The head liner is in !

We looked at the forecast and Tuesday was going to be the best day of the week so I made the decision and we pulled it off. Utilizing the knowledge gained in our first attempt my good lady and I (believe me folks it is a two man person job) got that bad boy in. So why, are you asking, are there no photographs of our magnificent achievements. Well I still have to put up the sailboards, the courtesy lamp bezels and all the trim. I also have to cut off the excess material. This you will doubtless recall was my earlier mistake when I decided to cut off the excess first.

The net outcome is that it all looks a touch pikey at the moment but it is up and tacked in and wrinkle free so today I am spending all day basking in the glow of my overt manliness

Nothing to report

Since the debacle with the headliner, nothing much has happened. I was going to work a little on the car last weekend but on the day before someone organized a shoot on the adjacent property and that was too much temptation for me. I did clear out the trunk and install the side panels and the trunk mat which looks very sharp. My old buddy Red noticed that the jack hold down screw was incorrect but he has a spare. He really is a great guy. This week the replacement headliner arrived so I should be fitting that this weekend. I should but I won't because something else has turned up. For some time I have been looking for my next project and this week I found it, a 1963 Thunderbird. So this weekend I am off on a road trip to Atlanta to haul it back. I won't start restoring it until the Galaxie is completed but I am more than happy to have it sitting in the barn for a few weeks. Wanna see some pics? Of course you do.

Late Advice

Under the category of information that I could have done with yesterday I am reliably informed that you do not cut the headliner to fit. Rather you staple it and then roll up the excess which is hidden behind the trim. Well the new one is ordered so it is only a matter of time before I am once again Master of all I survey, although at $99.99 it was an expensive lesson to learn.



On a more positive note I have, for the longest time, been looking for a RAC badge for the Galaxie. (For the benefit of my colonial readers the Royal Automobile Club is the English equivalent of triple A but you have to admit Royal Automobile Club sounds far more classy). Finally I got one and I know that you will agree that it adds a certain Je ne seus quoi as we say in Serbo Croat.

Good News, Bad News

The driver's door lock has been bothering me for the longest time. It is all pretty straightforward just long rods and levers that push a bar up on the door handle to stop the button opening the door. It seemed like the rod was out of adjustment so I prised it out and started to adjust the length of the actuator, which was when it sheared off. Another one of those "crap, what now" moments. Fortunately I still had the original stoved in door and the rod was intact. Realizing that adjusting the screw was not an option I just fitted it to the door and it worked perfectly ! High five me. Also a small piece of dashboard trim has been missing since forever but I found one on Ebay and that got fitted as well.

So the big project was the headliner as once this is in then I can finish the rest of the interior and the project is done. Now before I start this tale let me explain that around the roofline is a strip of hardboard know as the tack strip. The purpose of this is so you can tension the fabric and staple it into place before fitting the trim which hides the wood and the staples. Well we got the rods into the fabric and the rods mounted into the holes in the roof. We stretched and stapled and stretched and stapled and when we were finished it looked like crap. So we had another go and by the time we were finished it looked very, very good. I then started to fit the trim and realized that there was a major problem. It wasn't long before I discovered that I had mounted the tackstrip above the fixing mounts instead of below, that is to say way too high. This meant that the staples all showed. Even sadder I had cut the material to the strip so there was now an inch gap all around. Disaster indeed.

Well I have always believed that when life hands you a lemon you should find a friend with some tequila and get wasted so looking on the bright side I now know that I can fit a wrinkle and sag free headliner and as soon as I can buy another one, this is what I will be doing.

BTW I got this email from a car mag. Happy days.


Hello David,Thank you for sharing your story! Very nice work on the Galaxie! Keep me posted on the progress. Your car would be perfect to be featured on one of our collector magnets.

Another step closer

As you can see the trim is on, doesn't she look sweet? Of course every silver lining has a cloud and I forgot to take the pinstripe tape so I didn't quite finish



Anyway the outside is pretty much done and with the black stripe on the brightwork we will be rocking. As I am sure you will appreciate it is hard to write a blog about spending all day fixing trim to a car so perhaps we will leave it there and I will allow you to admire the photographs.

