Bringing a New Zealand Toledo back to life

[Robert 352]

Toledo’s, both 2 and 4 door, were assembled here in New Zealand from CKD kits supplied from the UK factory. In August 2016 a Toledo appeared on trademe, the New Zealand buying and selling site. I purchased it and the project joined several others which I was working on at the time.

It was assembled and registered in November 1974. Quite a lot of work had been done on the car by the previous owner, a panel beater who had given it a quick respray in a colour which is reasonably common here in New Zealand. Some of the UK readers will notice some detail differences.

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The car was not driveable when I collected it. I have an a-frame which I bolted to the front bumper and towed it home. I pushed it under cover when I reached here and there it sat for a few weeks as I contemplated what to do. Before I could start the engine I had to remove all the water which had gathered in the fuel tank. I fitted a spare tank which I had here and after cleaning out the fuel lines and fitting an inline filter I was able to get the engine to start.

The clutch was inoperable. All the hydraulics were removed from the car and passed over to a specialist in Christchurch. The company fitted stainless liners to the various cylinders before fitting new seal kits. Upon refitting the clutch master and slave it was clear that the clutch had frozen to the flywheel and it took some time to free it. Then it became evident that there was a problem with the clutch releasing which was eventually solved as ”detailed here”.

I have changed most of the ignition components attempting to fix a miss. It may be that the fuel pump ingested a lot of rust before I fitted an inline filter and that will be checked in due course.

The car ran well enough to be driven to a testing place where it was checked over and a Warrant of Fitness issued. Then once that was done I registered the car incorporating new licence plates for the originals had long since disappeared.

The indicators would not self-cancel. The indicator stalk mount had cracked. A Dolomite stalk was rewired to match the Toledo wiring and fitted which overcame that problem.

The wing mirrors on the car had broken and have now been removed and the holes filled and an undercoat applied to lessen the rust forming. The black furflex windlace running around the doors had fallen apart. I was able to find some reasonable matching black amongst my spares. The interior of the car was very dusty and there was a lot of overspray from the painting. It is a slow process cleaning item by item.

Sometimes that cleaning raises a smile for when I removed the RH front door trim to investigate the door locking mechanism the trim was marked as can be seen here.

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It seems that the panel was rejected (initially) but was installed anyway. It has cleaned up quite well.

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It will need a little panel work for the left hand rear door is showing rust along the bottom edge. A common problem. I may just fit another door and have it repainted to match the car. It needs a set of carpets and I suspect the engine and sub frame assembly will need to come out at some stage when I will fit a new clutch and investigate the growl in the gearbox which is evident in both second and third gear. That work will have to wait until the Sprint occupying my workshop is restored.

It is a very comfortable car and drives well except for an occasional miss.

Robert

[Graham04]

Perhaps the panel was rejected in the UK and then put on the pile for NZ . A fairly typical move by the British motor industry. Still isn't it great what can be found in old cars.