Ignacio Saenz de Camara
In addition to satisfying us in our free time, the restoration of popular classics serves to people who have suffered addictions are rehabilitated, feel useful and regain the illusion of living. Fortunately, that's what they get in the Egueiro Association, which since 1984 has helped more than ten thousand young people to uncouple.
This association has nine different centers, in which its educators return people who fell into drugs to a full life. In the specific case of the Valls center, in its occupational workshop facilities, its cure is achieved, among other activities, with learning to restore classic cars.
SCHOOL OF RESTORATION OF CLASSICS AND PEOPLE
First thing in the morning, we began our tour of the garage. There rested twelve popular classics, from a Mini and a Beetle to several SEATs all at the back and a 127. And so that nothing is missing, a Citroën 2CV and the Renault quartet made up of 4 models, 5, 6 and 12.
They thus have a variety of engines, to better understand the various mechanical schemes, either in-line or boxer engines and cooled by air or by water.
The arrival of these cars responds largely to your donation by people who know the purpose of the Egueiro Association. Others, like the Siata 3000 Minivan, they were obtained through an exchange, but the usual thing is that they are given units, whose owners prefer that their car revive and contribute to a good cause instead of ending up in a scrapyard.
And as in a conventional workshop, they also have a own spare parts warehouse. This forces them to know an orderly work system, which allows them to verify that in this way greater efficiency is achieved during the restoration of a collection vehicle.
WE FOLLOW THE JOURNEY OF ILLUSION
There is also a place reserved for cans of paint, so necessary for the bodywork and the different components to regain the presence of their youth. Engines and gearboxes are stored on other shelves, with which they become familiar and which they will learn in depth thanks to the theoretical and subsequent practical classes.
Likewise, they have shelves where to store light clusters, headlight trims, bumpers and moldings, some necessary spare parts for their restoration work.
On the other hand, the time spent at the gym helps them stay in shape. And not only that, since it also gives them control that helps them work as a team and have a greater emotional control in the face of complicated situations that arise.
TO THE SITE, OPERATIONS AND MATERIALS
Next to a workbench we meet a workshop master and a patient, in full swing on the gearbox of a SEAT 600. Good taste can also be appreciated in the decoration of this environment, in which enameled plates, illuminated advertisements and walls painted with motifs closely linked to the automotive industry abound.
Shortly afterwards they continue their activity in a nearby place. At that moment it is necessary to tighten in a precise and orderly way with a torque wrench the ten screws that hold the cylinder head of a Seat 600 to its engine block, which is duly fixed to a mobile support.
Meanwhile, another patient approaches the panels on which numerous boards are neatly hung. Take the one you need to proceed to install it in a car you are repairing ...
Half an hour later, one of the patients proceeds to replace the shoes and bowlers of the rear drums on a SEAT 133, a task that in its second year dominates with ease.
LEARN WITH PRACTICE, AND WITH A TRIP
We found again working on a Mini the young man who had provided himself with a gasket. It continues in its mission on the famous utility, which still lacks seats and whose transverse engine is still in the process of restoration and assembly of the entire cooling system.
In addition to the time spent on restoration, there are also hours for training. In this activity, the workshop masters make good use of the use of veteran materials that were used to teach mechanics. For example, this partial set in the attached photograph showing the steering, the three pedals and the complete front axle of a Seat 600.
As you can guess, these patients are already in the second year and have already acquired skills during the learning period. In any case, the most important thing is that their work has served them to demonstrate to themselves that they are capable of rehabilitating vehicles, at the same time that it has allowed them give up your addiction and regain your own self-esteem.
When the second course is over, patients will have a very special opportunity to finish their training period. With spring well advanced, they will participate on a trip in a group, in which they will be able to drive the cars that they have restored and will freely enjoy the landscapes and the visits that the Egueiro Association will program.
These successive end-of-year excursions are recorded in the different colored posters displayed on the lane. It it serves as a spur, because they verify that in previous years the students made excursions to Segovia, Soria, Huesca and Pamplona
Likewise, in 2015 they covered the Camino de Santiago aboard their classics from Valls to the Collegiate Church of Roncesvalles and from the Navarrese temple to the city of Compostela. They later returned to Valls in the same way and helped in the few mechanical incidents suffered.
OTHER DETAILS OF THE EGUEIRO ASSOCIATION...
In addition to the restoration of popular classics, in other centers they achieve a similar objective with the teaching of photography, gardening and carpentry.
Detox programs provide therapies to suppress addiction to alcoholism, opiates, or cocaine.
The treatment center building was formerly a tanning factory, which the students themselves they contributed to clearing out and reforming.
Final note: Our thanks to Jame Vilanova, director of the center, and workshop teacher Jaume Cabot, as well as to all the workers and patient students of the Egueiro Association.
