On its way to the paint shop

I have to ask why, since the interior is out, does it not get painted inside?

To have the body shop paint it inside would have added many, many $$$ to the cost. Since the inside sheet metal will not show, I tried to save some money. The inside of the doors were painted but not the rest of the shell. I plan on covering the entire interior with hushmat as a replacement for the original sound deadening material (much lighter in weight and more effective). This will pretty much cover up the interior sheet metal - so, bottom line, save some money.

Here are a couple of pics to update the restoration status. After getting back from the body shop, my first goal was to get it off the rotisserie and back on its wheels. With it on the rotisserie, my wife had to leave her car outside so you can see my reason for urgency. My grandson, from Maine, came for a visit and between the 2 of us we managed to get that accomplished by the 10th of July. No problems with assembling the suspension. When doing the suspension, I installed all new front upper control arm bushings and upper ball joints and rear control arm bushing from 928 Motor Sports. Also installed all new wheel bearings (front and rear). The bearings and bushings can be a real hassle and you definitely need a hydraulic press to complete this task. You also have to make sure to have everything lined up straight when pressing or you can easily damage the bearings, bushings or housings. Freezing the bearings/bushings and heating the control arms/hubs in an oven certainly makes the process easier. Dwayne has a great writeup on this to which I could find nothing to add. We also were able to line the engine side of the firewall with DEI heat screen. Product went on easily and sticks very well. After he left I tackled completing the interior, lining it entirely with HushMat. The process was quite simple and the material really sticks to the body metal quite well. After, getting the interior lined (including the interior of the doors) I installed all the door hardware (locks, linkage, harnesses, mirrors, glass and window motors) and finished all the weather striping on both doors. The process went smoothly the only hassle being when the passenger mirror fell apart at the pivot. The cause was simply moving it back and forth in the mount many times while installing the mirrors. I suspect the body shop did not re-assemble the mirrors with some loctite on the pivot screw that the wiring harness runs through. Took both mirrors apart at the pivot and placed a dab of blue loctite on the pivot screw and then re-tightened using a Torx bit. Also got the steering column back in place and have started re-installing the wiring harnesses. Some of the wiring was not in great shape and replacement harnesses are simply too expensive. In the case of broken wires, I soldered a splice into the break leaving a length of bare wire showing at the repair. Before joining and soldering, I slid a piece of heat shrink over the wire then completed the repair, slid the heat shrink over the splice and applied heat. Voila - a satisfactory repair. To further protect the repair, I wrapped the area with self vulcanizing electrical tape to effect a good weather tight seal. The other area of concern with the wiring harnesses is the rubber caps that have hardened and become brittle. I have broken off all the hardened protective caps and as I connect up the wires to their terminals, I will wrap some of the self vulcanizing tape on the terminals or use a liquid rubber paint to cover the terminals and seal them against the weather.

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