Wagon build

[pbrown]

Pretty awesome. I think you could take a heat gun and slowly shrink up all those wrinkles - no problem.

I found a red headliner for the Ranchero on ebay for $40 - so you guys can come over and spend, what was it, 15 minutes, and do mine when I'm ready - since you guys are now "the professionals." I'm also toying with doing a vinyl roof too. Should I do them both at the same time?

The vinyl roof should only take another 15 minutes.

[pbrown]

Looks good Jeff. Maybe we can have a headliner tech day to do mine this summer.

[Jeff W]

Windshield and one side (fixed) window installed.

The windshield rubber (Dennis Carpenter USA) fit and function was perfect.

The side window seal was made in Thailand and was not so perfect. The slots that the trim is inserted into stopped short on both ends by about 1". We did the best we could to open it up with a razor, but I still had to grind a bit off of the little tang that inserts into he rubber seal slot.

We did have a small problem with the lower Windshield stainless trim wanting to migrate out of the slot during install. We finally just went for it and used a rubber mallet to lightly tap it back home. If there is a trick, I'm all ears.

[doghows]

Jeff is your car done yet?? Haven't seen anything lately. Hope it is still moving forward.?.

[Jeff W]

Okay... my car is done.

Oh, wait... it's not.

I haven't had much time to do anything on it lately. I did rebuild the carb that Steve gave me and it is running super. I drove it back to the paint shop last Saturday and he is going to fix the tailgate bubbles, repaint both doors, hood and front fenders. The more I looked it the difference in metallic reflection, the more it irritated me. He shot the front fenders off the car laying flat on stands, so the metallic flakes were oriented differently than the adjoining surfaces... I guess gravity pulls the flakes when the paint is still liquid. The hood was "spotty" as in the metallic wasn't mixed in evenly or not enough coats or something. The doors, as discussed before, were slightly more green than the rest of the car.

We chatted a bit and he said he would re-shoot the front and take care of the tailgate. He was so receptive I offered to kick in $200 to help cover paint and clear coat - I think I saw him smile.

I did have time to do something with the junk fender badges I picked up on ebay for $13. It's not chrome but they look pretty nice. Good as "placeholders" until you guys present me with a pair of NOS emblems for being such a stand up guy.

[Luva65wagon]

Jeff - those look fantastic! I'm impressed.

Sorry to hear about all the paint mess. I hope he gets it right for you this time.

[Jeff W]

I visited my car today in the paint ship... he was prepping the entire body (not the greenhouse area) for a repaint. He said it was easier that trying to blend and I would be happier with the results. I asked him to squat down a bit more to get the bottom of the fender lips and lower portions of the rockers... those areas were pretty light the last time around.

I spent a few minutes to remove the tailights, wiper pivots and gas filler... afraid he would just mask around these. He will still have to mask the one quarter window and the windshield as I'm not prepared to go through that again.