restringing bass

[Tvak@AOL.COM]

I'm about to restring the bass of an older grand. (I've never done this 
before.)   The man who refinished the piano decided to spray paint the plate 
(which had been unsightly and filthy) and got gold paint on the strings.  The 
tone wasn't great to begin with, but now the old strings are totally tubby, 
having no sustain and seemingly devoid of overtones. I twisted and rolled 
them and that did improve the tone slightly, but not enough to return a 
satisfactory tone to the piano.  The piano seems fine from the tenor on up 
(steel strings sound fine---wound strings stink).  (BTW, this piano is being 
re-conditioned for sale---not a client's piano.  I feel good about the rest 
of the piano; if only the bass tone was more acceptable I could sell the 
piano and feel like the buyer was making a worthwhile purchase.)
Here are my questions:
#1: I want to use the old tuning pins.  Torque is fine, and if I make coils 
on the new strings and place them on the old pins, I won't have to loosen the 
pins much.  This should work, right?  (Never having replaced tuning pins, if 
I can avoid doing it, I'll feel more comfortable about all of this.)
#2: I thought I'd back the old pins out about one full turn.  I don't think 
that would affect their tightness in the pinblock too much.  (I did  one and 
a half turns when I twisted them and noticed no difference in pin torque 
after bringing them back up to pitch.)  Do I need to tap them in deeper 
before bringing the new strings up to tension, or can I just turn them back 
in with my tuning hammer?  
#2: I don't need to loosen the tension on the rest of the piano to avoid the 
plate cracking or some other disaster, right?
#3: I'm planning on bringing the old strings to Schaff for duplication.  Do I 
need to make note of the speaking length of each string and give this info to 
them?  Is there anything other info they would need?
#4: The refinisher also varnished a small portion of the sound board that was 
not covered by strings along the left (bass) side.  Could this have affected 
the tone, rather than the paint on the strings? (Thereby negating the concept 
of improving the piano by restringing.)  I don't think so, since the bass 
tone was not great to begin with.  Something made it worse, though.  

Any comments, tips, or caveats are appreciated.

Thanks,
Tom Sivak