The Weekend’s Over – How’d I Do?

After a Heidi-filled weekend, the list has some tasks crossed out, a few VERY close, a couple deleted, one added and completed, but still five left. Thank goodness I got the paint on when I did, or I’d never be this close to finishing. All the trim is reattached including the wheel-well and rocker panel stainless some of which hadn’t been on the car since she’d been run into three years ago. Fortunately, I was able to find all the pieces and the screws. The engine lid was installed and aligned, all the lights were screwed on and plugged in, and the dashpad was removed and re-glued with new contact cement.

That last task caused some trepidation since contact cement is not forgiving – you only have once chance to get it right. With that in mind, I asked the lovely Loriann to help me and it went in quite nicely. There were a couple edges that didn’t stick, so I reapplied some more cement, let it dry, then forced the edges down and held them in place with wood wedges that I’ll remove tonight.

I actually knocked out two tasks from the “desired” portion of the list – painting the exposed metal on the inside of the doors and painting the inside of the passenger door. The latter converted a black door into the correct red door. After sanding and excessive masking (don’t want any red paint on the silver exterior), I laid down the coat of primer. The smooth surface looked so nice, I decided to do the same to the driver’s door since its original red paint was nicked and scratched. Some more sanding, masking, and priming put the world in balance. The finish coat of Rustoleum’s Satin Colonial Red went on nicely and I was tempted to keep going and do the rest of the interior. The looming deadline, however, prevented me from adding more hours to my already sketchy schedule.

The added item was replacing a worn-out window fuzzy. A new one from the Corvair Ranch showed up in the mail Friday (quick response – thanks Jeff and Luke). This was another job where I had to be very careful. Removing the old one had to be done without scratching the new paint, and all went well. Installing the new one simply entailed aligning the tabs and tapping the edge into place with a hammer and a block of wood.

The deleted items are installing the matching door lock on the passenger side (couldn’t find the original) and painting the door jams (not enough time).
So what’s left? Reinstalling the door panels and associated window cranks, latch handles, armrests, radio, dash pad trim, horn wires; cleaning the carpet; changing the oil and filter; finding and plugging the leaking tire; stopping the leak in the transmission shift cable with heat-shrink; and locating and stopping the engine oil leak. Anyone making odds on me getting to everything?