Talking of which the pictures of late have all been a little less than perfect. There are two reasons for this. First off my digital camera has for the last few weeks been showing increasing signs of douchiness. Every time I decide to dump the bastard it springs into life again and having spent $10,000 on this car project I am understandably reluctant to drop a few bucks on a new camera. Secondly for the last month Gene's old Mercury Colony Park (who on earth comes up with these names) has been having an engine transplant right behind the Galaxie. Well that nonsense is all done now so I can finally get her out into the sunshine.

Tuesday night will be clean her up night and then Saturday I will get the headliner in, I hope.

More Trim

Well it is only a small step in the right direction but I got little more trim on both sides and the clips on for the mouldings so hopefully I will get all the trim affixed on Saturday and the outside will be pretty much finished.

The only outstanding problems are that I need three hands to screw in the defroster vents and for some reason the driver's door will not lock. Apart from that we are now entering the home straight.

Getting there (slowly)

After the fiasco with the front bumper and as part of that miserable day I didn't feel much like mentioning that the front left light didn't work. This Saturday feeling much better I decided to fix it. So what with the parking light and the turn signal not working logic dictates that there must be a common cause and what could be more common than a ground fault? So I gave it my best shot but just could not get a decent ground. Eventually I took the whole thing apart and discovered that when I had replaced the bulb I clearly twisted too hard and broke the seal between the glass and the holder. Thus the first time I turned it on the filament oxidized and burnt out. Who would have guessed that the bulb could be common? Anyway here is a picture of the working light.

and because I love the lines of this great car here is another pointless and gratuitous picture

I also fitted a genuine 1963 mirror, no big deal but it is historically correct.

I am not too sure what else I did but I do know I put in another 8 hours so I must have done something else.

Tomorrow I am driving the original front bumper to the electro plate shop as well as two rear bumper guards that I acquired. I have no doubt at all that the price of chrome will have gone through the roof so brace yourself for a whining bleating blog soon.

Galaxie Advertisement

I found this 1963 Galaxie advertisement, so I thought I would share it with you. Enjoy.

A small step for Mankind

It's only a little thing (that's what she said) but behold, a genuine 1963 authentic original (reproduction) Galaxie antenna. I love this stuff.

The bumpers (part II)

These are the photographs the somehow didn't get taken last time. You have got to admit that she is looking slick.

I just need to put on the side trim and the outside is finished

Even the photos make me smile

After my hideous Saturday ended and I looked back after walking away I noticed that the rear bumper was not level. (I hid that fact from you in the last blog, my bad). Well I got it straightened last night and Gene noticed. Apparently some of the guys mentioned this on Monday. So it appears that when I am not there the good old boys are inspecting the Galaxie. I am, I must confess, rather proud of that. Anyway here is the evidence (previously withheld) that the rear bumper is now aligned. Oh and BTW the tag light also works. High five me.

The Bumpers

So I got the newly rechromed bumpers set out at 10:00 am and we were away. The first step was to mount the parking lights and for some reason the holding brackets would not sit rights and it took about an hour of messing before the lights were fitted. The next step was to fit the brackets and once again nothing would fit and I spent an eternity twatting around. I had a look under Gene's Galaxie but that didn't really help and then Gene suggested that I go to the back of the yard were he knew there was a Galaxie front bumper with the brackets attached. There I found my old front bumper. (I knew it was mine as it still had the old tag on it). Somewhat puzzled by this unexpected find I hauled it to the workshop and laid it next to mine. It was instantly obvious that these were different bumpers and when I called Gene over to see the color drained from his face and he mumbled "I don't want to see. I don't want to see". Well he did see and told me that I had spent $475 on replating a 1962 bumper. This was not my happiest hour and I still do not see how I managed to put down a 63 and pick up a 62. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth Gene pointed out a bumper hanging from the rafters in the shop. It was, apparently rechromed 20 years ago and was there in case Gene ever hits a deer in the Galaxie. (Gene has a thing about hitting deer in the Galaxie even though the car has only been used twice in the last year). So I now have a "borrowed" front bumper that has to be returned on demand, and that is a fair deal. So I pulled this 50 lb monster down and it looked like a pile of Satan's faeces. However I did notice that as my (copious) tears hit the bumper they washed away 20 years of crud and underneath it almost possibly looked nearly bearable. So I washed it with hot and soapy and it looked quite reasonable with a song in my heart I cleaned it with some thinners and guess what? It looks like new, not quite as good as my 62 but nevertheless perfectly adequate and after a tickle with some chrome polish I think we will be in business. So I took the lights out of the 62 and reinstalled then into the 63 (they fitted perfectly, natch) and installed the brackets and at 4:00 I was ready to install the bumper having spent the last 5 hours achieving precisely FA.
The rest of the story is just nuts and bolts except for the fact that my camera decided to come out in sympathy with Galaxie and although it gave the illusion of taking 9 images it actually took only one, here it is.

