Week #107

Things seem to be going smoothly so far at the body shop. Work has progressed along as expected with the quarter panels, doors and fenders ready for color. The quarter panels required a lot of work. This was expected. I have heard more than one person talk of coating the whole surface of the re-pop quarters with filler and working down from there. My body man didn't go to that extreme but it did take a good bit of filler to get them straight... the pictures tell the story... hey, I wouldn't hide anything from you guys!

I might have done a few things right through this whole thing but let me tell you, I have had my share of stupid blunders to... and I wouldn't be telling the whole story if I didn't share a big one with you here. The bodyman needed to put a decklid on the car in order to finish up repairing the damage at the rear from the "rotisserie incident". The only one I had was the original one. I wasn't going to use it but it would do as a "mule" to get done what needed to get done. I took the lid over on a Saturday and we proceeded to install it. I climbed in the trunk and installed the arms and t-bars. When we went to hoist the deck lid into position, something was WAY off. I'll cut to the chase. The brackets that the arms and torsion rods connect to the inner wheelhouse at the bottom and the filler panel between the trunk and rear glass at the top. I had replaced the filler panel. When I removed the old filler panel I put zero thought into where those brackets mounted horizontally. When I installed the new panel I just welded the brackets where ther happen to hit. This was stupid. It turns out that where they hit was a good 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch off to the outside... both of them. That put the arms more than an inch farther apart than they were supose to be. We could attach the lid to the arms (while forceing the arms together) but forget about closeing the trunk... everything bound or hit something. What a moron (me). Of course I had to come over to the shop on another Saturday and break those welds loose, re-position the brackets and weld them back to the panel. The welds were very difficult to get to and I made quite the mess at the lip near the brackets, but the bodyman doctored it up for me and all was well. You can see the MarineTex'd areas at the trunk lip where the brackets were moved in one of the pics for this week.

I will be prepping and delivering the hood next. The one I have is totaly rust free but does have mor than it's share of dings at the front edge. I hope the bodyman is in a good mood when I bring it to him.