In the past few days, I've had lots of time to go over the front end sheet metal and I'm not completely happy with the overall alignment or the fender to door gaps. In saying that, Keith and I will spend some time tweaking the gaps to see if we can make things a touch better upfront. After planning those changes, we set out to get the rear bumper installed and had it on and off a couple of times while chasing a 1/8" of overhang until we got it perfect. I have to say that Anthony at Alberta Plating did a phenomenal job plating the original bumper as it was expertly chromed inside and out.
Next, I unboxed a pair of rear guards I had thought were NOS because they were in an old carton? Once I pulled them out and tried fitting them I quickly realized those were a set of repro's that I had thrown into those boxes 4/5 years ago when I found a NOS set for use on the green car. Needless to say, these will be coming off when I come across another set of GM guards. If anybody has a nice set of NOS rear-guards, send me a message would ya? Here are a few shots of today's work including some decals from Don Lightfoot, a NOS trunk seal I got from Leo Pepino, and the bumper after it was fit back onto the car.
Must have gone around and over under the car 50 times today. Where does the time go?
Test fitting the NOS latex weatherstripping I picked up from another sYc member. What a difference this stuff makes in closing!
All of the bumper brackets were blasted and powder coated. All new hardware was used.
Triple chrome plated by our local plating guy at Alberta Plating. I think I'll take the door handles in now. (lol)
Both sides are nice and even after a couple of rounds of fitting this original bumper.
The plating is just killer and now I will have to re-chrome the door handles and the mirrors as this makes nice originals look bad.
The rear end is looking good and I did what I could to fit the repro guards, but they will change out when I find another NOS set.
And the traditional trunk decals as sourced from Don Lightfoot. I took all of 10 seconds to place these without any concern. (lol)