So my only option is to put the 62 bumper on Ebay to see if I can recoup some of my ill spent wedge. I am not too hopeful as, to be frank, the 62 was a piece of crap when it was new and no one could possibly be daft enough to want to restore that piece of dog dump.

I tell you if this car does not turn out to be the best skank magnet in four counties I am taking it to the shredder and doing a Christine on it.

More trials

Last night I decided to put on the valance plate which would then complete the front of the car. After considerable twatting I discovered that the valance should be the first piece to be installed, not the last. So off came the hood release ornament, followed by the grill and the headlight covers. Sometimes I think that I have squandered my existence for a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises. All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and it's bollocks to the rest.

Anyway I got the front finished and that is important because now I am ready to install the front bumper and that will be mega. Actually I am now ready to install both bumpers and come hell or high water that is what I am going to do on Saturday. So check back on Sunday and you are going to see many photos of a beautiful classic car.

Have a nice week

Slow Going

No pictures today as nothing changed on the car. Despite the service manual promising me that changing the ignition lock was going to be a cinch it ( natch) turned out to be a 3 hour nightmare. I won't bore you with the details but it got done in the end. I also installed the door seals which although tedious actually went quite well. That was the sum total of my day. It rained all day so I was in the barn and I gave up at about 3.00 pm. However I still find myself grinning like an idiot every time I look at the car so I guess I must be having fun.

Locks and stuff

One of the advantages of taking a long year to rebuild the car is that I have been able to purchase stuff over an extended period and spread the costs. Now I am installing the parts bought from a variety of sources and finding what works and what doesn't. Yes indeed there are tossers out there who don't know what they have. Like the git who sold me new grill bolts that are by an order of magnitude the wrong size and the salad tosser that sold me a set of locks with the wrong size keepers. I spent some time filing and grinding the keepers to make them fit and afterwards realized that I still had the old original keepers which I could have simply slipped on. After all that nonsense I decided that although I had a new ignition lock, with the same key as the new door locks, it was going to be way to painful to fit it. Then I had an epiphany and read the service manual. It seems like you turn the key to the accessory position and push in a release catch and the lock falls apart, how easy is that. Similarly none of the dash lights work, but on reading the manual I discovered that the light switch is also a dimmer control and it is very usual for the rheostat to become corroded and go open circuit if not used for 20 years or so. I was going to short out the rheostat and leave the dash lights on full but I also discovered that the dimmer control also houses a switch that turns on the dome lights so I am going to have to fix it. Hopefully a liberal soak in WD40 will be the solution. Keep reading!

I also noticed from my tracking device, that many of you have installed a routine that tells you when this blog has a new entry. So I thought that I would slip in a random but trivial entry just to bump my stats. Have a nice day.

More Chrome

OK I got the windshield chrome on,

and the rear chrome.

I also put on some of the badges

Yes I know the chrome needs a little polish but I spent an hour getting the stuff on and I was just too tired. Maybe tomorrow.



This is the badge for the passenger side, to affix it there are seven holes in the fender. On the driver's side I found two holes! Now I am sure that I did not fill the fender so where are the holes?

Only three holes for this emblem and all were present.

Getting there slowly

Saturday was another one of those days when I seemed to work all day and got little done. In review I ;

Got the windshield back in

Got the exterior handles and locks on

Replaced the faulty stop lamp switch that caused the brake lights to be on permanently

Replaced the instrument cluster with a refurbished one.

