While waiting for the next Corvair to come in the shop, I decided to do some little things I've been putting off. The first is repairing a flat tire. I must have pinched the tube when I mounted the new tires. I bought a new tube some time ago but just never got around to fixing it. I got out my trusty small wheel bead breaker that I purchased from Harbor Freight and began to replace the tube. I have to tell you, that's the best $19.00 I've ever spent. It has been used to dismount the five old tires and mount the new ones (one of them twice), removed and replaced the two trailer tires and had no problem breaking any of them loose. After I finished the tire, I decided to work on my steering wheel. You can see a small crack right around the top edge where the horn button goes.

After repairing the major blowout on my air hose, I managed to finish sanding the drivers side so I could move it to the other bay. Another corvair job is coming in Sunday. Hopefully it won't take too long. Good to see my auto-exposure is working so-o-o well.

I know it looks about the same but there has been three coats of filler put on this side, two have been sanded off. I hope to sand the last coat tomorrow and move to the other side.
Wow, if you blow up the picture it looks like '57 Chevy fins!

Yay me! I finally got a chance to work on the little car. I laid out the template, drilled the holes and installed the modified Corvair rocker moldings. The left photo shows the retaining strip screwed in place and the right photo shows the trim strip in place. They were then removed and placed in storage with the rest of the parts. Tomorrow---more filling and sanding, the worst part of the whole restoration.

As you can see, the trailer is ready to go for inspection and registration. I can't mount the winch until I'm able to get the car on the trailer. The bed is eight feet long and five feet wide, I hope I can get the car forward enough to give me the correct tongue weight. I might have to load it on backwards so the engine weight is in front of the axle. We'll see, if nothing else I have a great utility trailer.

Apparently I don't have the hang of this yet. Too much time off. I stumbled across a good deal on a tilting, flat bed trailer to haul the Bianchina around on. Bought it, brought it home, took it all apart to clean, fix and paint and forgot all about taking before pictures. I'll post some when it's back together but not completely finished. I want to get it registered and tagged before completely finishing it. I'm planning on having an electric winch mounted on the front to load the car on but I'm afeared that might make it too hard to get a home built title. We'll see.

We finally finished getting my Dads estate finished, it will be listed tomorrow. I got back in the shop today and just futzed around getting used to it again. As promised, here are the before and after pictures of the cut down Corvair rocker trim. The finished length is 49.75 inches just to give you an idea of the scale. As soon as I can, I'll move the car into the working bay and install the mounting strips, drill all the holes and screw in stainless screws. I will then remove it all and store it and continue with the filling and sanding previously started. It's good to be back.