Just doing some detailing on the engine bay. Hopefully be driving it next week. Took Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off to concentrate on the Riv and get it rolling. Only car I haven't driven this year and it's the one I was looking forward to the most. My mom flew down from Alaska to surprise my grandma who has lung cancer for mother's day (probably the last one for her ), so taking off in the F100 for a 200 mile each way road trip to see them both tomorrow through Monday morning. Spent a lot of the evening checking fluids and tightening bolts on the truck. Haven't spent a mother's day with my mom in probably 10 years, grandma probably 15. Looking forward to it and 5 days away from work.
Got the seat belts and supports done, and put the interior back in. Put about 300 almost trouble free miles on the car this past weekend. Used exhaust heat shields that we remove from pickups as an added sound/heat insulator under the rear seats. Worked really well, very pliable and holds it's shape.
Took it to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for the big Car d'Alene cruise/show this past weekend. Car never missed a beat, had to drive 200+ miles in the pouring rain Saturday on the way home, almost snowing over Lookout Pass. After I got home, checked the underside (I've been working on fixing all the little leaks and small issues) and looks like I've got everything sealed up finally. Even the Dynaflow is bone dry! Nice successful weekend with the car.
Clean cars, clean shop floor. Winterized and awaiting all the little projects I'm going to do to them over the cold months.
Some times, after spending so many $$$ on our vehicles, we hope we are lucky enough to even buy beer. Glad to have enough for Bud, could be Old Milwaukee. Even if I only had two beers in the fridge, I'd share one with any of you.
Any of you guys make it out this way, I'll stock a case of whatever you're after in the fridge. Just give me 10 minutes warning as the liquor store is a block away......first teeny, tiny, little winter project done. Gas cap was a rusty embarrassment every time I'd go to put fuel in. 1/2 hour on the wire wheel and with a dremel, some glass cleaner and clear coat later, and I'll be proud to leave it out in the open on the concrete stoop next to the premium pump.
Man I'll take coor lite over bud if I gotta drink lite beer But then again you guys would hate tonight's beer It's a Nw thing
No IPAs for this guy. I do enjoy reds, ambers, blondes, and stouts. Just not a hopps fella. But if I was at your place and you set one in front of me, it's going down ....Theres not much I won't drink. Had a few terrible micro brews in my life, and I'll politely decline and just drink a juice or water if someone offers me a Miller Lite.
I'll preface this with saying that a factory stock car can be "done", but cars like mine that are modified, get driven, raced, and beat on really can't or aren't ever "done". If you build a stock trailer queen that is perfect, then you can't really improve on it, and you never have to work on it again. Modified cars, you've never got every single one of the best parts available, and even if you did, something bigger and better will come out in 6 months. Even the baddest of the bad custom cars, there's still things that can be better...... Alright, well, it's really tough to figure time out, as I take care of 5 other cars and they all need one thing or another all the time, but I'll try and give a simple-ish response and estimate.....I bought the car as what I was expecting to be an almost done project. What I got was something I had to pretty well strip down and start over, redoing almost every mod and "improvement" the previous owner had done. So, just getting it road ready, safe, and reliable was probably about a 1+ year affair of almost every night after work and most weekends. Doing things like finishing up the body and paint (it was painted but not cut and buffed, the pinstripes weren't finished, there was a couple touch up spots I had to do, the chrome wasn't polished, none of the stainless trim was finished properly, the door lock cylinders needed redone, blahblahblah) probably would take a normal guy with custom paint experience 6 months or so. My interior work I've probably got a month or 2 into, and it was mostly "done" when I got the car. I usually go in spurts, and I'll do things like pull one piece of trim off one night, take it inside, and polish it, the next night one more piece, and on and on. That's a couple weeks right there. Sanding/cutting and buffing is a multi day deal, usually rolling into a week after work and an entire weekend, then I had to finish the pinstripes, do a couple touch ups, and whatnot. That's another week or 2......Then there's things like the finned valley pan cover on the engine. Sanding and polishing that took multiple days, and that's just one part of the engine. So, I've personally probably got 2 years or so into it, and the guy before me probably had 2 or 3 years into it before that, assuming he started with a nice $5000 driver to start with. But it's not done. The trunk is fine and stock, but I'm going to build panels, smooth the inside, and put black leather on the whole thing to match the interior. I'll probably have a few weeks into that. I'd really like 4 wheel disc brakes on it, so I've still got to do that. The windshield has a couple scratches that I can see, so that needs to be replaced. I don't like the red bottom of the hood and inner front fenders, so I've got to mask the body and engine compartment all off and paint those. I'm going to put an electric fan on it, so there's that. Going to build a finned aluminum battery box to match the engine. Air ride. Bigger wheels and tires.....and on and on. An example of a car never being done: I've had my Mustang for 27 years now, and I'm always doing something to it, even though there's nothing "wrong". Even though it's got 4 wheel discs which are better than 90% of what guys are running, I want some 13" and 12" rotors and 6 piston calipers. I'm going to take the engine from 552" to a 604", so I can put "10 Liter" on the license plates and I'm twice as big as a 5.0 Mustang. I'm going to mini-tub it and build custom control arms so I can fit 12" wide rear wheels and 10" wide fronts. And literally about 100 other things I can think of.....This is 27 years of building, and I still do things to it every single month to make it better. So, I guess what I'm saying is, to take a decent driver Riviera to the point that mine is at now, would probably be 2-4 years for a fairly skilled, unmarried guy with a full time job but working on it in almost all his spare time. If you're married with kids, plan on 2-3 times that, I'd say......But, they'll never really be done, you always want to make something better no matter how good what you have is. I guess when I'm dead they'll all be done.
