Went to see the LE today in the shop. Here are some pictures. Only 2 weeks away from paint . I picked up the Mahles today & put riv's on there for rollers. Getting the tires off them this week. Drop them back off for Pheonix red in 2 weeks. Things are loking good even though the route has been slow

Jamie, your car looks great...I bet you're getting excited to get it back.

I'm sure your paint guy is going to....
but, be sure he pulls the headlight lids, eyebrows, and the carpet on the wall in the the front trunk to get a better paint job. It looks like he might not be planning on it. I've always pulled the headlight assemblies as well to better detail those units and below, but that's just me.

Looks great!

Got a call tonight! My LE is painted & I get to go pick it up saturday He still has to add the silver lip to my wheels. I'll grab them later next week as he has a few silvers I've got to look at to make sure it's the right one. I will post plenty of pics the second I get them

Congrats, looking forward to the pictures. Jerry Mahoney is painting my Bumblebee at the moment and he will be finished around October 3/4 so I will get it probably in 2 weeks.

- Juergen

Finally home

Overall it looks very good. A few issues that pissed me off. The biggest being the rear trunk. Has some rust below the headlights. While he did treat it & paint it. That was all he did. He didn't fill & sand the depression from it. So it is obvious where the rust was. Also my new battery tray he put in & did an okay job on. He burnt though in one section & didn't fill the small hole left. Hardly noticable but why not fill it . Overall I not 100% happy (more like 90%). Then again I did not pay for a perfect job either. I doubt I will use him in the future knowing how things came out. I did learn I need to be completely specific about everything & put it all in writing. That way there is no misunderstanding after. All in all the rest of the car look very nice. A perfect concours car it is not. Still I think when I am done it would do well.

He still has to paint the silver lips on the mahles. They look great though. So it is on my roller Riviera's for another week. I'm hoping to throw it together enough for the falling leaf tour. I may have a little work party next weekend to do the motor install. I'll keep posting pics as I install each piece.

I am so happy to have it home after so long being away.

Yeah Baby...thats what I'm talkin' about...

Way To Go Jamie.

Hey Jeff,
Whats the trick to putting on the side stripe? How high does it sit about the bottom? I've done a few vinyl letters before but never on a car. Before I ran tape accross the top getting it n the right place. Then cut in a few sections. Then fold it up & pull the backing off. Only a piece at a time. Not sure with the sidestripe where the breaks are. Then adhering each piece getting all the air out from top to bottom. That sound right or even make sense

Not trying to bust your balls Jamie, but you answerd the question to your own dissatisfaction.

a: You didn't want, nor expect a perfect job.
b:You didn't pay for a perfect job
c: you weren't specific as to what you did expect.

Quite honestly the only thing I see that you have a right to be pissed about is the burn through hole on the battery tray.

Being on the other end of this situation I know VERY WELL how these things go. I do my best to be completely upfront as to what a customer will get and wil not get for a specified amount of money. Most of the cars I have posted pics of are in the $15-$20,000 range. I consider them to be better than original bare metal restorations, but NOT "perfect". The " PERFECT " jobs I do are STRICTLY time and materials. For example I reworked a 356 carerra speedster hood last year for a local customer. NOT stripped bare and completely redone just fixed some flaws from the previous " restorer " and repainted and finished it out. He had almost 1000.00 just in the hood. Time and materials. He also told me the hood make the rest of the car look awful. It's a piece of black glass

I have said before and I will say again, in this line of work you get what you pay for. YES there are a lot of shady body men out there, but there are also a lot of shady lawyers, preists, and god knows, shady politicians. For some reason though the mechanics and body men are the scourge of society from the start.

I realize I answered my question. I guess pissed was a little strong. Disapointed is probably better. We did talk about the rear trunk & the bit of rust there. So I guess in talking with him I made an assumption that it would at least blend. I expected more than what was done. In him saying he could take care of it no problem. I took that to mean it would look good when done. I should know better than to make assumptions though. I did get what I paid for & overall it is looks good. I did not expect perfection. This area is covered anyway so it is not a huge catastrophy.

I did manage to spend a few minutes on it today. Here is what I got put on.
Front bumper, LE Valance & drivers side rocker

Looking Good Jaime.

Looking good!

Glad to see another coming back to original.

There's such a thing as too perfect. Too perfect is when you don't want to take it out and drive it hard because the perfect paint job will get chips or scratches.

From your photos, I think your car looks awesome (coming from a guy who has a pair of 10/10 aka 10 feet or 10 mph cars).

NICE!

SO I got some work done today. I took out my old dash & got my new dash in. I did find cracks in my supposed uncracked dash. They really are small & can't be seen. Especially once in my car. I was happy to see that. I also spent more time on my interior. I've got about half my carpet in. I will be finishing my interior tommorow. Oh & I need to put my rear window back in.

I added a picture of the LE with it's new side stripe (thanks Jeff Bowlsby ). Overall they went on pretty well. I did get a few air bubbles but got them ou for the most part. I can't wait to pick up my Mahles this week. Then it will really pop.

