3/22/01 Many Little Projects

I got the rubber door bumpers in from Partsource. They’ll look much better than the old hard painted over ones that are definitely thirty-five years old.

After rounding up all the attaching hardware, I got the right side mounted. I know it’s not too exciting, but it’s another step toward completing this car!

Another project I completed that I was very happy with was the door strap pin. In the above picture, the center pin is a good original pin that attaches the door strap to the body of the car, the one on the right is a mangled one that I could no longer use, and the one on the left is one I made from scratch! Now, to all of the machinists out there, it’s no big deal, but for a guy who would have thought a few years ago, such things were impossible, I’m pretty proud of my work! I found a bolt with the same shaft diameter, and milled the head down to the shape I wanted using François’ lathe. All I need now is to drill a hole in the bottom of pin for a cotter pin. I would have doe it today, but I didn’t have a small drill bit.

Last week, I coated all the rusted areas on the heater blower assembly with POR-15, so this week, I sanded the housing smooth, and started with a couple of layers of primer. I also made sure to add a tiny drain hole at the bottom of the housing to allow water to escape from inside the blower assembly.

Some newly painted pieces arrived from the painter. (Thanks Wayne!) These pieces were missed by the previous painter, so I had to have my painter color match the paint on my car and shoot these parts. The glove box door still needs to be wet sanded, but the dashboard/defroster trim strip is ready for installation.

Now that I have the upper trim strip in my hand, I can figure out what needs to be done to finish attaching the dashboard to the car. I soon realized there was no getting around removing the dash AGAIN! Luckily, I didn’t have to unplug any of the instruments, but it sure is an unwieldy piece! It looks like the dash leather had been replaced, but the upper attachment holes were not cut in the leather. After punching these holes with an awl, I realized that it will make access to the attachment holes much easier with the windshield out of the car. Right now, the glass is just sitting in the frame without a gasket, but I won’t move it without another person’s help. Considering these windshields are not readily available and several hundred dollars to replace, I’ll wait for another day when someone is around to help!

The overdrive and bell housing sit patiently at my shop waiting to be mated up to the transmission which is still waiting for an oil seal. The great news is François got the transmission apart, and fixed the synchronizer. It wasn’t damaged, and because these synchros are symmetrical, he turned it around to save me from buying another one. While I’m waiting, I’ll need to round up some super thin gasket material to remake the one that seals the overdrive to the transmission, but everything is moving along!

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