Got a wild hair, so I have now begun the trunk refurbish. My older brother bought me a cardboard kit from CARS a year or two ago, and I had installed like factory for the last couple years, but decided to cover it and carpet the trunk floor for a more finished/custom look. Went to Jo-Ann Fabrics last night and picked out some nice looking black vinyl to match the leather inside the car. I picked a little bit coarser grain to hide creases/folds/bends in the cardboard that you do to make it fit the trunk. Luckily, when I got home I discovered I am both stupid and lucky in equal amounts, and all the trunk cardboard pieces fit on my guesstimated vinyl chunk after a little adult jigsaw puzzle-ing....Last night I decided to do a little testing before just going ahead with everything in case I had adhesion issues, so I only glued down 2 of the panels to the vinyl. My process was as follows: I laid out the vinyl on the floor face down, laid out the cardboard, and traced around each part making sure I had an inch or so around each to fold around the edges. Dusted the cardboard and vinyl backing. Picked the two panels I was going to test out, and followed the instructions on the 3M can. Did 3 layers of spray adhesive with 8 minutes flash between coats, coats laid down at varying angles (straight, 45 degrees, then opposite 45 degrees). When I got down to the 3rd coat, I also applied a light coat of glue from the edge in to about 2" of each cardboard panel. Figured the edges would need the most adhesion. Held the panels straight above where I wanted them, then I set them on the vinyl and began by sticking the middle down and working it toward the edge, getting the wrinkles out. After I got the 2 panels stuck down, I picked the whole vinyl chunk up and flipped it over to check for wrinkles or other damage I may have done when the vinyl was face down. I worked out any other wrinkles (there weren't any, really), and really worked the vinyl down onto the cardboard. I flipped it back over, took my good scissors and cut around the two panels, and took them upstairs to dry over night. Checked this morning and they're looking great so far. Well, that's where I'm at so far, about 1/2 done with 2 panels. I'll finish those two up tonight, and if all goes well, I'll proceed on the other 3. Ordered my carpet off of eBay this morning, so maybe get it all buttoned up next week after that gets here. So far, so good. Here's the progress/process pics, forgot to take a pic of the panels after I cut the vinyl. I'll post more tonight hopefully.
Well, I ran out of glue but I got the 3 other parts stuck down. Had enough to finish one of the small trunk hinge covers. Not too shabby for a moron with no idea what he's doing if I do say so myself......tip of the day is lots of slits on all the corners. You can see in the pic before I wrapped it how I cut it every little bit..buy another $20 in glue tomorrow, and if I can manage not to huff all of it like I apparently did to get this far, I'll have the panels done and waiting for my carpet to show up.....
Nice to be single, not own or run a business, no responsibilities other than your own & being bored & young with time in your favor/on your hands. Oh the good ole days!!!! Tom T.
Hahaha....yeah it has it's moments, Tom. But I am 39 now so not so "young" anymore. Still 16 mentally, physically I feel like 60 most days. I broke my back when I was 25, and have done a shoulder, collarbone, arm, both ankles, 8 fingers, 7 ribs, and my nose too many times to count. Which is why I had to quit wrenching full time and became a service manager......but, I'm lucky. I still get up every morning and get stuff done after work. Sitting around drives me absolutely nuts. I can't take more than 4 days off work in a row, haha. Its probably why I'm not married yet, either. Sitting watching tv is boring to me......anyway, working on the last 3 parts. Here's a couple pics of how I do the corners for anyone following..... Slit about every 1/4 to 1/2 inch or so, then just fold them over each other for outside corners and pull apart for insides as you lay them down.
