[The Glademister]

Last week I got the power steering return hose on, the salvage steering rack back in and front sway bar on. I ordered the parts from NewParts.com and they're usually really good but the inner front sway bar bushing were not the correct size. The outer dimension didn't fill the drop bracket. So I fabricated some spacers from PVC pipe to tighten that up. The good news is the power steering is good with no seen leaks. Later I moved to the interior. The carpet have stains that aren't going away so I purchased a can of interior paint (yes, it can be used on carpet) in sand brown. The only other color choice they had that made since was white and I figured the light brown would cover the stains better. Out come the seats, vacuum the carpets again and then mask off the surrounding vinyl. I did the passenger side first and it was looking better. As I'm vacuuming, I noticed rust flakes below the AC unit. Well we all know what that's from. I pulled the battery out of the tray and there's been some patching done there. Looks like a coating of roofing tar with a roofing shingle on top (just when I thought I'd seen it all). So I rooted out that mess and there's two layers of flashing sheet metal below anchored with pop rivets. Dug that out and there's another layer of fiberglass. So I'm thinking, leave the fiberglass and add more with the cloth and resin (more like I did on the 931). Then I found where rust is starting come through the wheel wheel below the tray. I stripped back the rubber coating and there's about a 5' square of rusty metal. That's got to be fixed properly or more water is going to invade. So I cut back that rust to solid metal, took measurements and cut a section from the wheel well on my 914 parts car. Cleaned that section up, cut to fit, sprayed the back side with weld-through prime and welded in. When I mixed up the resin for the battery tray, I also coated that patch in the wheel well and painted with primer. I finished the weekend's work on that car by painting the drivers side carpet. Oh, I also was able to get all the exterior lights (except markers) working.