Rust free left floorboard and tires!

Who wants to spend an afternoon separating rims from tires which have not been separated since they were originally assembled?  This job took hours.  But first let's start with a fun shot.  Here is the left floorboard after several treatments of Evaporust.  Rust free and solid metal!  I put some everyday wax over this area to keep new rust away for the time being while I determine a final course of action.  Here is a before and after shot of the same area on the left floorboard.

Now for some pictures of those wheels before I removed the rims from the tires:

And the inside with one half of the rim removed.  This rust was a bugger.  Soap, WD-40, pry bars, bouncing the rims on a concrete slab, jumping on the tire edges.  I used every trick in the book to get them off.  This photo shows one of the reasons why I think these tires and rims have been together for 60 years.  The corrosion build up is remarkable.

Here is a picture of two rims off one tire.  I believe this set is going to be salvageable and once the rust is removed may even have some decent paint.  The second set was worse off and may not make it through the process of cleaning...we shall see...the pitting looked pretty bad from the rust.

This photo shows a stronger reason why I think the tires and even the tubes are original.  Both were labeled Michelin fabricated in Italia Torino.  Turin was the first production plant for Michelin outside of France and still operates today.  These tires and tubes came from Turin most likely directly to the Piaggio factory in Pontedera just 4 hours to the south.  A real close look at this tube shows it did not quite fit in the tire.  The heavy creases near the valve stem show they have been pinched in that position for many years.  The tires were falling apart from dry rot but the tubes were still holding air when I pulled them from the tires.  Crazy.

I have some work to do on the rims.  Some scrubbing, some rust removal, maybe some sanding and some painting.  We will see how that story unfolds.  Glad to have the rims free.