Raforty

Heightened Reality and the Celica I have discoursed on the philosophy of ‘Heightened Reality’ and how it guides your car restoration or improvement elsewhere in the forum. I wrote that Heightened Reality is giving you more of what you already have. Also that if the factory wanted to do it, but chickened out because it would cost a couple of cents extra per part, you can do it yourself. Here are a couple of specific examples that may serve as more guidance. My wife’s RA40 Celica Liftback came with factory air-conditioning, which was overhauled and worked well. In our foraging expeditions to the wreckers’, I had seen that the RA40 Coupes were a lower-spec model than the Liftbacks. They had plastic instead of vinyl side arm-rest panels in the rear; radio instead of radio-tape deck; and no air-conditioning. Quel horreur! But the Coupes had an extra parcel shelf under the dashboard on the passenger side, which the Liftback didn’t have on account of its air-conditioning assembly. They also had a little parcel tray that went where the Liftback’s (separate) tape deck would have gone. I bought both from the wreckers. Why? I had already installed a combined radio-tape deck where the factory radio went in the dashboard. This freed the space for the storage cubbyhole that would have been taken up by a useless (not working) original tape deck. Bonus storage! I found that the extra parcel shelf had score marks on the underside, which when cut would have removed part of the back of the tray. This enabled it to fit around the air-conditioner assembly. The factory could have supplied it, but chose not to, just to save a few cents per car. Still more bonus storage! What compromises did the factory build into your car which you don’t have to put up with? Some markets got all the goodies, other markets made do with fewer features. Another case in point. My first car was a VW Golf 3-door hatchback. A Teutonically efficient design, but locally assembled as a veritable schit-box of thin carpet, cardboard hatchback boot cover and non-opening rear side windows. I like the convenience of intermittent wipers. The Golf didn’t come with intermittent wiper control. Sell it and buy another car with this feature? Not necessary. I had a very detailed workshop manual which covered international variations of Golfs and Scirocco coupes. The fuse and relay panel had a space for an intermittent wiper relay. I took the manual to an auto electrician and we examined the three-pronged plug holes set aside for it. He looked at the wiring diagram. He found an intermittent wiper relay can for a Japanese car which would fit. We plugged it in to see if it would work. It did! So I drove away with the only 1976-77 Golf in Australia with intermittent wipers. I don’t know when following generations of locally available Golfs got around to having this feature. And it only cost me about $18 (multiply that by three for today’s inflated dollar value). You can bet that I talked up this feature when I sold the car, as well I might. So how can you incrementally improve your wheels to a place of Heightened Reality? What holes are there yet to be (ahem) plugged?

The Philosophy of ‘Heightened Reality’ in Car Restoration What’s heightening reality? It’s when Tony Curtis plays Harry Houdini in a biographical movie. Or Tom Cruise playing Major Klaus von Stauffenberg (Hitler’s would-be assassin); or Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in ‘Aviator’, again both in bio-pics. In other words, a real person played by an actor, more handsome or beautiful than the original. Hey, virtually every Hollywood (and EVERY Bollywood) movie is ‘Heightened Reality’. You wouldn’t watch it if it looked like your own life, now would you? Heightened Reality is giving you more of what you already have. A matt finish can become satin; a satin finish gloss. (But a matt finish should not jump to a gloss.) Unpainted alloys can be polished then sealed with a clear, gloss urethane finish. They won’t oxidise, are easier to clean, and look more attractive. With such detailing, use this rule of thumb: If the factory wanted to do it, but chickened out because it would cost a couple of cents extra per part, you can do it yourself. But it’s sometimes a fine line. A car underside finished all in gloss black is not Heightened Reality. It’s just a bit gauche. So is chroming every mechanical part. What belongs on a hot rod built for show not go, does not belong on your car. The context can also change what’s reality and what’s Heightened Reality. A few years ago, my wife and I toured New Zealand and stopped by a small car museum in the North Island. The curator told us the story of a black Ford Model T on display there. I had noticed the paint runs on the rear of the Tudor sedan body. The curator explained that the car had been restored by an old man who knew Model Ts as a boy. He had it taken to a local panel beater’s for the spray painting. When the car was finished, the old owner inspected the work. He asked the painter to do the work again. There hadn’t been anything wrong with the paint finish. But that was the point – it was too good. The owner had received Heightened Reality when he actually didn’t want it. You see, the Model Ts that the owner remembered were all mass produced at a cracking pace. The men in the paint shop had to cover the bodies with their spray guns and move on to the next unit. There were always some imperfections in the paint finish, and this included runs of overspray. So the old bloke got his authentic, imperfect Model T in the end, complete with runs in the paint finish. That’s dedication – not to Heightened Reality but to Hyper-Reality. And that’s a discourse for another time.

