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.