Of course the original connectors are to be preserved. The wires were re-connected and covered with heat-shrink tubing. Of note, it may look like the bumper is lying on the concrete at this point, however, there is a centimeter gap between the bumper and the concrete. The weight of the bumper on the concrete will destroy the finish. In fact, some of the scratches I had to repair were from just setting the end of the bumper on the concrete after I removed the bumper. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
In general, I preserve all the hardware. I have a pet peeve about people that throw away the original hardware. For example, there was an article in FORZA a while back, about a guy restoring a Daytona. He had to search through Italy to find original hardware to restore the car. Well, what happened to the original hardware? Someone just chucked it to replace it with something 'better' I suspect. Anyway, since there is an important ground electrical connection that courses through the hardware on the right side of the picture, I did replace the washer with a new one. (I will just make a note of this and when I am ready to go to Pebble Beach, I will need to track down a gold anodized washer ) Image Unavailable, Please Login
The bumper was re-installed with the original hardware, which was cleaned and lightly oiled with wd40. Here is a link to the BEFORE picture. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Almost ready for the 308 online car show, but I still need to do the front bumper and the muffler guard. The muffler guard has about 2 hours of pounding and grinding to get it back onto shape. I really don't want to put any filler in it because the heat and flexibility of the part will certainly cause the filler to crack. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Thanks for the comments. I finally had a chance to check out the reverse light, and it works! So, when I redo the front bumper I will be able to get to the horns and restore those. I recall some post that a Testors model paint color is a close match for the red adonized coating. I already fixed up each of the front turn signal lamps, and the grill has been removed and cleaned already.
I'm still working on this muffler guard. I spent a few more hours pounding and put some black primer on it to check the progress. I think that at this point the metal can be sanded smooth and it will be a 'no bondo' repair. Here is the link to the before picture of the muffler guard. A lot of work for something that most people throw away I'm taking a little break from the cars to restore a '76 Les Paul... Image Unavailable, Please Login
Did some metal sanding of the underpan with a rotary sander. Probably looks good enough to start painting at this point. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I have been waiting for this fuzzy strip and light for months. Now I can finish up the driver's side door. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I installed the Muffler Guard just before Brazill GP qualifying this AM. This was a totally 'bondo-free' repair. I was on the verge of just taking this thing to a body shop to have them do it, but I kept with it. The finishing materials (for my own record, not to suggest these are the proper finishing materials) were black 'high build' auto primer over the areas pounded out. This was sanded and repeated x 1, then brown Rustoleum Professional primer from a spray can over all front and back surfaces. Then Rustoleum FLAT black (which is really semi-gloss) over the whole thing. I also am showing the 'before' picture. Realizing that this 'before' picture still represents about an hour of pounding. I did the initial pounding on this that first weekend I had the car (before I had the digital camera). In terms of the metal working, I searched the Eastwood catalog for some nice metal working tools. I wanted a small 'hand anvil' and a wide flat head hammer. They did not have anything I liked. I wound up using a ball-peen hammer and a 2x4. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
This is somewhat Ferrari related in that this leaking area of the roof is right over where the 308 sits (it's not from rain, though). Too bad it doesn't leak over the wife's minivan... Image Unavailable, Please Login
Time to play 'building engineer' for a while to figure it out. It seems that during the winter months large icicles grow on the eaves outside the garage. In the spring, when the ice melts, the water comes in and drips through the roof on to the car. Prior owners of our house did not have this problem. Here is the answer...
It all starts with the food freezer we have in the garage. Kind of like the MCAT question that asks about the room temp. of a room that contains a refrigerator with the door open. In the winter the food freezer heats up the garage. This is good, because it keeps the garage warm for the cars. The bad part is that the heat from the garage goes right up through the ceiling to the attic...
Turns out there was no insulation between the garage and the attic. This allowed the heat from the garage to warm up the roof of the house, thus causing the ice formation that was the root of the problem. As you can see it was a real chore to take up the existing 3/4inch floor in the attic to get the insulation in place... Image Unavailable, Please Login
Problems were further compounded by the lack of ventilation in the attic. Here you can see there are NO SOFFIT VENTS on the area near where the car sits. (The entire rest of the house HAS soffit vents, including the mirror-image side of the garage, go figure...) Image Unavailable, Please Login
HMMMM... My house is the same brick color, same soffit color, same shingle...weird. Are your soffits a bluish-green? I thought we were the only ones to paint part of our house this color...every other house in the entire world is white or beige... Carry on .
Lack of ventilation was further compounded by impeded air EXIT from the attic. There are NO roof vents in this attic over the garage, all the air has to travel through these little openings to get to the MAIN ATTIC, which has the appropriate roof vents. As you can see, some of the openings are quite narrow. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Even more frustrating is that fact that there IS a vent at the apex of this attic over the garage, too bad it was originally built as cosmetic only! I found that by removing some of the wood behind the vent it could be turned into a functional vent. In this picture I have not yet placed a screen vent on the inside to keep the bugs and birds out. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Ok, soffit vents are in place and the roof of the garage is now insulated. Lets hope next spring I don't have to get out the plastic sheeting to cover the car from the ceiling drips... Image Unavailable, Please Login
Ok, so the snow has melted and all the water stayed OUTSIDE the house this year Got a few odds and ends from GT Carparts: Little axle bolt for the front bonnet stay (incorrect standard bolt is in there now) Accelerator shroud Parking brake cable and fancy threaded coupler
Here is the little 'axle bolt' that holds the front hood stay. Took a while to find this thing. Currently the hood stay is held on with a conventional bolt. Image Unavailable, Please Login
