Kerry called me yesterday with a project update. Things are getting back in motion in his shop since his father's passing and he said he has another new guy starting as well, which may put him back to full power real soon.
As far as my car, he is working on the new doors. They have a little rust, but not much. He cleaned the rust where he could and treated all the metal parts in the door including the side collision plate with rust inhibitor, then they will be coating the interior and exterior of the doors with epoxy primer. Once the doors are reconditioned, they will be mounting them on the car so the front and rear body panels and the doors can be properly aligned.
On the rear of the car, all the past custom body work building the rear fender flares (not done by them, but by another shop in Virginia right after I got the car) has built up so many layers of fiberglass on the inner skirt behind the wheels to where he does not even know what shape to grid the skirts to receive the new fenders properly. The solution he wants to do and I agreed completely, cut them out and replace them with the correct parts. Once the new inner skirts come in, work will start on installing the new rear quarter panels.
On the front of the car, there is a fiberglass mounting bracket that is fastened to the birdcage which receives the body. When my car was modified to have the tilt nose back in the 70's, this part was removed, but now we need it.
- Screenshot 2023-06-01 074159.jpg (75.25 KiB) Viewed 4596 times
Kerry is in the process of getting these and once they get here, work can progress on the Mako nose install.
The real kicker is, after he told me about needing these parts and I saw what they looked like, these parts were on the tilt nose part of my original front end, and, not realizing they would be needed, they were thrown away with the rest of the tilt nose.
Oh well, they probably would have been hacked up trying to get them off anyway, better to start with new ones.
I am happy with the progress and really happy Kerry doesn't cut corners. If the body's foundation parts, even though you cannot see them when it is finished, are not right, that will lead to problems later, which I don't want to deal with. It may cost a bit more now, but you know the old saying, there is never enough time and money to do it right, but there always seems to be enough time and money to do it over!
Also, his new lift is installed. This one is a drive on type instead of the type that has arms lifting the car by the frame. Definite advantages to have each type, and now he has both.