Actually I did get quite a lot done. High five me.

The lights are on (but no one is home)

This is a real nice stage of the restoration, every day she is looking more like a car. As you can see the rear trim is on and now the lights are in and functioning. The fact that the color codes on the wires are long faded caused a few problems as all the connectors are bullets and so it was just a matter of plug and pray. I probably went through every incorrect combination but finally I got there.

The front was somewhat easier as the headlamp plugs are all keyed and the lights worked first time. Most of the front trim is now on and we are now starting to look like the classic cruiser we were meant to be.

Saturday the windshield goes back in and I should also get the exterior door handles back on as well. Onwards and upwards

Getting Closer

For the first time ever I set myself a set of tasks for the day and not only completed them but also had time left over. The first task was to replace the temporary wheels and tyres (as we spell in English) with the final ones. Don't they look sweet?

You can also see the fender ornament that I put on just for fun, although it is good to see chrome going back on the car. Here is an image of the fender skirt and I really do think that this makes the body line perfect.

The other task was to replace the glass in the drivers door. It took about a day to remove the glass so I was anticipating a bad time. Surprisingly everything fell into place and with a spot of taking the Lord's name in vain it only took an hour or so. With all the windows wound up I closed the door to check the seal and then realized that with no outside door handles I was now locked out. Fortunately I remembered in the nick of time that I had not yet replaced the windshield so I was able to lean in and pop the door. The next job will be to replace the door handles.

I think that she is starting to look a little like a car again and a few more weeks and I might be done. So this week I am going to put on the door handles, headlights and all the front chrome, the quarterlight openers and maybe a few badges. On Saturday, with some help from Mrs P. I hope to install the headliner and the sailboards. This I think will be the last of the tough jobs.

I had my first drive of Gene's Galaxie yesterday. It is interesting to feel the difference in handling between a 60's car and a modern vehicle. It was also interesting to feel the power of the 390 engine. When you are used to changing down through the box to ascend hills it is a bit of a thrill to leave the transmission alone and press the throttle to make it go.

All in all it was quite a jolly day.

More Car

My sum efforts for Thursday night involved getting the trunk lid seal in and one fender skirt seal. I also took some pictures, enjoy.

In Glorious Color

The Galaxie is back from the paint shop! Strangely enough the icing on the cake is the roof. Although not strictly correct (it should all be Viking Blue) the roof really does set the car off and I am glad that I made the decision.

I think that I may have made my last purchase from Dearbourne Classics. Lordy I must have dropped at least three grand with these people. Still everything I bought was top quality and at least the staff know what they are talking about(unlike those unfeeling bastards at Dennis Carpenter). Anyway the final order was all the little things that I had forgotten like coat hangers, lamp gaskets and paint for the kick panels.

Last night I replaced the rubber seals around the quarter light and it only took about two hours. This is the one that is out of the car, the passenger side is still in the door so I have a bad feeling that I will need to remove it to replace the seal, ho hum. Perhaps I will start by replacing the windshield. So much to do and so little time.

Tomorrow I will be working on the rebuild and if I remember to take the camera I will get some pictures to post on Friday. Watch this space.

Onwards and Upwards

One really has to get used to doing business in the South. It is considered rude (and Yankee) to start talking business immediately. First one is supposed to discuss various acquaintances that you have in common, then cars, then sightings of old cars and eventually the reason for getting together. So it was when I met the spotlight man, after some hour of chat we got down to business and I never saw him again, it is all very strange.

On Saturday I delivered the Galaxie to the paint shop. The shop is about two miles away so the Gaxalie got a good run. I don't know what was more fun, driving the car (at a very conservative 60 mph) or the the look on the faces of the oncoming traffic as this shell of a car roared (remember still no exhaust system) passed them. I should just mention here that the journey was entirely along very minor backroads although I did have to cross one main street. The deputies would have been no problem as I know most of them and Gene who was following me knows the rest. Meeting a State trooper would have been an issue as they are, in the main, vicious bastards. Anyway the journey passed uneventfully and she is now in the shop. Of course we had to have the obligatory hour long chat but I was eventually able to let the man know that if any extra work was entailed he should do whatever was necessary.

