Open Sesame!

I didn't provide an update last week, but we did spend some time in the garage. Depending on who you ask, putting the doors on the Coupe is the hardest task of all. The challenge is to mount a relatively inflexible door on an already-mounted body and adjust it until you're happy with it. Well, it went a little differently for us.

It started out well enough with tons of research. We knew in advance that the driver's side door would be impossible to slide far enough forward onto the door frame without some modifications. I'm glad for the practice with the cut-off wheel while working on the hood, as it sure came in handy as I cut hole after hole in the door.

Fiberglass splinters seem to be able to crawl into your skin with the slightest provocation, and they can't be seen to remove them. My arms are full of splinters after two weekends of door work. Here is the result:

After celebrating the success with the doors we pressed our luck and started working on the window frames. Tune in next week to see how that turned out.

MORE NOSE WORK

Last week the weather was cold and wet. We spent very little time in the garage as a result. The only thing we did all week was to install the Le Mans-style gas cap. The name comes from the development of a flip open cap that could be quickly opened during the many pit stops of that famous endurance race. Ours actually has a normal gas cap beneath the shiny one (not shown).

This weekend was beautiful, and we made up for lost time. We had to remove and re-install the hood a number of times to mark and cut the hood to clear the body, then to set the height of the front nose mounts. We installed gas struts that allow the nose to hold itself open, and some latches to hold the hood shut.

We still need to mark and trim the nose once more to get a nice even gap between the hood and the body. We also need to install two locator pins that the hood will drop into so that the fenders line up with the body every time you close the hood.