The rivet tool finally arrived a day before my vacation. I replaced the rollers on both regulators. I had some time so I decided to mount the rear lights. I had printed out the mounting template and found the template is not the correct size. There was a copy of a FAM with the dimensions so I measured the print out, stretched the image and printed again. I had to do this a couple times before the template was close enough. My vacation spot got flooded last spring, the road up the mountains washed out about 4 miles. This spring roadwork commenced, and they put in a temporary bridge and road for most of the way. The last driveway is washed out and there is driftwood everywhere. I took some time to file out the bowtie hole in the key lever for the driver door. I had a hard time getting back into the groove after I came back home. I attached a weldnut to the key lever. I found some window screen springs that are flat. I bent one to work, used a dremel to cut a slot in the latch mechanism. The key lever needed some profiling and in my haste I ground off some important nubs. It works pretty well, but I’ll be making a final version. I had mounted the cowl vent door after paint to find the bracket was not at the correct angle. I thought about this during my break, and thought some reinforcement is needed. I measured the angle of the vent door to bracket angle in the closed position(with the vent door removed). Made a template and used that to position the bracket to the cowl. I used Two long bolts to mount that bracket to the cowl inner and outer. I still had to shim the bracket to get it right, but it now closes good. Wanting to finish glass, I put in the window channel. I thought it would be good to put the inner trim to snug the channel before fastening. I tried to drill through the channel, I got one screw to bite. After breaking several drillbits, I removed the inner trim. The surface the channel sets on is flat towards the outside, but slants toward the inside. If I bias the drill toward the outside it works. Now was the time to put Hushmat in the door. It turned that tinny sound into a warm thud. Then I hastily tried to jam the glass in with the regulator in place. That struggle ended when I realized the regulator goes in after the glass is in place. I read the manual, but didn’t see that tidbit. In the process the glass survived, but the regulator spring broke. I also discovered that the new rollers/rivets are a tad taller that original, so won’t work with the original channel screws. The next day I spent on-line researching these Two issues. There seems to be no replacement for the ’47-’51 regulator spring, I did read about installation. Some have hinted at using low profile bolts for mounting the roller channel to the bottom of the window when updating to nylon rollers, I want to shout about it from a rooftop. At the end of the day I want to proceed with progress. I removed the busted spring, hit it with O-A, and popped it back in place. It was not difficult to install the spring with this method. As far as welding the spring, will it hold? Is it a good idea? Is this the right thing to do? Rhetorical questions, I don’t care at least as long as it works. I’m on the look out for a good used spring, or a modern spring I can modify as a background task for the future. I think I’m back in the groove.
