The Crusty Cuda: Whole lotta Shakin' (N96) Goin' on!

[njsteve]

I've spent the past week slowly assembling the front seats. It takes a lot of patience and hand strength to do all the pulling, hog ring plier-ing of around 800 hog rings (including 100 or so "duds" that had to be cut and removed), repositioning and strategically inserting of extra cotton material to get them to look correct over the original foam cushions. (the reproduction foam is not close enough to the original shape to spend the $300 on). A little more massaging with the heat gun should get the last of the wrinkles smoothed out. I have to do that on a separate day to make sure my hands are surgically clean. That is a "right out of the morning shower" sparkling clean, kind of job. If you have one speck of dirt on your hand, it will get on the white vinyl.

So here they are. Before and after...

I am currently working on the seat tracks, one of which self-destructed when I racked it too far forward. It threw the ball bearings out into low earth orbit. Luckily I had one left and was able to measure it at .310 (which is BTW, the same size as a 32 calibre shotgun pellet!). I was able to go to my local Home Depot and match it up to the .310 (5/16) ball bearings they sell individualy at .94 cents. Otherwise, I would have had to buy a can of 1000 of them from Amazon for $16. But then what the heck would I have done with all the leftovers? Hmmmm. Reminds me of that scene with Flounder from Animal House; "May I have 10,000 marbles please?"