I've really enjoyed the thread on how everyone got into Healeys at the
beginning. It's just the ticket for that Healey fix, here, in the dead of
winter, here in frozen RI.
-A recent post on laminating other materials onto the too-thin-for-concours
modern heat shields had me thinking about some of the ........odd things I had
done in the course of restoring my car for concours, and I wondered what
others may have done, that might be considered "over the top" by the casual
observer.
You know, the things where if a non car enthusiast walked into your garage and
saw you doing it, he's say "You're doing WHAT?!?!" --The kind of attention to
detail that it might be hard to explain to anyone else not on this list.
My three entries in the obsessive detail hall of fame (and I may think of
more) are:
1) Cutting up a pair of old Wellington dress boots to make the buffers that go
between the gas tank and the fuel tank straps.
2) Actually doing bodywork on the fuel tank, to make it "pretty".
3) Unable to find the correct copper split rivets for my carburetor heat
shield, I found Identical split rivets in steel, and went about copper plating
them in my garage. Using a large mayonnaise jar, a chunk of copper pipe, my
battery charger, and a solution of copper sulfate, I plated the rivets myself
on a bench in my garage. My neighbor came in, and upon seeing the large bottle
of blue green liquid wired up and fizzing away, remarked : "I'm not even going
to ask". (I have since found the proper rivets at BCS and elsewhere)
----I'm not proud. --Just a little crazy.
What did YOU do ?
David W. Jones
'62 Mk II BT7 tricarb
Cumberland, RI USA
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