Re: Hornet's Back

[Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 2006-03-05 at 04:26, Mr. AMC wrote:
> I bet this makes you very happy Tom. You been working on that car for
> quite some time now.

Ayup! I didn't drive it today at all though -- dead battery! The shop
somehow bumped the computer power switch to on-full-time (it's usually
on-with-ignition) so the battery was about 6.0V, got home with a jump
but didn't drive enough to charge it. I'll do that tomorrow to work. 

Took all day to reassemble the trivia; door hardware, bumpers, etc etc.
Cut new neoprene insulators for the rear bumper. (The 70-72 Hornet's are
really 1960's cars. They crack me up: the rear bumper is a cosmetic-only
joke, a 20 lb chrome strip bolted with little Z brackets right to the
two rear quarter panels; one tap and it's history. The doors are just
skins over a thin frame; in 73 they got a federally-mandated U channel
across the doors, etc. I prefer the old-car simplicity.)

I got to go over the car of course, and found a number of small problems
from the body shop, only one will warrent a return for repair. They
masked the rear opening windows, and didn't do a very good job; a half
dozen spots of overspray; slight error in the reconstruction of the
front fender tip shape, but only Hornet/Gremlin owners doing left/right
comparison would notice; the worst is that they did not adjust the pass.
door, when I got the seals etc in and closed it hard, the door skin
nicked the rear quarter, chipping the paint; the door needs to move
forward 1/16".

Now my crap bumpers look REALLY bad! They're straight enough for me, but
the plating is really terrible. The headlight doors are pretty
worthless; I've spent many hours with epoxy, files, fillers, etc but the
plastic is crumbly and warped. The grille is very straight but slightly
sandblasted; it'll be fine painted.