[tristan]

Thanks Tom, I am pleased with progress to date. The Jimmy is now over at the mechanical shop for a fairly extensive list of repairs. It will come back to the body shop afterwards for U-POL Raptor undercoating and completion of small items such as remounting the spare tire carrier.

One other thing they have finished is re-gapping the doors. Someone had replaced the body mounts without checking door fitment and the driver's side hinges were bad so that door was rubbing. The shop re-shimmed the body mounts as necessary and replaced the driver's side door hinges and now everything opens and closes as it should with good consistent gappage (is that a word?) all around.

As I like to worry about stuff and think ahead, I am now considering next steps after the mechanical overhaul. There is still a lot of expensive and time-consuming work to do on my vehicle even after accomplishing everything that I've logged here so far. Interior, chrome, exterior paint, trim pieces, and a general category with a lot of gnarly stuff that I'll lump together under the category of "detailing out". That includes things like removing the instrument cluster and sending it out for a makeover, replacing all of the body gaskets, repairing and repainting the top, detailing out the engine compartment, ad nauseum. Figuring out the order in which these things should be done, how to pay for them - and whether I should given cost vs. vehicle value - and when to jump in myself vs farming out the work will keep me tossing and turning for a long time. I know many of you have already been there and done that.