Yeah, yeah, I need patience... how long is THAT going to take?

The car has been at the painter for 6 weeks.  Still no new paint on the car!  I do see changes, however.  I know that prep takes longer than paint, and that good prep makes the paint job.  I also trust Paint Guy.  Still, waiting is hard for me.  I find myself getting upset, anxious, and doubting my decisions.  Why can't I just relax about this, and enjoy the fact that I don't have to focus every weekend hour on the car?

The doors are off, and the door frames are being prepped.  Paint guy also had an issue getting the car to start, so he ended up replacing the original 6V starter with a used 12V unit.  Not what I expected, but I appreciate it!  I have a spare 12V starter in the garage, so maybe I can work a trade.

 Paint guy reaffirmed his plan to finish the paint before Labor Day.  That would be a convenient time for me to take a few days vacation, and get the car ready for the road.   I'm really hoping this will happen.

I picked up the seat from Upholstery Guy this week.  He has done remarkable work, and the seat looks gorgeous!  The center sections are leather, and the sides are vinyl.  He even put in pneumatic lumbar supports, with puff-balls for each side to set the amount of support!  Here are the major interior parts laid out on my driveway.  My hope is to start building up the door panels this weekend.

The seat bottom matches well with the carpet, seat belts, and door panels.

The door panel pieces are just stacked in place.  I need to assemble them.

That light turquoise thing on the upper right of the door panel is the adapter plate.

I had to decide if I wanted to paint a wedge-shaped steel adapter plate that goes behind the armrest on each door.  It is only visible when the door is open... when the door is closed, it disappears under the dashboard.  These adapter plates were kind of rusty and dirty, but I cleaned them with lacquer thinner and they brightened up.  Encouraged by this, I decided to keep them original,  retaining both their color and a link to the car's past.  I gave them a little polish and wax, and here's how they turned out.

Not perfect.  But like pitted chrome, they have a history.  I kind of like that!

In preparation for painting the lower dashboard, I need to figure out the right painting technique.  A good test for this is the ash tray, which fits into the dash board.  The front of the ash tray is an aluminum casting that fits the same contour as the lower dash.  My challenge is to come up with a way of texturing the dash so it looks kind of like the vinyl of the arm rests on the doors, then painting it with a matching color.  I already have the color paint, but I don't have the texture.

Today I cleaned off the ash tray handle and painted it with some Rustoleum hammer coat.  Tomorrow I will lightly sand this, and apply a coat of color to see how it looks.

If things go well, I'll have an update post tomorrow.