Since my last post, I've been wandering aimlessly thru the various tasks that remain. I had a bit of a hiccup on the interior door handles. The ones I bought over a year and a half ago were for a pre-'49 GM car and didn't fit... surprise! So I had to order a couple more sets. Upon installing the first one, I found out the padding on the door panel was so thick it wouldn't let the handle retract after opening the door. So I had to build a fixture to hold the tapered piece so I could shave 1/8" off of it. Did all of them and they now work great.
I also installed the rear bumper which took me about three days. No matter what I did, I couldn't adjust it forward enough to look right. The RS chassis is slotted for 1/2" bolts instead of the 9/16" OEM bolts but that wasn't nearly enough to make up what I needed. Ended up taking the OEM brackets off and hogging them out another 1/2" to move the bumper forward the amount I needed. Had to use the porta-power and shim stock to get the necessary clearance on the passenger side as well. All in all, a bit of a goat rodeo.
HRE had trial assembled the rear bumper prior to blowing everything apart for paint, but no pictures exist to see how it fit at that time. I don't think the body could be that far off when they reassembled it. In the end you just have to chalk it up to "one of those things". All the lights are wired up with Weather-Pak connectors and all that's left to do is mount the license plate and the backup camera. Hate having to drill a hole thru the brand new bumper but it's for a good cause - cause I need all the help I can get when backing up.
