I took a little time off on Sunday and cruised over the Bay Bridge to help Mr. Scout work on Chewbacca. He’s getting down to the final details, having been out on the road for the first test run, so he’s got a long list of small items to knock off: glass, lighting, seatbelts, dashboard, etc. He and Alan and I set right to work after a delicious eclair from the bakery in Chestertown. I started by looking over the door regulators and doing a test fitting inside the old steel doors to make sure I had the right orientation, then got to work on the passenger side. After an hour or so of fooling with it I’d figured out how to mount it correctly, set the glass in place, and put the wing window in. We pulled it all out to press new felt into the door, and then bolted everything permanently in place. The only thing left to do will be to buy some longer bolts and fabricate a backing plate for the door handle as well as the latch plate, because it’s all bolting into fiberglas at this point.
He had this stuff called white lithium grease, which sprayed out of a can, and which worked incredibly well to lubricate the regulator mechanism. I’m going to go look for some this week so that I can tear both my doors down and get the windows working correctly. It made a huge difference rolling the window up and down. I was also very impressed with his PT cruiser seats, which are incredibly comfortable, and which I’m now considering for Peer Pressure. As I documented here, though, there are a few caveats to this upgrade:
- His came with captains’ armrests on the inboard side, which interfered with his Tuffy console. I think we used a Torx 45 bit to pull them off, as well as the female side of the seatbelt buckles, which are also built into the side of the seat. The driver’s side needs some kind of plastic plate to cover over the bolt mounting cutout, while the passenger’s side had one built into the seat. Strange.
- The driver’s side seat does not lean forward at all. Rear passengers will need to enter on the passenger side (where the seat folds forward almost flat, which is very cool).
- If you run a stock full-size wheel without a tilt column, there isn’t a whole lot of clearance between the bottom of the wheel and the top of the seat. You will probably need to switch out the wheel to a Rallye-style or an aftermarket Grant model.
After some lunch, I busied myself by helping to install his Tuffy console between the seats. We scribed out an arc in the rear mount to clear the transmission tunnel (something I’m also considering for mine) and set it in place with two bolts we had on hand. Meanwhile, Alan sorted out a bunch of electrical gremlins under the hood and helped get the license plate holder we scavenged from the brown donor scout mounted and lit.
Before I had to hit the road, we fired her up and Brian let me take her for a spin around the block. She purrs like a kitten, and with a little adjustment in the clutch and carb she’ll be a very enjoyable driver. It felt good to take her out again, even if she’s 3/4 new fabrication!
