New year's resolution

I've decided to try something slightly different with the blog this year, something that I hope will help motivate me to make more progress on my own 1500 Ghia's restoration. I'm only going to post when I've actually accomplished something on the car. This means there might be more variation in activity depending on how much progress I'm making—more frequent posts if all is going well, and less frequent if nothing's happening.

This weekend's nice weather gave me a good opportunity to dig the Ghia out from all the junk that has collected in the garage and get the area cleaned up so I can get back to work. I cleared out all the spiderwebs and dust and whatnot from under the car, and wiped everything down. I was disappointed to see more surface rust on some of the hardware than I would have expected from a year or two of sitting, but it's nothing that can't easily be dealt with. Just a good reminder that a car that doesn't get driven is still subject to the forces of entropy. The rear axles and suspension in particular are in need of some attention. I had cleaned off years of grease and road dirt in 2007, but of course that's what had been keeping the rust to a minimum, so I gotta get some new paint on there.

I uncovered the engine too and gave it a once over. The NOS intake manifold got a final sanding and several more coats of matte gray hi-temp paint, and now it's ready to be installed. I just have to find the gaskets. They're around here somewhere.



Finally, I removed all the gauges so I can take them to North Hollywood Speedometer for a restoration quote. I'm bracing myself for the shock.