And, since Sawzall is just the go to tool on the B-Cord, there was one more keepsake I wanted to pull off the car before it goes to the great beyond- so after almost one minute of BRRRRRRT, here’s what will be an eternal keepsake of my first car.
But, all this is for a good cause- to make an another car exquisitely nice. Let’s finally get to the A-Cord and talk about how far that car has come in recent months. There’s been a ton of side projects I’ve been trying to work through while the car is at the shop, and while there’s still ever-more on the list, a lot has gotten done. We’ll start with one project that you guys are well aware with, the hood scoop! I finally had to bite the bullet and prepare the real hood for the shop to begin fab work on the added panel, so I had to get going on all the holes needed to mount the scoop for them. So, while I’m sure I’ve showed photos like this, this is the final hood, so I’ve gotta do this all right. I learned a lot with the previous hood and its templates, and started boring into the thing.
Pretty nervewracking, but all the holes worked pretty well and the part fits well! Can’t wait to see the metal formed up, and I’ll be excited to share those photos when we have time.
And one more thing scoop related- I got to throw down some paint on the grill dividing the inlet and duct, and it looks sharp. I’m still coming around on the badge, but it does kinda glimmer in there. Not bad if I say so myself.
Next topic- I finally powdercoated a bunch of silver parts, and they’re… alright! Hood prop is on the bottom left, the coil on plug plate in the middle, and “final” airbox is on the topright corner. And well, after getting it together, I’ll be honest, not sure if I’m happy with it. It’s for starters, really heavy, it’s chunky, and having ~20 rivnuts is just kinda messy, so I don’t think this will be the final part. Instead, I’m hoping to redesign the whole thing to be an aluminum part with (professionally) welded seams and rounded edges to make the part a lot more elegant. But- I’ve got cash going to all corners of the universe, and plenty of other things to model, so don’t be too surprised to see this airbox mounted up for a while.
So the next project I want to cover is all the black powdercoat- I’ve been personally blasting and powdercoating most of the small suspension parts that I can fit here- and it’s exciting to know all the details of this car will be properly protected.
But anyways, here’s the payoff from stripping the B-Cord down, the final piece of a trunkload of powdered parts. I had these done professionally, and frankly, the price was really good- about 600 bucks for all seven large pieces, which really isn’t bad for the hours I’m assuming they’ve worked. I’ve literally only had the boldness to unwrap one part, so this will have to be a good enough sneak preview until they’re bolted to the car.
But onto a muuuuch more tedious project- hardware. I really don’t want to use crappy hardware to bolt everything together on a shiny chassis, so I’ve started the uhhhhh “nut and bolt” phase of what has officially become the nut and bolt restoration of a base model Honda Accord. Huh. So, went out to get a quote to get my hardware plated, and it turns out, if I bring them one bolt, it’s the same price as bringing them a five gallon bucket and having four thousand bolts plated. As you will immediately infer, that means I need to take every nut, bolt, clip and weird bracket I can find and have it stripped- because it makes literally no difference to the plating company. As in EVERY, I’ve gone through and emptied out every bolt I’ve ever stashed from a junkyard, all the stuff the B-Cord, as much of the hardware as I’m willing to un-bag from the A-Cord and so on. Which meeeeaaans, I’ve spent like a solid week hunched over the sandblaster- and I’ve more than lost count of how many ten mills I’ve held in oversize rubber gloves. Turns out the Cadmium Dichromate (the cool new words I just learned) will be super dull with the finish that’s currently on the hardware, so fingers crossed that corn husk in a vibratory tumbler (four new words I also just learned) will polish these up and give a much better, glowing finish. Yay for more time and money- but DANG, imagine yellow bolts on stuff, gosh that will look good. Can’t flipping WAIT to sort all that stuff out.
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