Back at it…

Ken is back from his 18 day trip to CA, with his next big project, a 1924 Duesenburg Model A, in the trailer. But first we need to finish up this Pontiac. Got a full day in on it today, attending mostly to a lot of pesky details. The doors and windows in this car have been the biggest issue in the restoration. Last time, after getting the RH door all together, we found the vent window handle shaft was too short to take the eschuteon plate and there was a "click" in the mechanism when the window was cranked up. I had an old vent window shaft from my coupe, which was 1/4" longer than what was in there, so fixed that problem. The click had two sources: one armrest screw was too long and we didn't have the leather spacers in the window channel. Of course, the entire door had to be dissassembled to fix those problems, so as long as it was apart we also painted some bare wood pieces as well. Here's that door as it appeared in the morning…



Shaved the door wood down too so the vent window won't hit the garnish molding when opening. I now need to have that molding touched up where it did scratch; Ken knows someone in Bangor who he thinks can do the touchup work it needs. Got the upholstery all done and assembled, including the lower door vinyl kick pad, so it looks good. He's a picture of the LH door as finished:



Still missing are the correct window handles. Cabriolets used the Deluxe style brown knobbed handles, not black like the Master series. I need a set of both vent and window handles, which two friends think they have and will send me. There's a mystery here however. The one door window handle I have is 3.5" long, but the other handles I have from closed cars are 4" in length. 4" gives you better leverage, so that's what I would prefer.

And a picture of the interior as it looked at the end of the day. Still lots of clean up to do.



Ken has made the weatherstrip channels that fit along the bottom of each door sill to seal out dust and moisture, but they weren't painted yet and I couldn't remember exactly where they were positioned (5.5" below the top of the sill as it turns out), so they will be epoxied on next time. That's the rubber for them on the floor of the car. Kick panels and windlace also have to be installed along the leading edge of the door, but that's easy.

I did get the headlight brackets painted out in black, not body color as I originally had them. That was just a matter of masking them and painting the recesses with black enamel. Not much could go wrong there. Also punched the numbers in a new starter ID plate and installed that, and reinstalled the LH engine side mount that had been removed when we fixed the brake line leak.



Ken also made up a set of rear hood corner pads, an impossible part to find from any supplier. Starting with a 1/2 block of rubber, he used the grinder to cut away the shape. They were then riveted to the hood with a metal backing plate to give it more rigidity. The originals surely had a rubber core. Didn't get a picture of these, but will next time. I also had him make up a set for my coupe, which has been without them for 41 years at least. Finally I will be able to open the hood without a pad to place underneath the corner!

That doesn't sound like much for one day, but these details take a huge amount of time. The delivery date is set for March 30th though, when Ken will becoming down here to pick his wife Toyot up at the airport. She is vacationing at her parents's house in Vietnam.