S525 OVP - Restoration: The Long Road Back

[Reebs]

OK, high time we updated everyone with the rather laboured progress of the restoration of our unique club car. So lets get cracking.....


With the major mechanical and oily bits now sorted, and a series of MoT tickets awarded to her in the intervening years, OVP spent a rather relaxed period with Christopher while he periodically stretched her legs and tinkered here and there with the car which included sourcing an original and similarly aged Arran White front bumper to replace the stop gap later Wedgwood Blue one we had, but with his work calling him abroad a great deal of the time the project stalled somewhat and OVP's paint finish still needed addressing of course.





Also, someone had decided to liberate the rear nearside steel wheel trim which was nice of them...NOT.


With the knowledge that this car was approaching it's 20th Birthday in November 2018, and that we were going to have another stand at the NEC that year, it seemed a good opportunity to show the car off to the public if at all possible, so it was arranged that it would travel down South where I and others could spend some time preparing it for its regeneration.

First and foremost, OVP only ever had one key given to us from the Longbridge plant, so a trip to forum trader cb750chris in Fareham was a top priority.

He was able to supply a fob and immobilisation chip, cut the new blade and program it to the vehicle. Whilst doing this he did of course have to access the car's EWS engine immobiliser ECU and he soon discovered that through a water leak many moons ago, the board and pinouts had become corroded







This would account for the random issue OVP suffered from when sometimes the key fob would lock the doors and sometimes it would not, and the only way to secure the car would be by manually central locking it from the inside then opening the drivers door, getting out and locking that from the outside using the key in the lock



So once the contacts from the car's plug had been cleaned up, Chris produced a replacement ECU which he magically coded to the car and 'hey presto', a brand new key and 100% functioning locking system were restored.

It just so happened that Chris had on his drive, another 75 classic trim vehicle which had seen better days and I asked if I could take a look inside.

One of the oddities of OVP is that over the years at Cowley & Longbridge, it had been subject to random original bits being taken off and then later replaced with whatever was to hand, and the car was littered with examples of this, including the drivers door window switch pack which although correct in being for front windows only, was wrong in that it had the later mottled finish, not the original smooth design. This meant it didn't match with the panels on the other three doors.




Later mottled finish switch pack found on OVP (notice bent pins too)



Earlier smooth finish switch pack - from donor Classic car

So after a bit of negotiation, a direct swap was agreed upon , Chris also let us swap the passenger side sun visor over. OVP had a vinyl covered one, where it should have been fabric. Both of course not having illuminated surrounds as this is a base spec car.

A huge shout out and big thank you goes to cb750chris who worked wonders that rainy Sunday, he's a top bloke and can't come more highly recommended.