My engine is pretty close to ready. My wrench is wrapping it up this weekend. I should have it back on monday & can put my nice powdercoated tin on it . There are a few pics of my motor. He was working on it when I stopped by. I took a quick few to add. It looks very nice & just screams add my tin

More pics

Wow! Nice.

lookin GOOD!

Looking good! How was the game Jamie? Beavers whooped on Stanford. Even though I like Stanford (grew up 20 miles from there). I always choose Beav's over Ducks in the civil war!

Yeah game was awesome! My son & I had a great time. Would have like to have gotten more done on my car yesterday. Such is life though. There are always things that come up with the Family that slow my progress. Which is just fine as they come first.

I should have a few hours to get my rear window installed today & finish my interior. I'll take & post more pics later

Only got to a little today. I finished the carpet install. I put the soundpad that goes behind the backpad in.I needed to clamp it near the top to make sure it set good. So instaling the rear window will wait until tommorow after work. There is a picture of my new dash too. It does look nice as the cracks don't show. You need to be real closeup & looking for them to see them.
I needed to order a few seals from Mark for the doors.

Got my wheels

Dude, It's looking really good!!!

Looking good!

Nicely done so far...keep up the good work

very very nice.

It will be a nice feeling to drive her, huh?

Luv it!

Finally Rich has chimed in! Mr Creamsicle who has inspired me from the start with his beautiful LE. I was beginning to think you had forsaken me

Very, Very Nice! Look's like your ready to go 4-wheeling.

Sexy !!

it looks NEW.

Well luckily the Falling Leaf Tour is being rescheduled. 2 great things happen because of this. First I get to work on my car all day saturday. Second is I think I can actually have it ready by next week to go on the drive .

Friday night I am going up to get my motor. We will be pulling my heads as we got the 2 mixed up. CHT is on the drivers side instead of the passenger side . I was going to leave it but after asking in another thread. I thought on it more & it makes sense to just get it done now. Then I'll never have to pull the motor again.
Literally as I plan to sell this once I have it all dialed in. Well I may hold on until spring & the market overall is better. I'll be taking up all my nice powder coated tin (Thanks Conedodger ). I'll try to get some motor porn up tommorow night

VERY nicely done! You're going to have a tough time letting her go. Can't wait to see the motor porn, specially the exhaust.

Tom

BTW: it never ends....

Put some of my lights on & my rear bumper. Still need a nice set of tits for the rear. The one set I got turned out to be fronts. I need to throw some nice satin blackon my emblems, wipers & foglight grills. Didn't get to do squat over the weekend. I woke up with serious neck pain. Just super stiff & couldn't hardly lift my left arm. Got in to see a local chiropractor. Saturday was still pure hell for me. Sunday was better but was still really sore. I'm feeling much better today. SO I spent a little while on my car. Wish I could have worked on it saturday. Spent most the day on my rear watching football. Constantly moving my neck so it wouldn't stiffen up

Schweet!

Jamie,

Your doing a great job Jamie!

I do need to get on the ball & do something. Haven't done much but look at it as I walk by. Thinking how much nicer it would be to have my stinking Excursion in the garage in this cold weather. I need to start working on it again. Thanks for the reminder Drew . I still don't have my motor but I have plenty I can do. I'll try to spend a few hours on it saturday

Just trying to keep you on task buddy! The sooner you get it done, the sooner it gets sold and then you can finish the buick V8 and the 73 (for the wife )!

Hey, Beavers at Wash. St. Saturday at 2PM! Go Beavers!!

My engine is finally done Picking it up tommorow morning. I couldn't wait to see it so I had him take a couple pics . Flywheel on it is going to get turned. Has a little surface rust but no biggie! Wonder what I'll be working on tommorow

Are you going to clean up that tin jamie? Looks like someone blew the hell out of an engine and left it oily!

So will you put everything on the engine before you put it in the car or will you do that stuff when its mounted?

Yeah I know Rob! Strange huh . I'll be spit shining it later.

Hey Billy yes I'll be puting everything on it while it's out. When I go to install it I will be starting it & breaking it in that day. I'm just excited to work on it again. I haven't felt inspired in at least a month. Now I'm chomping at the bit. Just picked it up this morning. I'll be unloading it when my load of family get's here in an hour. Doubt I'll get to do much with it until saturday. Have a house full today. I may try to sneak out some later tonight

I know the feeling

Still have my trans on the wood blocks! Supposed to pull the motor to powder coat the tins but still haven't done that? Thinking of just buying a set of 2.0 tins and coat those instead of mine.

By the way Happy Turkey day Guys!!!

Allright I finally did something. I put my rear bumper tits on (thanks Conedodger). I painted a few things black to freshen them up. Rear emblems, engine bar, Foglight grills, liscense plate frames & my windshield wiper arms. I also added my new rear trunk seals (thanks Camp914)>

I also started getting my carbs put on my motor. I am missing a couple gaskets though. Is the gasket that goes between the carbs & the Manifolds one piece or 2?

The tin looks cleaner too! Ooohhh! I have touched those titties!!! I told you they were in great shape!

Nice work. Work inspires work. Keep it up!