Reassembly Commences

Last evening I pulled all the masking off Heidi, stepped back, and took a long look at the car. As I basked in the glow of my accomplishments, Loriann came out and offered to help knock out some tasks from the To-Do list. I handed her the tub of Armor-all wipes and she went to work on the dash pad while I mixed up epoxy and reinstalled the loose vent window glass. What a difference the Armor-all made – the dash is black again instead of dirty-gray. That transformation prompted us to move on to the convertible top. It too now looks brand new and the glossy black really looks sharp against the shiny silver of the body. While we were wiping, I reminded her that it was five years ago she and I had installed this top. In reply, she told me, “You are amazing: doing all this for Brianna again and doing such a good job.” You guys out there know how inspirational a compliment from your significant other can be. All of a sudden the list and the hours still ahead of me didn’t seem so daunting.

There are plenty of bits and pieces that need to be reinstalled, but since Brianna put “Polish Chrome” on the To-Do list, I need to spend some quality time with the buffing wheel on my grinder motor before any pieces can be screwed back on. So, after replacing the wire wheel with the cloth buffing wheel and getting out a stick of buffing compound, I shined up the front grill bar and the rear taillight chrome (see photo). Just so I could say I started reassembly, I mounted the grill bar. She’s sure gonna’ look nice when everything is back on.