It has been quite a while since I updated this thread, so I thought I would show everyone how far I have gotten on the project.
For the interior, I laid down a bunch of Dynamat Extreme for the rear shelf and seats and along the sides up to the front. I then installed a sliverknit carpet set, door panels and rear shelf that I got from AppBiz. Got everything cleaned up and put in pretty nicely (at least I think so). While I was at it, I decided to replace the seat belts with fresh ones (pricey, but I figured that I was worth it). I also have a bunch of other pieces bought from various folks here in the forums and from the last John Walker swap meet.
I really tried to keep the interior pretty stock looking except for the controls (Momo steering wheel and shift knob) and the rennline pedals. I also pulled the ashtray out and mounted a voltmeter and vacuum gauge. The final touch will be some sport seats with a black/grey pasha center that I am having Stefan at GTS put together for me.
Probably the best couple of tools that I picked up have been a parts washer, blast cabinet and a powder coating setup. I've just been pulling part after part, cleaning, bead blasting and then powder coating. Works fantastic for things like rebuilding the pedal cluster, handbrake/heater levers and such. I've saved a ton of money with these things and they end up looking like they came fresh from the factory. Not to mention that I can pull a part and within 2 hours be reinstalling it looking like new. No more painting for me!
I also got all of the electrical stuff figured out. EVERYTHING electrical on the car is in good working order and functioning properly. Well, except for the lighter since I pulled the rusted heating element out and tossed it.
I have redone the front bearings/races. Rebuilt the brake calipers and dropped in some pretty cross-drilled rotors. Replaced a bunch of the old tubing and such. Just basically running around a cleaning/refreshing everything.
Anyway, all that I have left to do is the engine. Since I have no experience with engines really, I thought I had better get an expert opinion on the matter. So, I gave the engine a quick look over (fixing a couple of minor issues), threw an extinguisher in and fired the car up.
The car was on the road again for the first time since the day I bought it and brought it home! Everything was working well. I drove around the neighborhood listening for any odd noises or smoke. Brought it home and looked over everything again and
nothing had fallen off the car! So, I took it out again with the intention of breaking in the fresh brake pads. Over the next couple of days I put about 200 miles onto the car. Everything seemed to be working pretty well so I drove it into Seattle to have John Walker give it a quick look and run a compression & leakdown test for me. The numbers came out pretty decent but the engine is in dire need of some TLC.
So, I'm going to enjoy the car for a bit while I gather up the engine parts and the funds required to acquire said parts. Probably will have a fall engine drop and rebuild project.
I recently finished off a project for a client that also likes tinkering with cars. They were so happy with the work that they bought me a BendPak mid-rise scissor lift as a bonus. That thing is seriously cool!