I like what you are doing especially including the younger generation my children werent that interested in cars of any vintage if they couldnt drive it immediately though 1 did help tidy the paint work. Keep up with the good work.

Tony

As time has gone on my oldest far prefers to do the interior and paint.  Youngest prefers to do electrical and mechanical.  Each are leans towards their talents.  One part that they did not like when we started but now have now issue with and keep up with is documentation.  When we took the car apart it was a bag it and tag it program.  Received allot of questions about why we were doing this when we would replace the hardware anyways.  They understood as things started to be put back together.  Also the trips to a store where I could matchup an old nut or bolt with the replacement made them understand the value.  

We bought the shop manual and in the rear of it the notes page is filled with a list of what color we replaced each wire with.  We made our own wiring harnesses for the car.  We had to add pages to the back of the manual for some of the notes.  Everything from turn signal instructions to hand drawn wire diagrams have been stapled to it.  They have learned the value of the documentation.

The goal of this project was to spend time together and that cannot be replaced.  The project has exceeded every goal I had for it.  The value is not in the car but the memories.    

Really interesting topic. Have been following from the beginning.

I look forward to every episode of this ongoing series of posts.

Dick

April 2024

Changed the oil, cleaned and oiled the air filter.  Youngest was surprised that the instructions on the filter said to clean in gas and use motor oil on it.  Had to explain that when I was a kid we used gas as a solvent to clean a lot of things.  I had forgotten how that is not a common practice anymore.  Also installed a new clutch return spring.  Not sure what happened to the one that was on the car or if it was ever there since we started working on it.  Last season we noticed that the clutch pedal was not returning to the normal position all of the time.  After adding the new spring it is now higher.  Surprisingly we were able to look up the NAPA part number in a NAPA parts book from the fifties.  When we called NAPA they were able to find the part and order it.  Since it was a custom order we had to get two since that is how they are packaged. 

Not much done to the car in the last few days.  Spent a day and a half performing the yearly spring cleaning of the garage.  Only thing we did do to the car was to install a tissue dispenser that was found new in the box with the parts that came with the car.  Not sure what year it is from.

Knowing that the interior is taking far longer than we expected and that we are entering the time when we would rather be riding than working my oldest decided to paint the uncovered areas to match the color of the interior.  Found that the Rustoleum Almond closely matches the fabric we will be using for the upper portion.  First he found several staples from the old interior that had to be removed.  He masked the area off and painted it.  Let it dry and then added a coat.  Not as good as the interior panels will be but far better than the metal that did not match anything.  The lighter color makes it look better.  Definitely one of those little task that while not needing to be done make what has been done look that much better. 

While my oldest was painting the interior my youngest and I made mats to be attached below the doors of the car where one steps in.  The section of the floor under the doors had been patched by a prior owner on one.  The drivers was dented and the others were definitely not in the best shape cosmetically.  When painting the car they were painted and did match but we thought it could be better.  With the parts for the car there was a cover that fit one of the rears but the rubber on it was hardened and brittle.  To make our own we sandwiched a piece of galvanized steel between two pieces of rubber cut from a  runner used to protect carpet.  Used some contact cement to hold it together.  Then screwed them to the car.  Looks better than before they were there.  Time will tell if they hold up.