7/18/00 I've decided to take several days off. I need some time to think about this, and I need to get back into shape. I got the second roll of photos done, and there's now a second page of photos. I'll probably be back at the kit on Wednesday or Thursday. I want it done before it starts to rain. At least drivable so I can get it home. Once under the carport, it will be much easier to poke at.
7/24/00 I ended up taking a week off, and also decided to go see a doctor. My back just wasn't working. Got nothing but attitude, and a perscription for industrial strength Motrin. Doctor didn't help, Motrin did. 800 mg pills. Decided to take one before working. This was a GREAT idea! Works very well. Went up on Saturday to work on the car. My friend Mike came by to help and see how things were going. This wasn't the best of days. We decided to mount the rear body section. Making the rear mounts went well. Better than I expected. Had to drill through the mounting tabs, and the frame cross member. This was no problem at all. I used cutting oil, and the frame was no problem. Mounting the captured nuts was next. They have two tabs which need to need drilled while keeping the large bolt hole centered. So I start with the tape measure, then the light goes on. Clamp the nut to the frame with ViceGrips! Held everything in place, and showed where to drill by the placement of the tool. I pop riveted and epoxied them in place. Not going anywhere. Next was gluing the body in place. I got 4 quart cans of Vette glue, with 4 tubes of hardener. Seems like mix one can to one tube. WRONG!!! It was 90 degrees out and this stuff set up in seconds! Of course, it waited until it was on the body of the truck and the glass. DAMN! This is a major set back, but not the end of the world. I can grind off the glue. I spent about an hour on Saturday, and got about 1/3 off. I'm going to try calling the manufacturer today and get some info in this product.
Mike brought his digital camera and got some pictures of me and the project. I'm looking forward to them, so I can get them posted. Didn't work Sunday, I was demoralized, and it was another 90+ degree day. Back to the grinding tonite.
7/25/00 Well, that wasn't so bad, was it? I have a new favorite tool, the die grinder. Amazing piece of hardware. Got all the glue sanded off, total of 2 hours. didn't grind through the glass, which is good.
The other program is the one for editing the prints. It's from Kodak. Also good it's free. It only allows crop and rotate. I'm using Microsoft Photo Editor for the resizing. Another leraning curve. I only need to reduce the originals by 10-20% to get them down to 20K. It only took two tries to figure that out. Good thing I wasn't editing 100 prints.
7/14/00 Got back to work last night. I'm starting to set goals for each trip, and that seems to be helping. Last night was to complete sanding of the fender stubs. I got that done and got them painted as well. They look good! The cut edge is kinda ripply, bit I think I'll be able to cover that with some kind of trim. But the paint helped a lot. I also made the cut-out for the trunk latch. I used the template, measured twice, and the damn hole is still too big. I missed it by a 1/4 inch. Sure hope there's a fudge factor available. I'm waiting for the first set of pictures. I paid for rush service, and its been 10 days. Never again will I use this company.
Major goal for this weekend is to get the rear body panel glued in place.
I'm also going to make a photo gallery on the site.
Last weekend I wanted to do a trial fit on the trunk valance panel, and found two odd shaped pieces of black fiberglass. No indication as to what they do. Since they're packed with the rear valance, they must fit into the trunk somewhere, right? So I spent 10 minutes puzzling on how to fit them in there, and finally gave up. I was reading the assembly guide last night, and the light went on. They're the inner fenders for the front. No wonder they didn't fit into the trunk. I can't wait for the next mistery parts! This is a fun project!
7/17/00 Got another day in on Saturday. I was hoping to get the rear body section glued in place, but that didn't happen. I needed to mount the trunk latch, and that took 3 hours. The instructions didn't specify clearly where it mounts, there's a 21/2 inch question mark on the front-back alignment. So I stuck it in and I'll hope for the best. I needed to fabricate two brackets, that's what took the big time. Compound bends aren't easy. I also had to fabricate a tongue and groove bracket so the latch doesn't rub the gas tank. That could be a BIG problem! Also found that the rear clip isn't exactly correct. If the wheel wells are centered correctly, the rear mounting tabs aren't long enough to catch the frame. I hate when that happens. So I've resigned myself to this being a "10 foot" car.
