Luv2Wrench

I'll jump in for Chris as he's enjoying the holidays... The progress of the car has been outstanding! Look above in the posts and you see a completely restored chassis. Engine is out for a rebuild and body work is getting started. My guess is he gets done well before his 5 year goal.

The license plate bracket looks amazing!! Being able to correct that amount of damage and get such good results means you'll have no problems with the rest of the panels. I'm curious about the prices you're getting for the re-chrome work. Moss seems to have some pretty reasonable prices on new chrome pieces and I'm wondering about the price and quality difference of a re-chrome vs. going new. Any thoughts on that?

At first I was getting a couple hours a night in during the week and probably a total of 10 hours on the weekends. Lately that hasn't been the case as there's just been so much going on. I have been working a little smarter lately and that has helped. Biggest change is cleaning up and putting away tools each night and making a list (or laying things out) to do the next day (or whenever). That way when I get back in the shop I can immediately get to work. This makes it easy to go out to the shop for just 30 minutes or so. I can get in the shop immediately after getting home from work and get stuff done before dinner. That way if the Wife and I go out to dinner or somewhere after dinner I still got some work done. Further to that is trying to identify resource blockers that I'm going to run up against. If I order something on Sunday it is likely I don't get it until the very end of the next week. This is a killer and whatever I can do to make sure this doesn't hold me up is a real help. Time not spent waiting for parts is time spent working! I still stink at it but I've gotten much better. This recent exercise in assembling the car without paint is part of that process. I'm identifying issues now rather than later when they would hold up work.

The lettering is not that much bigger than the lettering on the quarter!! The attention to detail continues to amaze, great job Roger!

This is going to be a radius turning tool, right? Are you copying one or rolling your own?

Wow that looks great! Was the gap that good originally or did you tweak it? I love that color.

Thanks Joe! You're completely correct and that's why I'm going through this exercise. I knew this wouldn't go perfectly and that I'd have to sort these things out and I wanted to do that before it was painted. Overall it has gone better than I had expected.

Went for two shorts drives through the neighborhood... short because it is cold out!! The car runs great but there are a lot of noises and little things going on. Shifting from 1st to 2nd seems to have a slight little grind as it gets into 2nd. Not the normal grind or refusal or difficulty getting into gear, just a little noise as it enters. 2nd is smooth after that. Going into 3rd is smooth but at the top of the range there's a little banging noise like something is hitting the exhaust pipe. The speedometer doesn't work and I'm wondering if those are related since the speedo cable exits the gearbox right at the muffler. 4th seems very smooth in every way but dang if it doesn't feel like there is anything left!! I have no idea how fast we were going but it didn't seem all that fast and I was in 4th. Downshifting into 3rd seems fine as well as 2nd (which is a little confusing because I don't think it made any noise on downshift). 1st doesn't have a synchro so I haven't been downshifting into it. I just read online that I should be pausing a bit between gears and some say that the 2nd synchro was always iffy and they recommend a double clutch. Weather will be better later this week and I do some more test driving then. At times the handling is a little squirrelly with a little wiggle in the rear. The rear tires are bald of course and they haven't been balanced so that may be the cause. The front tires are pretty new and they were supposedly balanced (they still have weights on them) so I don't think they are the cause but I haven't had them checked out. I will be replacing all four tires and will have all four wheels checked for straightness as well as balanced. I don't see any other play in the chassis so I think the tires are the only culprit. I'm also used to driving Germany's latest technology so a lot of this may be my expectations. The brakes still don't really work. They have a little bit of effectiveness right about the time you've pressed your foot through the firewall. I resorted to just using the handbrake. I'm going to bleed the brakes again and check to make sure they are adjusted correctly. I'm hoping another bleed will work. These cars are notorious for their poor rear brakes so when the handbrake works better than the brake pedal it hints at something really wrong with the master cylinder or air in the lines... or both. I need to get this fixed before I do anymore test driving. I went over the bumpers and they were in a lot worse shape than they first appeared. It is hard to believe that the bumpers belong to a car with such a straight frame and body. At some point someone drilled some holes to mount things as well as some genius stick welded the backing bar and got slag all over the bumper. I think I can save the backing bars though they will require a considerable amount of work. It will save me about $300 to refurb them so it is probably worth the effort. Fortunately the stick weld on the back was so horrid (a second piece of metal was "welded" to the backing bar) there is almost no penetration so I think I can chisel it off and do it properly. The bumpers themselves are probably too far gone. Patching the holes and straightening along with a re-chrome is probably much more expensive that new bumpers from Moss (about $600 front and back). The engine is still running a little rich but it runs fine and I haven't had a chance to adjust it using the color tune tool. I hope to do that later in the week. The engine seems very strong and more powerful than what I've heard. Of course this is essentially a brand new engine and since we bored it 100 thou over it will have a little more horsepower. 4th gear is going to be the limiting factor with the car and if I were to keep it I'd probably swap in a 5 speed transmission and/or change the rear gears. So that's the critical summary... the reality is this thing is an absolute BLAST to drive!!! The car fits you like a glove and it just wants to go fast. It is like a big and comfortable go-cart. It sounds fantastic and boy does it attract attention! I can't wait to get it finished and enjoy it a bit before I let someone else enjoy it.

