It’s been almost 2 mo since I had an update. Have to be honest, I haven’t been motivated to move forward on the Mistress. I had her all put back together for the car show in mid-Sep. I created a new list of things to do and a majority of them require the dash and interior to be torn apart to complete the work. Wasn’t hot to do that. But here’s what’s new.
Key
My new key would lock the doors (my valet key wouldn’t) but it wouldn’t budge the trunk lock. Tried some graphite in it but to no avail. Decided to take it to the only locksmith who thought they could work on it a yr ago. I dropped it off and explained the issue one morning and by mid-afternoon it was done. They didn’t say if some tumblers were stuck, but the key did work in the lock now. Only problem was I was $125 lighter. I put the lock back in the trunk and I’ve solved all my key & locking issues.
Paint Imperfections
I have the sunroof scratch and a chip in the driver’s fender ready to polish but the rake claw marks haven’t been as easy. It’s taken many (4-5) batches of paint to build up to the surrounding paint layer. I have 75% of the spots filled properly, but have a few left to complete. Put a new batch of paint in them last wk and need to sand them out. Hopefully this will be the last bit of painting necessary and they’ll be ready to polish after sanding. However, that qtr panel is on the dark side of my garage so I either need to wait for a sunny, warm day to open the garage to sand or put some light on the qtr. Would prefer the former but will probably have to do the latter. I have plenty of other items to address, so I can wait for a nice day.
Interior
As I mentioned, many of the items on my To Do list require tearing the interior apart. A couple of days ago I decided to pull the front seats out in hope that would get me motivated. At some point I’ll need to take the seats to my leather guy for refurbishing, so they needed to come out. And having them out will give me more room to slide under the dash to do work. None of the gauges on the instrument panel are working, which means I needed to tear the dash pod open to get at the instrument cluster. Pulled the steering wheel off along with several panels below the wheel. Loosened 2 bolts holding the pod in place and was able to pull it fwd enough to get the cluster loose. I think I found my cluster problem. I have a post in on Rennlist to verify, but it may be an easy fix. What am I saying? Nothing’s easy with the Mistress. I think in the meantime I’ll go ahead and remove the pod shell this weekend, as it has cracks in it that will eventually need repairing. I may take it to my leather guy and see what he says. I need to pull 5 switches off the pod but the instructions on the net look fairly straight fwd. With the pod off, I can also look at the rheostat wheel that keeps the cluster permanently illuminated and drains my battery. It looked dirty / corroded so maybe a good cleaning will take care of that problem.
Here’s what she looks like right now.
While I have the interior torn apart, I need to track down why the windows don’t operate as well as why the radio isn’t making any sounds (it lights up when turned on). I also need to see why the passenger mirror isn’t working. Lots of electrical gremlins to chase.