Gold Coast Holiday stops progress

Progress on the Vogue is on hold this week due to a family holiday in the warmer climate of Australia's Gold Coast. This is the view from our 29th floor balcony.

My Daily Driver next to iMiev

Until the Vogue is on the road I have been, and will be, driving my 1967 Series VA Humber Super Snipe. Here it was today in the company car park next to one of the Victorian EV Trial iMievs. I can't imagine why the iMiev slips through the air more easily - I haven't got a left hand mirror on the Snipe!

Still Looking for Fabric Sealer

The product I mentioned in my previous post may well work  at stopping leaks in tent seams but it doesn't stop fabric from "wicking" - that is sucking up water, so I'm still looking. Someone on one of the camping forums mentioned mixing silicone with white spirits to thin it then spreading it on seams. That should stop wicking - I'll try it.

The re-chroming guy said that my backup boot handle was "too far gone". It's pretty easy to get off so I'll mount the one pictured earlier and keep a look out for a better one.

Sealing Headlining Edges

One of the things that has been delaying gluing the headlining in (other than lack of time) is because of a warning I got from the guy I will probably use to install the front and rear windscreens. When I incidently mentioned that we had made our own velour headlining he indicated that suspended (or bow) headlinings were usually vinyl for a reason. The reason is that where the headlinings wraps around the body seams on the upper edge of the windscreen openings you can easily get water ingress. Thats means if the headlining can soak up water (capilliary action or "wicking") then it will gradually stain inside the car - starting at the edges. In our case the headlining also runs down the inside of the rear pillars so it's a concern.

So I have been looking for a sealing product that would stop this from happening.
I found this on a dog whelping site - I have no idea why they sell it. It's also sold by lots of camping places (not in Australia though) to help seal tent seams. The whelping place was in Australia and shipping was free.

The idea is that, once the headling is glued, I run along the exterior exposed part of the fabric and carefully seal it with this.

My concern, other than it not working at all, is that it may harm the rubber seals so as soon as I get it I'll apply a little bit to a spare piece of the 1/4 light rear window rubber so at least we will get some warning if it's a quick reaction. Some sellers recommend it for rubber shoes so it should be OK.

That's unless someone out there has a better idea.

More Re-chroming

Somehow I didn't blog the fact that we re-chromed the rear bumper bar. Back in this post I indicated that I was cleaning up the bumper bars. The rear one was too far gone - lots of scratches etc. We had it re-chromed about a year ago and it looks great.

With my attention turning to installing door handles etc. back on the car I found that the boot handle is pretty bad. It has a lot of pitting.













 Down the back of our yard, behind the garage, there is another boot lid - with a handle. Unfortunately it was worse but at least I could play with it and see if I could get it apart without destroying it for good. I did and Laurel will drop by the electroplating place this week and see what they think of its condition. I'll keep the one that was on the car for now.

The other chrome that really needs doing are the headlight surrounds or "eyebrows" as the family calls them.

So they have all gone off the the same place for re-chroming. The door handles are kind-of OK so we will leave them for now.