The first thing I had to fix on this car ironically became the last "correct" (and refurbished) OEM piece to get reinstalled. A little after 2 weeks of ownership, it stopped working 30 miles from home. Thankfully, my mechanic had the smarts to hold on to it, instead of exchanging it as a core. White Post Restorations did a great job, even after it didn't work the first time. Their customer service is top notch. All of the mid 70's black spray bomb that covered this engine bay is gone, too. Finally!
Thanks! I credit White Post for their great customer service. First go around wasn't fruitful and I emailed them that day. They sent a shipping label via email and I had it back within a week. Things don't always go right in this hobby and they went the extra mile to make it right. Kudos to them.
Steve Murray gave me this tire board a couple years ago and George Dwyer recently gave me the disk. The whitewall Firestone is the original from a friend's '70 Stage 1 he bought new in November of 1969. Good thing I have AAA. New weatherstrip from Precision installed last month and trunk detail is complete.
One more thing to check off the list. I bought this assembly a few months back from Paul Toller out of Connecticut and was inspired by another thread regarding resistors affixed to the emergency brake assembly. Notice my original is devoid of the resistor. I left it like that and just swapped out the switch. This wasn't a terrible job, especially with guidance from Cook and Dave Johnson and it's actually the last accessory on this car that wasn't up to snuff. Here's why mine didn't work: The kick panel vent had moved inward toward the footwell at some point and one of the previous owners actually loosened the interior bolt that holds the mechanism under the dash to finger tight. With the assembly bolted tight as it's supposed to be, the clip would get hung up on the kick panel vent. I took the assembly back out (after figuring this out) and pushed the vent back into the kick panel. Now it's working as designed. I also hit all the moving parts with some lubricant. I call it a win - especially taking into account the importance of having an actual working parking brake with a manual transmission car. I'm probably jinxing myself but everything on this car actually works now.
Cruising Downtown Manchester (NH) is a huge event that's taken place for the last 20 plus years in the Granite State. I have a friend (big car guy) who lives about 15 minutes from where the event is held and a couple of us trailer the cars up there each year. There's typically over 1,000 cars and a lot of them are top shelf, so a car like Vader has its work cut out for it.
Nice to see a car get rewarded for being well sorted and presented instead for being chromed, powder coated and polished