Bearcat is Home!!

The Bearcat is home and it looks great.   There are still a few tweaks that need to be done but what a difference. 

The interior is beautiful and brings the car back to life.  

The seats were in pretty bad shape.  The interior shop ending up needing to weld them back together because the sides were broken.     Boy, are they comfortable now.   

There is new carpet throughout, a new top and boot.   The top color is almost the same as the fenders. 

I bought a mahogany steering wheel.  They were able to match the color and create a wood center console.   Now I want new gauges but that is another day and another project. 

Here is a link to a short video, going around the car.    I am really pleased and so happy to have it back. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulP-NeU3K-o&feature=player_embedded

      

Interior Woes

Well - I know I am not the only one that goes through this but it is still disappointing.  It's going on 2 months and the car is still torn apart and no progress.   


There have been set backs - Such as the vinyl was ordered but shipped to some where else.  It took 2 weeks before the vinyl was received.   Now, someone else is upset and the car is delayed still another 2 weeks. 


I did add a wood center console - It's triangle shape, made out of mahogany, to match the new steering wheel.   


I'm trying not to be too depress but it's hard not to be.  




Maybe another 2 weeks.

The hunt for new "Shiny Bits"

Along with the nuts, bolts and screws every other shiny piece was rusty or had alot of pits and surface rust.     With this car, you can't just go into Google and input the year, make and model then every restoration piece comes up.   You have to be a detective and try to figure out where that piece came from and the size you need. 

For instance - The hood latches need to be replaced.   Not only were they rusted but one of the springs had busted.    I thought they were probably similar to a 1930's car so, I ordered a couple of different kinds from Speedway Motors.   Nope - They were not from a car but from a Boat.  And, these 2 little latches were quite expensive.   I ended up buying them from an ebay store and saved about $20 each.    So - you can probably imagine how expensive they were, if I was excited about saving $40.   We have been spending quite a bit of time in the boat store or on boat websites.  The new hood bumpers and gas cap are also from boats.     

The grille is from an Oldsmobile Cutlass "S".    You would think with us being involved with the Oldsmobile Club we would be able to find a new grille.  Nope - Those were not as popular as some of the other models so, none of the restoration places have them. We found a few on ebay but they were wanting over $200 for just one side.    After further inspection, the grille was not as bad as first thought.  It has a few cracks, which can be fixed with glue and it's still pretty shiny.  It's the black that was the problem.    With allot of masking tape and black spray paint, they look really good now. 


The hood ornament is from a Ford Granada.   Again, ebay people were wanting a ton of money for ones that didn't look quite as good as the one I have.   Someone had a new one but you would have thought it was plated, for the money they were wanting.   I started searching for hood ornaments, to see what else is out there.   I stumbled across an Opel hood ornament on ebay.   $8.00 - I bought it.   I liked the lighting bolt and I think it will look cool on the car.    


This is just a few things - the list goes on and on.

From Repair Shop to Interior Shop

We picked up the car from the repair shop.  A friend of ours met us at the shop and we placed it on a car trailer.  There is still allot of gravel on the roads, I didn't want to take any chances. 

The shop replaced all of the rusty screws and bolts, along with doing all of the other repairs.  It sure made a difference in the look.   They were telling me about all of the issues they ran into with the rusty pieces.   The bolts on the rear bumper snapped, as they started to remove one of them and it fell on the ground.   Seems a bit dangerous and I'm glad it's fixed now. 

They replaced the weatherstripping and the webbing between the fenders.  It was something I asked if they could do because you could tell it was really brittle. 

Since the car was in fiberglass colors, we tried to match them as close as possible.   It is now painted with Ford Blue and Chrysler Tan.   I have the color codes, in case it would need a a touch up. 

It looks really great and I can't wait to see what it is going to look like with new interior and new shiny bits. 

Pictures, Pictures

About a week after dropping of the car, I started getting pictures of the progress.  It's amazing how quickly they were able to fix the fender.

When I got the car the right fender was really damaged and scraped really good along the length of it.   They have been mending the tears and fixing all of the cracks.   

The car looks like Frankenstein, with all of the stitches. 

A few weeks later I received pictures of the car with primer.    It is going to be great when it's finished.

Off to the Body Shop

We are off to the body shop  -  Bundled up and ready to go. 

It's 12 miles to the body shop and since there is no top, I had to bundle up like I was going to the North Pole.    Gloves, hat, scarf, hood from coat, blanket on my legs.  It was quite a site.   I am sure people were thinking that I was nuts.   

Every time we stopped at a light, I tried to warm my face a little.  It seemed like it took forever, even though we made really good time. 


When we pulled in, I started removing some of my outerwear since I was not going to need it for the ride home.    We did the final walk around the car and headed back. 


When the guy went to shake my hand, it was still freezing.    But, the car is ready for it's face lift.

Getting Ready for the Body Shop

We decided to take off as much as we could, before taking the Bearcat to the body shop.    Since there was so many rusted pieces, we were hoping we could save some money by removing some of the larger pieces. 

With screwdrivers and pliers in hand, we started working on the car.    Some of the parts came off without a lot of trouble but others, well they just wouldn't budge. 

Joe had to help me with some of the screws on the luggage rack.  They were rusted and I just could not get them started.   Some of the other bolts were so rusted, it took both of us to get them out. 

The headlights would not come off.  We are going to ask the body shop to cut them off.   There were a couple of other pieces we had them to remove too. 

We took off the parts that were glued on, which we are going to replace.  The running boards left a little residue but with a little sanding that came off.  


Well - 4 hours later, we had a lot of pieces off.