In a Funk



10/10/03
In a Funk

I really didn’t get a lot of work done on the Ferrari today because everything I did seemed to get in the way of making any progress! It didn’t help that I was in a bad mood from things outside my Ferrari restoration, but the mood must have carried into my work.

I’m in the process of buying a house I found over the Summer, but the negotiations have dragged on into the Fall. I’m so close to finally having a garage of my own to work on my cars, and yet the current owners are delaying the closing of the sale because the house they’re building is not ready! It’s turning into the contract from Hell, but I feel if I’m patient and persistent, I’ll overcome this obstacle to a dream come true!


I started my day by installing the leather cover to the short section of the transmission tunnel in the rear seat area. The steel hump first had to be covered with some 3/8ths inch foam to give the leather a soft touch. After the foam was glued into place and trimmed, the leather was fitted into place. You can just see a bump in the middle of the cover where I had to stretch the leather to cover a bracket. This bump is where the rear ashtray will be mounted, and the old cover was stretched in a similar fashion so there would be no wrinkles when everything is mounted in place.

The next step was to drill holes for the screws that hold this cover in place. The seat belt anchor bolt was cut through the leather and I began drilling. There is a metal reinforcement strip that is sewn into the leather cover, and the screws hold this piece down. A piece of carpet was glued into place before I began attaching the leather to the car, and the first side went in without a hitch. On the other side, I snapped two drill bits trying to drill through the tunnel. I even peeled back the foam and insulation to see if there was anything underneath that could be breaking my bits, but found nothing. I attributed this problem with my having a bad day, and eventually got the holes drilled. The leather cover was then stretched into place, cut and glued down to finish of the section, but I was so frustrated with how long it took, I never took a picture of the finished product!

The rest of the day involved fitting the rear wheel well covers that were sewn last week. I had to re-do some of the foam underlayment because of some wrinkles that kept showing through, so I decided to quite for the day. I found that when things aren’t going well, it’s sometimes easier to quit for the day than do more damage. There will always be next week!

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