The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Today was a parts day.

Parts days are fun. They're like Christmas but better because you don't have to eat any fruit cake. The boxes show up, all nicely stacked by the front door. Wrapped in that festive packing tape. And there's that little tag with your name on it. ... Okay, it's a shipping label, but it does have your name on it.

Today I received a box from The Roadster Factory. These are guys my dad and I have dealt with for years. I've used some other folks with good results but if you want the 'right' part and you need it to fit exactly right these guys are your best bet.

I ordered:

• A propeller-shaft tunnel cover.
• Chrome wheel trim
• 2 foam seat kits
• 4 Air filters, 3 oil filters, 1 set of points, 1 condenser, 6 spark plugs, 1 rotor
• A trim piece of the drivers door
• A vinyl sample to see if it's the right color and pattern for the seats.
• some odds and ends

In addition I discussed (but didn't order)

• 1 reupholstery kit, in Chestnut. (Yes, I said *chestnut*. I know it's not in the Crayola 8-box but in this case "brown" just doesn't cut it. When you're ordering car stuff sometimes you have to suck it up and use the manufacturers crazy color names. Go tell that guy with the classic Thunderbird that you like his 'peach' car and see if he doesn't bloody your nose as he's yelling "Coral Sand, you moron!")

So all of that is good. Not terribly cheap but not break-the-bank either.

<-- I guess 142000 miles can be hard on seats. Notice the side bolsters on the edges of the seat back. What? You say you can't see any? That's right. They came out in pea-sized chunks and had to be vaccuumed off the garage floor.


<-- Looks comfy doesn't it?


Add a little Chestnut vinyl and that will be a seat fit for a king. -->


The minor downside came when TRF looked at my order. You'll notice I wanted one vinyl kit but two foam kits. TRF decided this must be a mistake so they cancelled one of my foam kits. Unfortunately (or perhaps surprisingly) in this case I knew what I was doing. Both cars need new foam, but only one needs new vinyl. So I'll have to wait for the second kit. Not a big deal since I'll have to wait for the vinyl but it's frustrating anyway.

(As a side-note, the vinyl sample doesn't show the "diamond dot" pattern of the seats. Which is really what I was worried about. It does a good job of showing the color and texture but there's still a chance it won't look right. I guess that's why they invented 'returns.')




Okay, so all that's good or at least reasonable. The Bad was a phonecall this morning from the folks at CyclPath. The clutch master cylinder I've been waiting for just went on "indefinite back-order" from the supplier. Which basically means "we don't have it, and we don't expect to get it." That's not good. I need a clutch that matches the brake. It's bad enough to buy an clutch, I don't want to have to buy a whole new set.

The guys at CyclPath are going to look into some other ways to get ahold of this. If that doesn't pan out then ... well ... I'm not sure how I'll resolve this. With my luck I'll figure it out just as the Fall rainy season returns. (Yes there are four seasons in Seattle: Rainy Fall, Rainy Winter, Rainy Spring and Threatening-To-Rain-Any-Minute-But-Might-Not Summer. ... I'm not sure if that's better or worse than Chicago which I've heard described as "Two seasons: 'Winter' and 'Road Contruction.'")