The Restoration of Chatham, a 65 Honda S600

NEW WORK has finally commenced on this project thanks to a new owner.

See older restoration efforts by previous owners

Ellen and I finally worked out transferring the Chatham prject to me. Lots of work had been done, lots of work to do! Ellen really put a lot of effort in, and she sourced a lot of spares that were going to come in handy in the Chatham transformation. We moved both Cars and a large trailer full of parts to Erie, PA

One of the most problematic areas in the s600 is the bottom of the front wings or fenders. These are typically the part that rusts first because of plugged drainage holds, and a somewhat poor design that allowed debris to build up in this area. There is a two wall construction behind the fender, and in Chatham the outer and inner walls were completly rusted through.

Ellen had transferred Chatham to me on the condition that I continue the work she started! Brad and I evaluated both shells, got quotations on panels from Radford Body Panels. We evaluated the original Chatham shell and the second shell to see what we could salvage. The rear section of Chatham was very sound, so it looked promising, but the sills, floor pans, inside supports would all have to be hand fabricated.

Here is the second shell and we have begun removing the paint. So far the condition is definitely better that the original shell, so we are optimistically proceeding

We were hoping to be able to make both shells work. And while the rear of Chatham seemed to be in good shape, there was too much replacement of floor panels, sills and inner fenders to consider continutation of both shells. After the entire evaluation we decided to go with the second shell that Ellen provided to us...Unless someone reading this has another one :-)

Look carefully at this picture. I think the bottoms of the fenders had been cut to be used to repair another car? Once we removed the paint we could see that the fenders had been repaired previously, earlier in its life.

The Honda s600 came with a set of wing mirrors. The mirrors are typically missing from the cars because the construction in this area was prone to rust. In the factory they tacked a piece of re-enforcing metal behind the fender to strengthen the mounting area, but it also became an area where salt and debris would collect, rusting out the mirror mounting bolts. The mirrors were typically taken off and discarded when the fenders were repaired. Luckily Ellen had a couple sets in the parts bins.

same procedure here

Exact mounting positions marked, rusted metal removed,