On Wed, 23 Oct 1996, John Wells wrote:
> Our tragedy is that our family heirloom MG TF was the subject of an
> assault by Hurricane Fran on September 5th along the coast of North
> Carolina. Specifically, the car was submerged for several hours in 30
> inches of salt water that invaded my mother's garage. She was away
> Is there anything that could be done to rescue or revive or renovate the
> car, or its parts, at this point? Does it have any value whatsoever, or
> should it just be forgotten as scrap?
This is very sad. I would say that it can be salvaged if you hurry, but
if you let it sit for very long it will be fit only for parts. I think
the first thing I would do is rent a high pressure sprayer and spray
everything I could reach with lots of fresh water. Then I would
dismantle the car completely, cleaning each part as I go.
Dismantling would have to include removing the body panels from the
wooden frame, I think, to allow cleaning between the metal and wood. If
you wait very long, the body will be ruined. Fortunately, new bodies are
available, though they are expensive.
Basically, the car needs to be restored now, not later; the invasion of
salt water has taken away the option of waiting. All instruments that
were submerged are scrap after a month, I'd suspect, and some other
stuff, but a lot can be salvaged if you are quick about it.
It does have value still, though a hell of a lot less than before the
flood. I think you either need to start restoration immediately, or sell
it to somebody who can start. If the price was right, I would be
interested. "Right" would mean pretty cheap.
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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