Seats are done and the hood is complete. I've got a few more things I'd like to finish and then I'll call it complete and do some testing. I'll make a list of what is still needed, what needs to be fixed and then carefully take the car back apart and begin the final phase.

BSF nuts came in the mail today, thanks Joe!!

Thanks! The big piece of foam came from Moss Motors https://mossmotors.com/foam-cushion-set-seat-bottom?assoc=28436 The foam on the side is typical upholstery foam and I wrapped both with Dacron https://www.amazon.com/Bonded-Dacron-Upholstery-Polyester-Batting/dp/B00ZOLAAYQ/ref=asc_df_B00ZOLAAYQ/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=216743372835&hvpos=1o3&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6150276546832326830&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9010814&hvtargid=pla-359707271405&psc=1 I'll also use that on the back over the horsehair and/or instead of the horsehair.

Out of town over the weekend again so not that much to report. Got a chance this afternoon to start installing the seat covers on the seat bottoms. First step was to add some foam to the sides of the 'ramp'. Second step was to add the big layer of foam and stretch the cover around, glue and staple. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Hopefully the back will go smoothly as well but I've heard it can be a lot more difficult. I'm stating the obvious... but working with the leather part of the seat cover was so much easier than the vinyl side around the back. Apparently this is how the original seats were made but I think I'd prefer all leather. I did attached the seat to the rails as well as the seat back for a test fit and it worked quite well. The car is a comfortable "fit" and is a bit more like wearing a jacket than it is sitting in a car.

Looks great! Hard to tell from the picture but it certainly looks like you could polish and be done.

Good plan with the wheels, wait a bit and see what your options are. Would be very difficult to get a good safe ride without good wheels.

I think I'm seeing double, or triple, or quadruple or...

I think I can feel your satisfaction all the way down here in the South!! That's a great accomplishment and a real validation of your problem solving and practical skills.

Looks fantastic! Glad the weather gave you a break. I think we got your cold and wind... was 38 when I went to lunch today and windy as heck. Fortunately I had my AACA sweatshirt to keep me warm.

Added some chrome pieces. Pleased to find out that the PO bought some new pieces so I'm in decent shape with the small stuff. The headlights turned out to be NOS Lucas that appear to have never been plugged in much less installed. I was pretty thrilled to find that. I didn't pay that close attention when packing the pieces after purchase but I had thought they looked decent but that the chrome wasn't in great shape. It turns out they were just dusty. It took awhile to find all the various bits to get the shiny pieces on the car but they are on now and I think they look pretty nice. I know I'll be spending some big bucks on chrome so all the pieces that I don't have to replace or rechrome will help.

I wish you could live stream the first run!

Can you rent time in a paint booth?

Looks great! Thanks for posting the extra detail on the rivets, that's not something I've done a lot of and it is something that keeps coming up. I've tossed some parts instead of messing with the rivets.

Many thanks Joe! That's half the battle right there!

So after seeing the prices I might be paying to acquire the BSF nuts and bolts required, I took a much closer look at the boxes of junk that came with the car. I got very close to finding everything I need and for those exceptions (1/4" at 3" long qty 6) I substituted normal nuts and bolts from that orange place up the street. If I don't find the original BSF versions then I'll order those or perhaps Joe will have some. The picture below shows nearly 8 hours of work though one would be hard pressed to see where. Yeah, the running boards were added and there's that chrome strip on top of the bonnet but hard to see anything else as most of the time went *finding* the nuts and bolts that are holding on the panels I stuck on yesterday. In the process of trying to find what I needed I did bump into quite a few things I'll be needing soon. It is so much more fun to hunt for things when you have a much better idea of the pieces that are needed both now and in the future. Didn't get to the seat so that will be a goal for next week. Thanks to everyone for the hardware advice!!

With the drivetrain squared away I started throwing on body panels. The idea was to find out what I was missing. Unfortunately I found out I was missing a lot of nuts and bolts. Like a lot. The parts car will not be any help here because most of the bolts on the body panels broke when taking them apart. I do seem to have all the body panels and they are in very good shape considering they've been passed from shop to shop over the last 35 years. I guess I could get a couple hex bars and start making them but I think I'll look into buying some from across the pond. Update: as luck would have it... it appears that I might be able to get some from Moss. I'm hoping to get a seat of sorts in tomorrow as well as find enough nuts and bolts to hold the panels on well enough that I can drive around some. So close yet so far...

Fabulous work, thanks for taking the time to update the thread!!! That car is going to be amazing, keep the pic coming.