July 28, 2004
The front end sheet metal is coming together...
Ed poses with a chrome grill insert. The corners of the hood are finished and everything fits nicely. Notice the hole in the passenger side. This is where the bubble will be installed to clear the air cleaner. A lot of work remains to be done on this area of the car. Like where the hell are the hinges? In this shot, Kirk works on one side of the sheet metal below the front bumper. This piece should really be as wide as the car but we're forced to make two bad ones into one good one. Here's a shot without the hood on.
In the 2 days since the last update, Kirk and Bill have been bondo-ing like madmen. All the welded in panels, wrinkles, dings, dents, and blemishes have been filled in and sanded smooth. The car really looks great. We might actually get it out of primer for our trip to the salt!
The shop is a hive of activity with all sorts of little jobs being done...
Roger, who has a shop right near Ed's, stopped by to help design the exhaust system.
Dale came by and installed the polycarbonate windows.
Kirk got up to his elbows in the sandblasting cabinet.
Joe welded up some brackets to hold the fire bottle.
Mike and Mark measured the car for roof rails (wishful thinking) and tabs to retain the windshield and backglass.
Bob had to do a little cutting on the door latches to get the GT Hawk and C/K parts to work together. The GT Hawk part was identical except for a little shroud that doesn't exist on the C/K models.
The clutch caused a little concern when it was discovered that fully depressing the pedal resulted in only 1.5 inches of movement in the cable. Mike spent a lot of time under the car and finally Joe and Mark made a little jig to figure out how much travel we needed and how long to make the arm to achieve that.
But the highlight of the evening was the arrival of the Joe's wife and eldest daughter. We talked her into an action shot in the car!
