Luna’s Roadworthy

Saturday Victoria and I spent a big chunk of the day working on our Corvairs. She painted the two sheetmetal pieces that would go in to patch Luna's driver's footwell. Once the paint was dried, she and I installed them using 3/16ths rivets. With the patches in place, she applied a coat of primer before laying down a couple coats of gloss-black Rustoleum. While waiting for the paint to dry, she vacuumed out the passenger's airvent and reassembled the vent door, kick panel, and door sill. With the floor coating set, she rolled the carpet back into place and reinstalled the driver's kick panel and sill. Then I put the gas pedal back where it belonged. After bolting in the driver's seat, we were ready for a test drive. It first took a trip to the fillin' station for five gallons of eighty-seven octane so the gastank had something in it to burn. Once that was complete, the engine fired up after pouring a few tablespoons of gas down the carburetors' thirsty throats. The exhaust leak on the left side of the engine was still there, but it wasn't bad enough to prevent Victoria from backing Luna out of the garage and down the driveway. A short trip around the neighborhood by herself was followed by a longer drive at highway speeds (yes, on the highway, not in the neighborhood) to make sure she was working well enough to warrant the expense of finally titling and tagging.

When Victoria didn't need my help toiling away on Luna, I was doing bodywork on Lucy. About four coats of filler each followed by smoothing with my dying random orbital sander (you need to hold it JUST right to keep it running – quite annoying). With the last coat sanded, I gave her an overdue bath finally washing away all the oil that had coated her rear during the oil filter blowouts.

Also, I pulled Mikhaila into the party by having her mask off, prime, and paint the center portion of Lucy's front grill bar.

This morning I got up early, cleaned off and masked around the affected areas, and shot three coats of primer.

Finally, this afternoon, I spent a surprisingly short time at the MVA making Luna legal.