Betsy's first bath. Time to check for leaks. Fortunately,
the front windshield sealed well. However, we had some water in the trunk.
Obviously the rear window leaks, apparently at the lower corners. We
still have to work that out.
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She is finally starting to look like my car again!
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With the new chrome, Betsy looks better than she ever did.
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Betsy may look complete, but we still have the interior to install. It's
on order from Cars, Inc.
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And we still have to do something about the rims. These are the original
1956 rims. There is a vibration in the front over 40MPH so we think one
of the rims is out of round.
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She's almost done and may still appear at a show or two this year.
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Finally at the end of July 2005, the interior starts arriving from CARS Inc
of Arizona. The door panels arrived first.
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About two days later, the kick panels, windlacing, and rear side panels arrived.
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Before we could reassemble the door panels, the window and door handle springs
had to be reconditioned and painted. These are original springs.
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We had only one set of armrests, but two sets of original door handles.
The handles were polished and the best were chosen. The interior didn't
include extra green vinyl for the armrests and they looked ok, so we
decided to use them.
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All the holes in the doors were sealed either with the access panels or
body sealer.
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Ok, now for the tricky part - finding the holes for the stainless trim
without damaging the new door panel. There were multiple holes in the
panel, so finding the right ones took patience.
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A finished door panel. We chose to stay with the original 1956 green
fabric, but custom ordered the kit with white vinyl instead of ivory
vinyl.
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A finished passenger front door. Would you believe that there are few
pictures of real cars, not drawings, that show the correct alignment
of the window cranks and door handle?
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A finished passenger rear door. We guessed on the handle alignment since
there were even fewer pictures of the rear doors.
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