‘Death-Rays and Car Interiors’ Disintegrator rays date back in science fiction to 1928 with the publication of the first Buck Rogers novel (he entered comic strips the next year). These death-ray weapons would blast all material objects into their component atoms. Your Toyota’s not likely to encounter a disintegrator gun attack, but the same damage a hostile spaceman could do in a second is done in slow motion over a period of years. And it’s done by the sun. The ultraviolet rays do the most damage, attacking the plasticisers in vinyl, plastic and synthetic rubber. Plasticisers are those components of plastics that keep them plastic, that is, flexible. The radiation breaks down longer chain molecules first, then the shorter ones. Once molecular bonds are broken, the substance falls apart. In effect, it becomes brittle, cracks and splits into tinier and tinier pieces. Ultra-violet can’t get through glass, so although your external rubber seals, plastic bumpers and tyres are out in the open, that protects your upholstery somewhat. However, infra-red rays heat up everything, inside or out. Making substances hotter releases the volatile elements in plastics that keep them soft and supple – those plasticisers again. Some substances have sacrificial elements to take the brunt of the sun’s attack. The first car tyres were cream coloured because that was the colour of the natural latex they were made from. These tyres were prone to sunburn, like we are, but unlike our skin pigmentation, once these natural rubber tyres were sunburnt, they couldn’t recover. They became brittle, at first on the outside. A brittle tyre doesn’t last very long in normal use. Later, carbon black was added as a sacrificial element, both to add some structural strength and to protect the natural rubber from the UV rays. When your tyres go brownish, that’s the result of losing some carbon black to UV radiation exposure. Pigments in (synthetic) rubber seals and in vinyl can protect the underlying substance, but only to a point. Once it’s gone, it has to be replaced. That’s easier said than done. Your Plastics’ False Friend You can’t use a popular protectant with a brand name that begins with two –‘A’s, or anything else based on silicon oils. These oils replace the plasticisers, but are worse than useless. The silicon oils are even more volatile and short-lived than the plasticisers. So you have to keep re-applying them at short intervals and keep buying the product. Not a good idea for the health of your vinyl and plastics. I use ‘303 Protectant’, which is specifically designed to replace plasticisers – with plasticisers. It’s not available everywhere, but I use nothing else. Celica Interior Reborn When I began restoring my wife’s Celica RA40 Liftback, I was starting with an awful interior. Interior plastic panels were disintegrating into powder – literally – and a lot of the original colour impregnated into the material had been bleached out as well. After many trips to the wrecker’s where a number of Celicas were then available, I chose the best interior parts and panels I could find. Some were in blue (my car’s interior colour) and some in black or tan. I would need to paint them to match my interior, but this would require a panel beater mixing some special, colour-matched paint. I also needed to re-paint my faded blue panels. Since I was doing a very low-buck restoration, I decided to find the closest available blue out of a spray can. I found a medium-blue, gloss, spray enamel and bought several cans. I sprayed one thin coat first, then another. The colour on the surface became brighter, and by varying the thickness and number of coats, I was able to colour-match the finish on several panels, all from different coloured interiors. The blue I had chosen was a gloss enamel colour, so it would cover the surface and fill in any imperfections. The interior plastics all had a leather-grain surface texture, so it was important not to fill the texture in with too much enamel ‘body’. My technique was very forgiving. If I found myself with a spray coat too thick and heavy, the ‘pooling’ of the paint was quickly repaired. While still wet, I dabbed the excess off with a clean, lint-free rag, or I used that most flexible of tools, the human fingertip. Just a series of light touches was enough to remove the excess. Then a light spray almost immediately over the area, while the underlying paint was still wet, was enough to hide the error. All the wet paint flowed together, then dried together and became uniform. I had now achieved two things: a. I had introduced a new coating that would protect the plastic panels from further UV-caused surface disintegration; and b. I had colour-matched and freshened the interior. And I had done this for next to no cost. Mind you, the blue was brighter in hue than the factory’s more subdued, darker shade. But it was close, and it made the interior less shaded. I call it ‘Heightening Reality’