Page Sixty-Four - SITREP Alphie 2025

 

Alphie is looking younger (almost) everyday!  (I’m not, however.)

During the “Assembly Phase,” which was five years in the making, everything I do takes years off Alphie.  No particular schedule to it, just as I buff out a section, I install more stuff.

Check out Alphie's new shoes!

Installing the doors was a fairly big swing (sorry, can’t help myself) because I could then adjust the windshield to the quarter lights and install the weather stripping.  I screwed up some paint, but I knew assembly would create touch-up opportunities.

Oh, and NEW SHOES! 

Huge shout out to Classic Car Performance from whom I bought Alphie’s Motor Wheel Service (MWS) Dunlop wire wheels.  Alphie’s new shoes are 13”X4.5”, a half inch wider than his originals, but the 4.5’s were a tad cheaper, and I figured he could use a bit larger contact patch.  Other than the extra half inch, all the other specs are spot on.  Found out that the 4.5 inchers require inner tubes where the 4 inchers don’t.  No biggie, but I didn’t notice that until I saw the sticker on the wheels.

They’re chrome.  You could get chrome wire wheels back in the day, but only from the dealership.  The factory only fitted painted wire wheels.  But damn do they look fantastic – remember, I ‘m going for “reasonably” original.

Thirteen-inch tires are becoming Dodos.  I found a few, but I bought some from Coker Tires.  They’re not performance tires by any stretch, but neither is Alphie.  Coker Tires also had the inner tubes I needed.

PICTURES!

Dash, glove box, steering wheel, wind screen (shield) and doors installed

Door and quarter light weather stripping installed

Boot and boot bits installed
(I wanted to see what all the boot tools looked like in place.)

Boot lid with springs installed!

Bonnet latch installed
(I have some clean-up work to do in the engine bay.)

The bonnet is buffed and ready to go but not on the hinges yet

Paint Boo-Boos

I’m still plagued with paint clangers (a Brit bit for ya), some self-inflicted, some not. If you look closely at these pics, you'll see a few of them.

I will say, partly because you can't prove me wrong, that the paint looks better in the wild than in my pics.

Refitting the doors, the bonnet, boot lid and such will almost always leave some scrapes and chips.  So far, I haven’t just dropped something or bumped into it.  I realize just saying that puts Alphie's paint in significant danger.

I expect a bit of Sod’s Law, especially during assembly.  I’ll tackle the paint cock-ups when I finish screwing up stuff.

But I have some curious ghosty blemishes that appeared after I polished out the clear coat.  Still scratching my head over it, but my theory is that the ghosts are bits of color coat exposed during wet sanding, like layers on a cake you can see after it’s been cut.

I hope that spraying another layer of clear over it will scare off the ghosts – more on that later.