It also transpires that after 3 weeks the spotlight man turned up! It should have been obvious but he has known the paint man for 60 years so I am sure that they had an hours chat and then he drilled the hole in the dash and the fender. He wanted to do it before the car was painted so he really did leave it until the 11th hour.

All in all it was a huge step forward and the next time I see the Galaxie she will be in her final livery. Then it is just a question of putting it together. The big issue will be replacing the roof liner but after our stunning success with the seats I am quietly confident.

I won't be working this weekend because;
a) I am sure that the car will not be finished (or possibly not even be started)
b) Next Saturday I am going squirrel hunting

Rain stops play

It hasn't rained here for about 4 months but the day I decide to deliver the Galaxie to the paint shop it pours down. It looks like it will rain until the end of the week so I guess that not much is happening for a while.

So for no reason at all here is a picture of the seats



and a picture of a floormat. Woohoo

Getting close

Well I paid a visit to the spotlight man last night and arranged for the installation of the auxiliary light. This has to be done before the car is painted so I am hoping that he will turn up on Thursday to drill out the fender and dashboard. Most of the guys consider a Galaxie to be "dressed up" when fitted with the spotlight and a set of bumper guards. I managed to buy a set of rear guards at a bargain price of $40 (they need re-chroming) and I am bidding on two sets of front guards on Ebay as I write this. One set will need re-chroming and the other is apparently NOS so we will see.

On the good news / bad news front I gave the car its last wet and dry and then discovered two small depressions on the hood. With the primer wet and shiny they really stood out so at least I caught them before the paint went on. Of course this means that I am going to be sanding again. The plan is to fix the hood, get the spotlight hole drilled (if my man turns up) and get the car to the spray shop all on Thursday. We will see.

LBJ

Just for fun I managed to find an authentic 1963 bumper sticker.

This will be the final part to be fitted to the Galaxie

And on we go again

Well I haven't blogged for the longest time and I should 'fess up that I was becoming increasingly despondent at the lack of progress being made. It seemed like I was working a 10 hour day and getting squat done. All that has changed and the last two weeks have seen major steps forward.

As you can see the car is now about ready to go off to the paint shop (although I will give it just one final wet sand with some 400 grit). The inside of the trunk and hood are painted (by me) and the insulation is on the hood.

I have also cut in the water channels around the trunk as below.

The trunk lid has now had an additional coat of paint and is looking nicer than the pictures show

You can just see the ancillary parts in the trunk above and these have all now had their final coat. Since the photo below was taken I have removed the windshield, the rubber seal was in need of replacement, and rubbed down the dashboard. With no glass in the way it will be a cinch to spray the dashboard to bring it back to the original quality. All in all it has been a very satisfying two weeks.

Some time ago I purchased a complete interior kit from Dearbourne Classics. Unfortunately they shipped the wrong model sailboard panels which I had to return. These were subsequently replaced with the correct part in the wrong color. In order to save time and money I offered to accept Dearbourne just shipping me the vinyl cover and I would recover the panels. When they shipped the material they sent a couple of yards more than I needed. Now the only disappointment in the kit that I purchased was the rear parcel shelf which is just a piece of bare pre-cut hardboard. Now it is covered in the extra vinyl and so the headliner, sailboards and parcel shelf all match and that is a result.

I also learned a good lesson for a future project and that is never to sandblast the interior of a car. I have cleaned and cleaned and still overnight the grit comes back to haunt me. This weekend I realized that I had not checked that the blower motor works. So I turned it on and discovered that it worked when it dumped a pound of grit on my boots. Then I decided to test the air conditioning blower and you can guess what happened next. Now I have blown the car with an airline and cleaned it with the shop vacuum and still every time I turn the blower on I get a fine mist of black grit that fills the cab. This shit has to stop before I start fitting the interior.

On a happier note I fitted the front seat cover and it looks superb. I learned the lesson from the rear seats and didn't woos out when it came to pulling the cover tight. Mind you hog rings and hog ring pliers are a miserable invention but you have to admit this seat is the puppy's privates

and a vast improvement on the original sun faded and worn out seats.

