Making progress on the 57

Some projects take a bit of time. I first became involved with this project in 1995 when our rotating garage work group group first formed. The car was quite rough when it started out, and went through the usual first restoration teething problems as skills, money, time and life as raised their heads.

As of Nov 2014, the car sat as a painted and sorta running car that needed final assembly. Three of us decided that 20 years was enough and that the thing needed finished for this summer.

First picture is Dec 2014 where we finally got the sailpanel trim on. That was a lot of fun.

Second picture is from last night. It may not seem like a lot has been done. The amount of time it takes to get all the chrome on one of these is unreal. I don't even want to guess how much all this stuff cost to get restores, polished and re-chromed.

One of my favorite cars ever. Please hurry and finish this. It looks amazing.

I want to see action shots of you guys putting the rear glass in. That piece looks like fun.

theenico wrote: I want to see action shots of you guys putting the rear glass in. That piece looks like fun.

Chickened out and brought in the glass guys. Standard rope in the grove trick gets the job done easier than you think.

Rear was easy, front was a pain; had to be done twice because the trim slipped out. Rather than risk breaking the front glass for round two, just cut it and bought another $85 seal.

The front windshield bling has over 30 pieces required to install when you count all the stainless show bits and the various clips and brackets that are needed to locate the stuff. I swear every single piece needed a tweak to work. And the whole time you are freaking about scratching the paint.

I really enjoy working on cars with a bunch of other car guys and I'm glad to see another group doing the same thing. We have Wednesday evening set aside as shop nights for our group. It's amazing how much can be accomplished when you have five or six people working on a project together. Our group is a bit different since my buddy and I both volunteered with Big Brothers. He still does but I'm no longer active. Our ex "Little Brothers" are now all officially aged out of the program but still hang out with us on a weekly basis.

Wayslow wrote: I really enjoy working on cars with a bunch of other car guys and I'm glad to see another group doing the same thing. We have Wednesday evening set aside as shop nights for our group. It's amazing how much can be accomplished when you have five or six people working on a project together. Our group is a bit different since my buddy and I both volunteered with Big Brothers. He still does but I'm no longer active. Our ex "Little Brothers" are now all officially aged out of the program but still hang out with us on a weekly basis.

Interesting you mention the Big Brother angle. We spoke about adding some youth component to the mission statement, but between the required police checks and potential for liability, never followed through.

It is kind of sad when you think about it compared to when I was a kid and hung around the car guys hang out until I was asked to come in and maybe help wash a car or change a tire. I was slave labour,t but go to hear all about cars and womans and stuff that older guys did. Might have even had my first beer! Cant see it happening in today's world.