Smartin

Custom Metal Finishing Indiana. www.chromeplatingin.com Their pot metal work is exceptional.

Just confirmed that the chrome pieces I sent to CMF will not be done in time for the event. Not really sad or mad at this point, since I have zero time to install. Their initial estimate for turn-around was 14 weeks. I think we are close to 20 weeks now.

Final number says $25,204

Is that why you were feeling like crap when we were dropping the body on the chassis?😷😁

I entered Piggy in the 400 pt judging for Lisle...so I have some work to do. I have no idea how I'm going to get it done quickly enough, but I'm going to try doing a once-over on the engine compartment. It's the worst part of the car right now. And if I do that, I might stand a chance at a bronze award. I'm also picking up a flight pitch transmission from Jim Hughes the second week of June. So that will be done before I hit the road for Lisle, too. Also waiting on several pieces of chrome for the front end... I guess I should get started.

Wow!

If it was local, I would probably have it here already. It's tempting...but I have learned the hard way recently that I shouldn't be taking on any major projects for myself.

That was definitely one of the more stressful jobs I've done in a while. We made a good team, though.

I believe you're correct.

I'm sure that it's been wet or moist before, causing that rippling. Most of the car is in this "good" driver quality condition....and unless you went all the way with a restoration, it wouldn't make sense to fix some of these bits. Part of the reason why I only did a light cleanup in the engine compartment. Thankfully, it was pretty clean to begin with, and I only needed to concentrate on the engine itself.

The generator armature was toast...got it rebuilt and installed. Had a couple charging gremlins to work out...waiting on a new VR fuse. We decided to add a couple loose ends to the list. I reinstalled the rear lower seat cover due to being installed a bit wonky the first time. I had a wild thought about doing some stainless polishing, and figured I would try to do it while it was still installed on the car. It would take me the better part of a week just to remove and reinstall all of it...and there is a good chance some of the fasteners aren't even accessible unless the car is significantly disassembled. So I bought some cotton polishing wheels that mount on an angle grinder and tested out a spot. It would likely be fine, but the stainless on this car has been 100% sanded on with a DA sander, and those scratches will not come out with a polishing wheel. So, bummer there, but we are moving forward with the last remaining little bits.

We talked about it for last year, but was decided that it wasn’t going at that point.

Weird…really the only thing it could be is castle gray poly on the 56 sheet. I think castle gray in 57 is a solid color and it’s like a stone gray color.

Man…that looks like sylvan gray.

Great car, terrible presentation.

I welcome the opportunity for a good flip if I can see some effort put forth. You guys know I move cars, even more so now that I work with cars full time. I can't think of one car, even the bad buys, that I haven't put some effort into improving for the sake of the next owner...and myself. I find it highly satisfying.

Build the 36. Keep the old engine and associated parts that aren't used for inclusion in a later sale. The guys with big dollar muscle cars will keep the old engine/block with the numbers mothballed, but build something else they can beat on without fear of ventilating the original block.

Cut and buff time

Jeez...

Up close

All that is available near my original 8.00 size is 7.60 or 8.20 .....so I opted for 8.20 with a 2.5" ww. They're about $300 each plus shipping.

They’re branded as Auburn Classics. I don’t know what the actual manufacturer is. But they are bias lookalike radials.

That is the plan

…and rain X is a wonderful thing. Don’t remember the last car I had with vacuum wipers that worked.

Quick update on the blue beast. New spark plugs, wires, cap and rotor. That seems to have fixed the backfiring issue. I drove it about an hour each way to the Easter show in Forest Park on Sunday, while Atena drove Miss Piggy. Both cars have brand new tires from Diamond Back. Gonzo still has a light wiggle in the steering wheel at cruise speed. I went ahead and bought new shocks for it, but I think I'll need to have the tires rebalanced to make sure. I had them static balance them so the weights would be on the inside of the wheel, but if it makes that much difference, I'm going to just do what it takes to get a smooth ride. I don't really care about weights on the outside, as long as it's not a pile of them. But, given that, it runs very well and likes to do 75-80 on the highway. And it's quiet! Not much of any wind noise at all. Atena was saying something about Piggy having some wind noise issues...so will have to look into that.