1-16-15

The weather is improving so I can finally work in the garage without having to heat it. Not enough energy to start another big job, but accomplished lots of small part cleaning, straightening, polishing and painting.

Sent out request for quotes for custom made flipper springs, as I couldn't find a standard spring close enough to match. Murphy Spring gave me a quick brush-off and said they had nothing in stock to match and didn't even bother to respond with a price for a custom spring. The email rejection was written by someone who didn't speak English well...or didn't give a damn...or who was yet another product of our pathetic education system.

W.B. Jones claims to be interested in small custom orders, but we shall see. So far I've found only two manufacturers willing to work with the end user.

Ordered all door and window seals from Gary Goers. Beltline weather-strip has been shipped from Surry, BC company. Flipper seals were not available from Goers, so decided to go with a substitute version from the Canadian supplier. It isn't stock looking, but appears to be the correct dimension to do the job, so I ordered all the oversized weather-strip pieces together to save shipping cost. I may regret not ordering everything from Goers.

Still looking for embossed aluminum for the side trim. I found one Internet source that offered a pattern that looked somewhat similar to stock, but it was not gold colored. I decided I could color it, but then I saw the price. They only offered a 4x8 sheet and it was $1,400.00 plus freight! A company in the UK had a product that looked like it might be close, but they don't have a North American supplier.

Checked with a local sign company to see if they could create a gold vinyl decal with a pattern to simulate the stock embossing, but they said it wasn't available from their supplier, and couldn't be done by printing on the vinyl. The only solid gold vinyl they could get was nowhere near a match for the OEM color, and the only metallic vinyl product looked like the old 60s gaudy metal flake, so I'm back to square one. I'm beginning to think I'll have to go with gold paint. Yet another project moved to the back burner.