So this Tuesday I shall give the car one last going over and Thursday it is off to the spray shop. Then I just have to put it all back together.

The final product

Well it's someones final product just not mine. I was searching Ebay the other day when I found a 63 for sale and it is code E (Viking Blue) and trim (92) the same as mine. So for no other reason than I can, here is a picture of what mine should look like, albeit that mine will have a white roof which will make it even sharper.

The rear seat

Well after what appears to have been quite a few fruitless weeks something nice has happened. I did not get to work on the Galaxie this weekend as my real job called. For the longest time I have with great trepidation been eyeing the seats with a view to reupholstering them myself. Now the boys that have been advising me (and very welcome, expert advice it has been) have told me to use an upholsterer, but being one for taking the path less trod I decided to give it a go and as I hadn't worked on Saturday it seemed like today was a good day. So ably assisted by Mrs. P we made a start.



I decided that we should try the rear seat first as it was the simplest and if we pulled it off it would be a confidence boost to take on the front which is a split bench.



Here is the result


All the emblems are standing proudly in line and the seat looks better than the picture. To cap it all off when I peeled off the old cover I found 6 cents in the lining. Could this day possibly get any better?

Another setback

I now need the top quality ( and freaking expensive) primer to apply the final coat before the Galaxie goes off to the shop for the real paint job. I trolled off the 20 miles or so to the paint store only to find that they were closed for Independence Day. Merde!

So that was my weekend, nothing else to do. Next weekend I have to work so no progress there either. I wonder if this project will ever finish.

On the bright side, many eye have now looked over the car and no one can find any dings or chips so I am quietly confident that this will be the best Galaxie in four counties.

A convert (with a convertable)

Well I was there rubbing down the primer and I am sure that I don't have to tell you how little fun I was having. Still it is showing the nicks and chips and dings that I missed on the last 20 or so walk arounds and that is a good thing.
Red has taken to calling in on a Thursday and he brings his Galaxie which just serves to remind me how nice my one will have to be. It transpires that he broke down this week when his distributor fell apart. The good news is that NAPA can supply a new one for just $55 and the really good news is that he decided to use this opportunity to convert to electronic ignition. So to all the old boys who scorned my conversion I now have a convert and his Galaxie (like mine) starts up on the first crank. Je suis une rock star baby.

Progress!

Well the Galaxie was for the briefest time all one color, here's how it went down.

I have pretty much got to the end of the sanding and under Gene's watchful eye decided to spray the whole car with the expensive (ouch) primer. So after a long tedious trip around with masking tape and newspaper she was almost ready. A quick wipe over with a rag (having checked to make sure it wasn't a pair of Gene's old pants, I still don't know why he does that) followed by a more serious wipe with a tack cloth and we were set.

I parked that car under a shade tree to keep the sun off and we mixed up the primer. Up until now we have been using some old stuff that Gene has about 50 gallons of. This we throw into the spray gun and shoot. However this stuff is the real deal and requires thinning and mixing with hardener and so on. Well about half of the car was well shaded so I started on the right side and really did not make too shabby a job of it.

Then the sun came out and the roof and left side got too hot. So whilst we waited for the sun to move over the tree again we decided to go visit a friend, forgetting about the paint in the gun. Now the old primer you can leave in the gun forever but remember I said that the new primer we added hardener? Well you get my drift, when we returned the primer had turned to jelly in the gun and we were royal screwed. Hours later I got the gun cleaned out and with the pot full of thinners was desperately trying to remove the last of the jelly from the nozzle. Just when I thought that the gun was toast it spluttered and farted and blew a chunk of snot out followed by clear thinner. We had just enough primer to finish albeit that Gene (who hates to waste a penny) complained bitterly for the rest of the day about the primer that we tossed out. Such is life at the body shop. Once the primer was on I was able to once again check out my sanding and joy of joys there are not too many faults and those are going to be easy to fill and buff out. At this point Gene decided that it might be fun to spray some lacquer paint over the areas that we had particularly worked on so see what they would look like under gloss. Once again I have to say that the quality of our sanding and filling was pretty damned good. Even the big areas behind the driver's door and the front fender where we welded in a patch to remove the fender mirror came out real well. So we have some ares that need a touch more work and the the entire car needs to be blocked but all in all a very productive (and tiring) day.

