And so it begins. First thing was to start cleaning. As I said, this thing is dirty. New England in winter results in everything being covered in a vaguely grey haze of salty dirt, topped with small pebbles. Add to that some period spent accumulating various and sundry filth from, you know, people, and you begin to understand the level of uncleanliness. Not garbage, just dirt. I started with the interior.
The car as it sits:
The ride home on the studded Hakkas was not exactly quiet.
There's some bits of rust here and there to be sure, but the important spots are solid (save the one shock mount that needs to be welded up). It's rough, but I think it will clean up OK.
I thought this was a good sign.
The almost complete toolkit and original spare are nice touches. It also came with a spare spare, both with original Michelins still mounted.
To the interior. I vacuumed everything, then attacked the seats and the carpet with hand tool of the Bissell wet-dry carpet cleaner, filled with double-strength cleaner solution. The carpets had some pretty nasty spots, but the seats weren't really too bad for 30-year-old seats. After that it was some Vinylex on all the plastic surfaces, with a toothbrush being employed to dislodge stubborn dirt on occasion. I didn't aim for perfection, just noticeable improvement.
The upholstery is in remarkably good shape for three decades of being sat upon. I'm so glad I found a car with cloth seats. There are a couple of interior issues - the turn signal/high beam/cruise control stalk is completely floppy and needs to be rectified (I'm guessing replacement is the only option here), the dome light is flaky (I found a spare switch in the ash tray, which suggests the problem lies there), and everything that moves is stiff (a little white lithium grease on the door hinges and seat rails did wonders already). But all in all not too bad.
Tomorrow I will tackle the outside and the engine bay. I've already noted a few more things that definitely need attention - I'm sure there will be questions to follow.