March 24th

That's the date I take the car to the painter!  After researching and getting recommendations I decided on a painter who has experience with these types of cars.  The only problem is that he's in Connecticut!  I'm sure it will be an adventure.  And the only other problem is that he'll have the car for 8 weeks!

Here's what the car looks like now.

Over the last month, I've been getting the car ready for the paint shop. 

I had to drill some large holes in the body for a roll bar on the passenger side.  As you can imagine, I was nervous about drill 2 inch holes into the body.

Fortunately, it all worked out.

I installed the windshield (with some help from the pit crew).  I was nervous about this step too because I had read that if the windshield is twisted or has too much pressure applied to it, it will crack.  Follow the pictures to see what happened.

It took a lot of fiddling -- must have taken that windshield off and put it back on eight times to get it to fit right.  But it didn't break!

I also installed the windshield wipers -- sorry, no photos (but they look like windshield wipers).  Yes, I was nervous about this too since I had to drill more holes through the body.  Measure twice, cut once I always say.  In this case, I measured 20 times and cut once.  And after all that measuring, it seems like they'll work just fine.

I just realized as I'm writing this that I'll probably be nervous about every step from here on.  I can't even imagine working on the car after the paint is done.

I have a few other things to finish before next Saturday.  The main one will be to finish the heater.  It's so complicated, I'm going to devote a post just to that.

In closing, my Dad always says, "All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy".  So here goes...