PS I almost forgot in celebration I took her out on the lane again. This time just for fun I lit her up and left a most satisfying trail of rubber and smoke behind me. Happy days

The parts are arriving

Well I haven't blogged for a while as nothing really exciting has happened. I did collect the bumpers and assorted trim this week and hats off to the chromers, the bumpers look tremendous. The interior parts are starting to arrive and everything looks cool. I am hoping to get a coat of primer on this weekend and then more sanding. I think that the end is in sight.

The saga continues

Saturday was hotter than the very anus of Satan himself so not a great deal got done on the Galaxie. I am now down to the fine scratch filler which is good and every time I walk around I see another chip or scratch. It was way to hot to spray primer so that didn't happen which was a disappointment as I was looking to see the car all one color. I did, however, carefully remove the roof liner and sailboards. There is some minor rust in the roof but nothing worth writing home about. For want of something better to do I cleaned and vacuumed the car out and wiped years of crap off the top of the dashboard. It was satisfying to see it start to look almost, kind of, nearly, maybe, sharp.

The rest of the day was spent getting one of the F100's ready for Ebay. Now if only I can find a mug, well qualified and motivated buyer. Hopefully I can turn that into a pile of cash. It would certainly be good to see money coming in for a change.

Finally, excitement of excitements, the new interior is due to arrive tomorrow. I won't be able to sleep tonight!

Revelations

As a result of last weeks misery I have discovered two important facts.

1. A new fuel tank costs $322. I know this because I bought one

2. God is obviously a Chevy man.

Bollocks!

I decided that I should order up the interior for the Galaxie. Two reasons; I figured they may be a delay whilst parts were back ordered and I wanted to spread the costs as I knew that the bumpers were due back from the electro-platers. So I dropped $2755 on the interior and lo and behold the very next day the chrome work is ready and the Shylock's want $1225. Such is life.

On Thursday I was once again sanding away when I started to smell gas and looking underneath I saw that the gas tank had split. Ah more expense but am I disheartened, crestfallen, monumentally pissed off more that words can say? You bet your *&^%ing ass I am!

The need for speed

OK Saturday was block sanding and block sanding and block sanding. It was a day without the slightest molecule of enjoyment or satisfaction. I didn't even get to spray the first coat of primer (although I did get to block the entire car).

Because it had been such a crap day I threw caution (and my liberty) to the winds and took the beast for a drive. It occurred to me afterwards that had the local deputy stopped me it would have been easier for him to write a ticket listing the things that I was driving with, than without. (Well at least we now have a driver's door that latches closed). So I wound it up and we were flying down the lane. It was so fast that small tornadoes of sanding grit whirled out of the dashboard, so fast that the g forces sucked my eyeballs into the trunk, so fast that I caught myself grinning like a retard. Now get this; at 70mph in top gear I mashed the throttle into the floorboard and I swear to God that this magnificent engine made the rear end hunker down and we were just eating the road up. Now the engine is still hardly set up and running on regular gas instead of the premium it so richly deserves. I am still smiling as I type this which is the silver lining to my otherwise naff day.

More fun in the sun

I really wasn't too happy with the alignment of the replacement driver's door so I spent an inordinate amount of time twatting about and achieving very little. It looks a tad better and if I pull the catch out on the jamb about a 1/4 inch it should be there. The problem is that the screws that hold the catch on are huge Philips heads and I just know that they are going to have their heads ripped out. Fortunately once again Red has come to my aid as he has an impact screwdriver that he bought to do the same job.

The rest of the evening was spent wet and drying the roof. For some reason Gene felt the need to show me what to do and sensing an opportunity, when he asked if I could see what to do I replied, No not really can you show me again? He smiled and sat down, the git. The main advice that he offered was that I should watch out for the clips that hold the windshield rubber in place. I then sliced my thumb open on the clips that hold the windshield rubber in. I found, under 8 years of crap, several stone chips which will be filled on Saturday and with any luck I will get the first coat of primer on and we will be another step closer.

Finally and with no purpose at all is a picture of the point eliminator kit that I fitted last week.