next stage in the renovation.

Things are slowly moving forward now.
Got other things to do.
However the doors has been removed in order to carry on more hunt for rust. Sadly there was some found when the door was removed.
But won't be a problem

wow that looks like it's going to be a great project and be great when it's finished. keep up the good work!

Yes fantastic work your doing and great to see someone taking the time to document it all.

Can I ask though why you haven't removed the roof to check all the metal underneath or do you intend doing this at another stage. I ask because I haven't started to my car yet and intend to strip it to the shell for it's restoration. I'm wondering how big a job it is to remaove the roof.

Good work