Thanks for that. It's far from concours quality but it was never meant to be more than a daily driver.
So, to catch up because it's been a while since I did here: The shell is painted, buffed and reassembly is underway (the tail lights are just set in place).
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Sound deadener is in and I added extra jute padding in the footwells to make it a bit more comfy. I laid the carpet out in it, put the car cover on it, a space heater inside it and let it run for the weekend a couple weeks ago. Most of it settled nicely but the area directly behind the shifter hump is not laying down well. I got at it with the heat gun and it sat down a little better but not as much as I'd like. And since bucket seats are going in that's a hi-vis area so I'd like to get it to fit-especially without cutting it.
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I'll have to keep working on it. I'm on the long waiting list for seat vinyl anyway so no real hurry here.
I also replaced that falling apart steering coupler with a universal coupler. Cheaper and I like the idea anyway.
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So as mentioned earlier the immediate goal is carpet, dash and headliner. The headliner is actually laid out on the bed right now and it can live like that until I tackle that next week. Remember-'72 and up didn't have the cloth headliner so there's an interesting project coming up. Meanwhile I started assembling under the dash and to really get on with that I need to refurbish fasteners. And since it's been (holy hell) 15 years or so since I blasted them, enter my own blast cabinet:
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After entering a discount code this was $97 shipped on ebay and I couldn't make one for less than that. And it's not terrible. Assembly was required and almost everything is held together by metric machine screws & nuts. The only real miss I can fault them for here is the lid hinges which were sheet metal screws into holes that are too big-it's a loose fit and the hinges move about. But I can and will replace them with more machine screws & nuts. You'll see a rectangle on the back wall of the cabinet, on the upper left behind the light. It's a shielded opening that I covered up the outside with a computer fan filter. The cone-like filter on the right wall has an opening in the side that just fits the hose to my small Craftsman shop vac. When I close it up and fire up the vacuum cleaner it sucks it down so well you can't open the lid. NO dust-great visibility. Also note the new squirrel cage in the lower right of the pic as well as some nuts I already caught-the four that hold the wiper linkage in place under the dash. AND-Eastwood's zinc plating system to the left of the cabinet. I'll get all this fired up tomorrow after the Raider game and we'll see how it goes.
It's not much but I'm happy to have one of my own. I won't be blasting engine blocks but it's ideal for the specialty fasteners and small bits I need done. That includes some new lower control arm parts I recently acquired which is a tale to tell of B Body heaven in Oregon that I'll share another time. Meanwhile, assembly continues and the beat goes on...
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