I shot a couple of small garbage cans as well as the worktop of a MDF plywood of a workstation that I already had. I used the hardner in the paint so that I would get a durable finish on the worktop.

Here are a couple of shots:

Next I moved my attention back to the front of the vehicle. I had needed to add some detail lines on the outside portion of the headlights to match the inside lines. I used some bondo and built this area up and profiled it so that it was similar to the inside edge:

While the paint was drying I again worked around the headlight area, it seemed that using the fiberglass angles for mounting the headlight fixtures will put them at the proper height so I drilled out the top mounting holes, egged them out a bit for future adjustment and then used some duraglass to fill in the plugs that I previously cut out to remove the fixtures. I don't want to rely on just the duraglass so later I will recess them and fiberglass them in as later on I do not want the duraglass to vibrate and come free as the plugs are about 3/4" thick.

I also used some 1" thick foam and clamped it into place so that I could make some mounting angle to hold in the removable panels inside the front wheel wells. I had to make them inside the wheel well as there is a curvature to the fender skins which pretty much dictated that they be done this way. I used seven layers of 3" cloth tape laid up inside the wells.

Once back from the salvage yard I mounted the mechanisms into their spaces along with the covers and had too much space around the covers when closed as I originally only roughed out the opening. So using some fiberglass mat built up the area around them and finally finished it off with some bondo to get a fairly uniform space around the body and the headlight covers.

I purchased them from O'Sullivan an online distributor, but also found out that Lowes also carries the Coleman garage storage line for slightly more however you save on shipping charges - which is almost a wash.

Did more work on the doors, I had one area that previously was not glassed it was above the intake area. So I used two layers of mat and one layer of cloth.

Another area that required some work was filling the gap between the door frame and the chassis. I hot-glued some foam into place, shaped it and laid up some glass. I still have some work to do to seal up the doors from rain, etc., but progress is being made.

I really wanted power mirrors and not manual ones because since the windows don't roll down you would have to get out of the vehicle to adjust them so these will fit the bill nicely. Due to the angle of the top mounting surface of the doors it is hard to find suitable mirrors without major modifications to them. Most vehicles nowadays have door surfaces that are quite vertical and some aftermarket mirrors did not have the electric control that I desired.

Back to the areas around the back of the doors, last weekend I glassed in some areas around the back of the door and this weekend I removed a portion of it to form a lip above the air intake so that some rubber weather stripping could fit into it and seal against the chassis. Took some pictures but they looked confusing so nothing to show right now.

Moved attention to the front trunk lid. I had been wanting to put in a latch so that I could close the lid and do some sanding with the rest of the front deck. In talking with Dustin it became apparent to me that this might be difficult to align - since the trunk lid closes - so as much adjustment that I could build in would work the best in the long run. So the entire trunk latch would be made in three major sections allowing me adjustment both vertically as well as horizontally. Concerns also included being able to get to the windshield wiper mechanism that would be behind the latch.

I started out by making some fiberglass angle about 1-1/2 " x 2-1/2" x 6" long using a seven layer layup, alternating glass cloth tape and glass mat and clamped it up. Once the resin went off I trimmed it and cut it to the desired length. I next located the latch on the face of the angle and put in some holes. I then made up a steel plate with 1/4" studs (similar as in the past filled with holes) and glassed it onto the backside of the fiberglass angle with another 5-6 layers of matt to retain the steel plate (BTW: you could probably drive over this piece with a truck and not hurt it.). Finally I put in a couple of holes on the top side to be used for attaching it to the lip of the trunk. The protruding studs would allow me to adjust the latch mechanism vertically while the holes in the top could be egged out for movement if necessary in 2 directions, sideways and forwards/backwards. I then cut and ground a keyhole area for the striker using a die grinder:

Next I made a another steel mounting plate, filled it with holes and welded in some 1/4" bolts and glassed it into the underside of the front lip of the trunk lid. These protruding studs will mount the angle that was previously made (shown above). Where the studs were located on the lid I had to use a die grinder to create a recess in the wood of the trunk lid so that the plate would sit flush with the surface. I then used a block of wood covered with plastic wrap and holes in it for the protruding studs and clamped the whole assembly into place. As usual I used about seven layers of mat (3 on underside and 4 on top). Once the resin went off I cleaned up the part and chased the threads of the stud with a die.

I had to modify the striker mechanism so that it would mount to the trunk lid, I added a piece of angle iron and welded it to the striker and put in a couple of 1/4" slots in both parts for adjusting each item:

The next images show the completed latch mount as well as the latch mechanism attached to it:

The tough part of all of this was to mount the trunk lid striker in a close enough position so that with some adjustment of the striker that it would work properly. In order to locate where this striker goes I had to put the striker in the latch mechanism, put the trunk lid in position, then reach in from under the lid and mark the position with a pencil. I then removed the lid and transposed where the studs had to be positioned. I then used a die grinder to create recesses in the underside of the lid (for the heads of the 1/4" bolts) and made another steel plate and studs similar to all made in the past. Finally I installed the plate with about seven layers of mat (3 on underside and 4 on top) and compressed it with a piece of wood covered by plastic wrap and holes in it for the studs and clamped it all into place. Once the resin went off I used a wood chisel to clean up any ridges and used a die to clean up the threads of the studs.

If I used nuts there are a couple of problems, one is that the nut will get distorted when welding to the retaining plate and possibly mess up the threads making it unuseable. Secondly typically the areas that I use these plates are fairly thin and if I installed nuts you could easily bottom out the bolt in the minimal space behind the nut and possibly pierce through the other side. And lastly the resin would puddle into the nut thread-space once the mat was laid up and clamped into place making it difficult to clean out.

I also remounted the hinges and attached the trunk lid to them, have to some work to get proper alignment and might need to install some "poppers" to spring open the lid as well.

I took the steel mount that came with the cylinders and modified it a bit by bending back the mounting tab 90 degrees so that it would shorten up the total length and ground them down a bit as well.

Next I made up two steel plates, welded in a couple of studs, filled them with holes and glassed them into place as in the past. The sequence below shows the work:

Here is a picture of the resultant lip, some trimming will have to be done so that the doors operate correctly:

While I had the rear canopy off I used some Duraglass inside the mounting lip that I previously made. This needed to be done in order to stiffen up this area as it will carry a lot of the weight of the rear canopy. Finally I used two layers of cloth to cover the Duraglass and tie it into the canopy and lip. I left about 1/4" of the lip exposed so that I could attach the foam weatherstripping: