318ic restore

[decay]

yeah... this helps my bank account recover from the hit of buying the hardtop.

the ones i got look pretty good... a couple of spots on the rings but the reflectors are still shiny.

[jeff_b]

That car will be back together looking better than evah in no time.

[decay]

indeed. just got handed a check for $1826, and i have a buyer waiting for a shipping quote on my ultraleggeras so i need to get off my ass and do that today. combine those two with the girl from norcal i've been talking to wants to hop on amtrak and come down to see me, and this is a good weekend so far.

[decay]

life is always a sine wave... up and down.

a board member from vegas who's a former service member is bringing me an aw-II hood and fender for free, because he's headed to long beach on a business trip anyway (for those not local, that's about 5 minutes from robert's shop).

another board member is buying the OZ wheels i used to have on the car.

between the two, i'm gonna clear about $2200.

you can all expect to see more progress on the car over the next month.

[Jean]

Good news!

[jeff_b]

GIs helping GIs. Strongest family ties evah!

[decay]

my old web server (provided by a friend) went away, so i've reupped everything i still had to imageshack and fixed links. some of the pics are gone, but oh well.

euro smilies arrived from germany today. i was a bit worried that the guy had used stock photos, but i got exactly what i paid for.

hopefully this means the grilles i bought from a friend in australia will be arriving shortly as well.

guy is inbound from vegas with hood and fender for me, hopefully this weekend.

have a couple other items inbound as well. opinion time... backseat is going away, fixed-back seats (thinking corbeau clubman) with stock belts snaked through the harness holes. miata guys do it... what say you? y/n?

[MR 325]

Glad to hear things are heading back in the right direction. I say keep the back seats, even if it's for looks.

:)

[decay]

oh it's not gonna be bare metal back there man... i'll have some upholstery shop match the floor and cover it up with some carpet for me. i didn't come this far to ghettofy this thing now. but at the same time... it needs to get lighter.

[Simon S]

life is always a sine wave... up and down..

indeed it is.

you can all expect to see more progress on the car over the next month.

YES !!

[decay]

not fixed yet.

have new headlights and grilles in-hand, waiting on a member to drop off new hood & fender while he's in socal on a business trip, but he's been kept pretty busy and it hasn't happened yet. maybe tomorrow.

however comma i had other parts ready to go so i spent the afternoon @ robert's shop doing a couple CSL-inspired upgrades... another ~70lbs out of the car, which is probably just a touch more weight than i lost ditching the 'vert trunk anvil.

corbeau clubman seats turned out to be a lot more comfortable than i expected... i like 'em. the brackets were a bitch to install because the rear two holes were drilled in a bit too close to center, but i got it done:



ditched the rear seat as well, since i'm using fixed-backs, so i'll be getting an upholstery shop to figure out some kind of removable carpet solution for that.

and since i'd taken weight out of the back and center of the car, i got a westco sealed-cell battery for the front... about half the size/weight of stock:



flogged the car a bit on the "test course" near robert's shop... and there's absolutely a difference. weight reduction > *

[iwantspeed]

new seats look nice!
any other shots?

[decay]

exhausted tonight... left for robert's shop at 9am and got back home at 9pm.

recently installed vorshlag's urethane engine/tranny mounts. had a LOT of NVH for the first day or two, and a trip to visit mom last weekend seemed to break them in. there is still much more vibration and noise than with stock mounts, but i have a clutch and flywheel coming soon, and i think it'll work out nicely.



part of what was done today was recarpeting the area vacated by the rear seat. nighttime pics of this didn't come out, so just use your imagination to think of black carpet where the rear seat was.

also had the upholstery shop install The Artisan's leather shifter and ebrake boots. they came out matching the momo wheel perfectly:



the plan to have all three items with a "brushed aluminum/black leather/white stitching" theme panned out pretty well i think.

there was more progress but it's not finished yet, so no public consumption.

[evilnickwong]

Those 3 items match awesomely, and the seats look great too!

I presume the seats were the main contributor to the big weight reduction?

[robrez]

Getting down to the details now, good job.