Update 6/16/2013

I have been making steady progress with the restoration of all the parts, I recently had my two little cousins come and stay for a week. They are just as crazy about cars as I am so they helped out quite a bit which was great to have a few extra hands! Here is what we got done:

Tail Lights

After having the tail light assemblies sit for some time, I finally got the hardware that I needed to complete them. The lenses had some cracks in them and I did not want to replace them so I ground a small trench along the crack on the inside of the lenses and filled it will epoxy just to prevent water from going inside. Then cleaned the housing and peeled all of the old sealant from the grove. Also the chrome on the plastic piece was polished as best as it could be. After putting new sealant and placing the lenses in the housing the lenses were buffed thoroughly.

 Door Panel Pieces

Since I was working this past week while my cousins were here I wanted to give them something to do while I was at work and despite my instincts, I let them work on some parts from the car. I forgot to mention that they are 15 and 12 years old, but I knew they wanted to see this car done as bad as I did so I gave them the task of cleaning up all of the parts on the door panel. Besides not taking a before picture they did great, washed all the parts, polished all the chrome, and used black restore on all the black parts.

 Steering Column

While I had the help around I wanted to tackle something a little bit bigger, so I decide to restore the steering column. This was great fun for me and my cousins, like always I pulled it pretty much completely apart making sure to take TONS of pictures so I could remember how to put it back together. After everything was in pieces the column got sanded, primed, and painted satin black. The section of the column that sticks out the firewall and gets connected to the gear housing got paint white to match the other steering components. I was originally planning on refinishing the wood on the steering wheel but after pulling off the cover I found that there was no need to, the wood was in amazing condition. The previous owner must have put the cover on as soon as he got the car. So the only thing to do was paint the supports and put everything back together. I must say I am extremely happy with how it came out!

Engine Update

I got a call a couple of days ago from my uncle, relaying the progress of my engine. He said that himself and the gentleman rebuilding my engine have pulled it completely apart and that some water got into two cylinders and corroded the piss out of them, so they will need to be re-sleeved and I am going to need new pistons. I guess this isn't terrible news considering that all I need to do is pay for parts and he is willing to do the work free of charge.