Tonight was going to be a simple, go in the garage and adjust the front bumper, make sure it was even and level and tighten it all up. Hopefully for the last time and go inside for the night.
The adjustment went really quick and so I moved onto fixing the fender to bumper fillers. I had to cut them up a bit and put them back together to get them to fit right.
When things are hard to come by, you have to get creative. Nothing like working with 40 year old rubber (that’s what she said).
So after I was finished with that I was walking by the drivers side of the car and noticed the door lock.
When I bought her the door lock was toast due to a thief trying to steal her previously. The owner never got around to fixing it.
So I got to thinking, well I have a new lock set I bought for the car, and I also have a passenger side mirror that needs installed, let me pull the door panel off of the passenger door and lets see what we are dealing with.
Yeah yeah yeah I know the Bluesmobile didn’t have a passenger side mirror, but I have an extremely long and narrow drive way and need it for backing her into the garage. Plus with the way people drive nowadays in Chicago! Aye ca-rumba!!
So with little effort the upper and lower door panels came off. When this big glop of fuzz fell out I thought it was a dead rat!
Turns out it was decomposing foam that sits behind the door handle. I’ll need to look for some replacement.
Getting to the door lock was not easy, and it will be even harder to mount the mirror! But well now that I was there I needed to start working.
Had to remove the door lock rod and window guide just to reach the old lock. After popping the pin off the lock I was able to replace it, then had a heck of a time trying to reuse the factory lock holder.
And that’s where I ended the night, with the door lock installed, but the window guide is still out. I’m sure I will be taking more things out of the door to get to the area I need to be to mount the mirror. I guess instead of opening a door, I opened a can of worms!
To be continued…
Speaking of mirrors, I wanted to share a cool find of mine. It’s a ’74 rear view mirror that mounts to the headliner like the one shown in the movie.
Needs a little work, but it will look great once installed!
