Renovating My Hindustan Ambassador

[Ambyson]

Hi TAI members and Auto enthusiasists.

I am glad to be a member of TAI, and i would like to share my experiences in renovating my 1989 year model Ambassador. it all started when my amby started giving problems one by one in all the systems like steering,suspension, braking, electrical, airconditioning etc., and body corrosion the main problem. then i decided to give it a facelift by totally renovating it into a latest version.

since my pocket was not that heavy, i kept on dragging to kick start the project and managed to drive the car with small repairs and patchwork touchups. at one point of time my car totaly broke down as my brother drove it with engine oil lost due to oil pressure hose burst.

My amby came to standstill for months under my house portico and the chennai humidity and the water did its part in corroding the body.
my long time dream of renovating it just continuing as dream only as so many oppostions to spend money on it.

when i got little freedom to spend for my renovating project, i started searching in some websites for some knowledge, where i found quite a lot of auto enthusiasists and also found some Ambys got restored and modified. i literally got fired up and decided to jump into my project.

i will slowly start to write about my experiences and please bare with the mistakes in my writing.

uploading the picture of my car at initial stage.

 

[Ambylovers]

Re: Renovating My Amby

Ambyson,
So finally you started a post of your Remodelling. Upload the latest images also. Whether you got your dashboard from the Tinker which i referred.

 

[HKS2412]

Re: Renovating My Amby

hi ambyson, nice car you have there, by the way which engine and transmission your car is equipped with? and please upload images on the rebuild work on your car

 

[Ambyson]

hi Ambylovers, i did not fabricate the dashboard from the tinker you refered, when my car went to the aircondtion workshop, the aircondition mechanic refered a tinker who was a dashboard specialist, but currantly he is not doing that job anymore. some how the a\c mechanic convinced him to make the dashboard and i heard it has come well. sorry i dont have the recent photograph of that.

 

[Ambyson]

Hi HKS2412, thanks for your comment.

my car is powered by ISUZU D1 engine and gear box.

i will upload the photos whatever i have with me, as i am not with the car to monitor day to day work progress i don't have the complete photos of the modification.

 

[Ambyson]

some pictures of my car's body corroded locations.

 

[Ambyson]

apart from the pictures some more corrosions in underchassis and mudgaurd and platform is completly corroded.

my tinker who does some small small patchworks qoated 20,000 Rupees for complete tinkering work including scraping the old paint, replacing total platform, running board. but i didn't have any confidence with that guy, then i decided to drive down to coimbatore as i know coimbatore is the place where still people maintain ambassadors and people are there to work on ambassadors.

before that i had to rework my engine which got ceased.

got it done with my local mechanic costed me around 30k.

whithin one week after my engine started roaring after a long sleep, i drove my car to coimbatore from chennai on november 2011.

 

[Ambyson]

enjoyed those 10 long hours driving my amby on the highways and reached coimbatore in the evening and same evening started my hunt for a workshop where everything like tinkering, painting, mechanical works, electrical works, airconditioning can be done under one roof.

the very next day i landed up in a workshop located in singanallur.
since my friend suggested that workshop as he knows the owner of the workshop and they work only on ambassadors and contessas. that gave me some confidence.

then i met the workshop owner and he has some collections of classic ambys, that boosted my confidence level and decided to leave my car there itself.

some pics of old beuties in that workshop

 

[Ambylovers]

Hi Ambyson,
The places which ever you have shown in the images are the main areas where we will get Tinker works a lot in Ambassador. So if possible try to upload some of the latest images.
If i get a time, surely i will visit that workshop.

 

[Ambyson]

Hi guys,

sorry, i was bit busy with work and travellling and bit away from my write up.
will post some updates soon.

 

[Ambyson]

some more detailed picture of body corrosion after stripping down

 

[Ambyson]

sorry for the zipped attachment, trying to attach as indvidual photos.

by seeing this condition of the body, the workshop owner suggested not to do any tinker work on this body and it will cost more and the result will not be perfect and will not get the proper shape.

so what next?

he came with the bright idea of changing the body. so the idea was to get an old ambassador body from non coastal region(the level of corrosion could be less in non costal area) and rework on it. and he said the cost will also be less than working on my amby shell. i believed him, but later only i realised that was the big mistake i did.

 

[Ambyson]

then the hunt started to find a shell from the old market in coimbatore and finally got one in exchange of my amby shell with additional money of 30k. it is bit expensive for a 1969 body, but the workshop owner said it was fully worked and it is in the painting stage, so i accepted.

pics of the new body (which is from the old market)

 

[Ambyson]

with this new body we had to do some modifications like engine bed alterations for isuzu engine, gear box bed alteration, power steering bracket alterations,
power window alterations on the door, deisel tank remote cover modication and some minor tinker works.

after all these works finished vehicle went for painting also initial coating was finished and planned to complete all the mechanical works and go for final paint finish.

 

[Ambyson]

some more pictures