A Love Story, Part 5 of 5

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The cowl was painted first then the nose, tail and other parts. After cleaning the aluminum with an aircraft cleaner, the aluminum was primed with PPG epoxy primer followed by a sanding primer. I used an enamel for the finish coat so I could polish out any defects. At this point I discovered my spray gun was totally worn out and causing problems in the paint. I could not stop, and hoped that the defects could be polished out. Some could not. I installed the nose section first so I could install the lights – then the tail, fenders and doors.

 With two days left before I had to leave for the reunion I enlisted the help of my son and his wife in polishing out the paint, while I finished up the misc. items. Using the old seats ‘The Bitch’ was ready to travel one day before the reunion. We drove to Bryan, Texas the next day to the Texas World Speedway without any problems whatsoever. We even completed two short races without the wheels falling off. The only problem we encountered was that the clutch required adjustment before our return home.

‘The Bitch’ restored, but still using the old black upholstery

A few months later I finished the new upholstery matching the original. There still remains fixing the defects in the paint and some stone bruises. I will try to do this shortly, but I do have an MGTD that I want to finish also. So the paint may wait.

This picture shows the new leather upholstery. The picture was made in Kerrville, Texas where we won a Top Ten award at the annual car show, “Big Bands and Cool Cars”.