It was a nice weekend with lots of time working on Ringo. Saturday morning, I rolled him out of the garage, set up the sawhorses and placed the driver door on top. After sanding the primer to perfect smoothness, I re-hung the door from the ceiling and fired up the heaters. After a couple hours, the garage, door, and paint were all at a workable temperature, so I shot four coats of color and four of clear. Of course, it couldn’t go perfectly, so there are a couple of runs due to laying too thick a second coat in the area around the beltline crease. After letting it cure for a couple hours, the paint wasn’t hard enough to handle the door, so I carefully raised it closer to the ceiling by shortening the two cables I was using to hang it. With it high enough to not hit Ringo’s roof, I pushed the car back in the garage, and spent the next few hours working on the interior. I installed the rear panels, the passenger sill plate, seat, defroster hose, kick panel, air grill, and, finally, the back seat. Then I reconnected the battery and checked all the lights. At first try, only the headlights, brake lights and tail lights worked. The rear blinkers needed the contacts of the blinker to fuse block de-rusted, while the front blinkers required some cleaning and tightening of the sockets before they were functional. The backup lights’ 12 volt connection at the fuse block had to be cleared of corrosion before they were shining brightly. That was it for that day.
Sunday was the day I touched ‘em all. First on the list was dealing with Heidi’s starter issue. I drug jack, jackstand, tools, and a tested GUP starter/solenoid out to the street and put Heidi’s left rear up in the air. With the wheel off, I loosened and disconnected the larger air hose so I’d have good access to the solenoid wiring and starter bolts. As I put the wrench on the solenoid’s main lead, I immediately discovered the entire starter was not bolted down tightly. “Wow, this will be an easy fix,” I told myself. And it was. A few minutes later, bolts were tightened and the hose was back in place with the clamp snugged down. All was not completely copacetic, however, as the short rubber hose connecting the ends fo the fuel line had an inch-long crack in it. Fortunately, I still had some new hosing hanging on the wall in the garage, so I cut it to length, removed the old piece, and had the new hose clamped in place in no time. Ariel came home for the part of the weekend, and I decided to give her the choice of Lucy or Heidi to drive back that afternoon. To ensure Heidi was ready, I started the engine which ran nicely, checked the fluid levels (had to add about a pint of tranny fluid), and put air in the tires to bring them up to the 30 rear/20 front psi desired.
Lucy’s tires also needed some air, but that was the only “touching” she required. Ariel had reported that she had some new squeaks on the inside (steering wheel and brake pedal) and the tachometer had ceased to work (the wire was still intact in the engine compartment), but I decided to let those issues go since they wouldn’t strand her on the side of the road. In the end, Ariel selected Lucy since she, “was more comfortable driving her.”
The third ‘vair requiring my attention was Glinda. I popped her engine lid and found the fanbelt was too loose. This is the same belt that required my attention a couple weeks back when I ended up re-forming the fingers of the guard at the pulley wheel. I hadn’t replaced the belt then and it did have some damage, so this time I swapped on a new Clark’s belt and properly tightened the pulley wheel before snugging down the retaining nuts. I told Victoria to remind me to check it in a couple days.
Finally, I was back in the garage working on Ringo. By the time I had to knock off to get ready for the CORSA of Baltimore Holiday Party, I had drilled holes and partially installed the stainless rocker trim on the passenger side. Still left is drilling three holes for screws that retain the bottom edge of the trim.
This morning I made an appointment with Jeff at the Corvair Ranch for this Thursday to get help installing the backlight. This “should” be the last task before a final cleanup and turning the keys over to Ariel.
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