Crossing Things Off

Last night I got Lucy’s oil and filter changed as well as her front suspension lubed. While the front end was up on jackstands, I checked for any looseness in the ball joints or wheel bearings. Everything felt tight. By the way, in order to do this properly, I needed to support the side’s lower a-arm with the jack. This prevented the dangling wheel from loading the balljoints and taking out any slop I’d be looking for.

With the front end jacked up, I got a good look at the condition of the front valence. Something’s got to be done there and soon. I’m running out of good metal to weld to. I haven’t decided how I’m going to recreate the grooves that were stamped into the curved shape. Those grooves are shown in the photo at left of Heidi without paint. I’m thinking I’ll have to form the grooves with the sheetmetal in the flat, and then form the overall curved shape. Unfortunately, that goes against the whole premise of having the grooves stiffen the curved shape. Oh well, us shadetree mechanics gotta’ do what we gotta’ do.