[roger1]

It's been awhile, I know. Nothing wrong. Just a slowdown with some things going on and when I do work on the car, the processes of what I'm working on are slow.

I did a bit of research about polishing stainless steel I had never checked out the products that Caswell plating offered until now. I had only been using the Eastwood products previously. Caswell has a broad range of both compounds and wheels that can be used for stainless where Eastwood just a single choice choice per step.
Caswell also has a "How To" booklet that explains the differences in their choices pretty well.
For the first step on a sisal wheel they offer a couple of different compounds. One they call Super Sisal and I bought a couple bars of those. For the second step they offer a wide choice of compounds. I ended up buying bars of their standard cut, fast-cut and extra-fast cut choices. All the bars are made by Formax and are pretty large.



They also had some choices for the wheels used on the second step. They carry a vented buff wheel that is advertised to hold more compound and keep the part cooler which speeds up polishing. They also carry a yellow colored vented wheel which is specialty treated for longer life and is more aggressive. I bought one of both types to see how I like them. The also offer a yellow colored treated sewn wheel and I bought one of those too.







For my first test with these new products, I polished the top well stainless trim pieces. I used the Super Sisal compound for the first step. I believe it is better than the emory compound from Eastwood. For the second step, I used the untreated vented wheel with the "fast cut" compound. It did cut somewhat faster than using a standard sewn wheel with the Eastwood compound. Not quite the luster at the end but polished up nicely on step 3 using a loose wheel with the Eastwood white rouge compound.

Here's how the 2 pieces look after installing them on the car. These pieces are not easy to install at all and a bit tricky to get the end tabs into place behind the outer quarter window weatherstrip.





As you can see, I color sanded and polished that area before installing the trim. I'm happy with the way it fits and looks.

I purchased a used driver-side seat belt retractor from GTO.Paul. I removed the guts and took the parts out I needed to rebuild mine. Not easy to do but I got it and it works perfectly now.



I had purchased a reproduction sport steering wheel from Ames over a year ago but I thought this was good time to go ahead and get it installed. It was their complete assembly. Also had purchased their ignition and door lock set with matched keys so this was the time to install the new ignition lock too.
Very happy with the way it looks. Horn works perfectly too.



I thought a long time about what I wanted to do about the fact the front of my car sits higher than I want. I also measured and it sits about 1 1/2" higher than the height than the assembly manual states what it should be. After researching and searching forums for all A-body cars of this vintage, I decided to try a set of Moog 5372 springs.
Looks like they powder coated these but there are some defects so I'll touch those up with black epoxy primer. They got delivered today.



Still waiting for trim rings from OPGI. Also I'm starting to get anxious to get my seats. I went down to the interior shop and it sounded like he would get to them very soon. That was 3 weeks ago so I hope to hear from him any day. I told him I'd like to have the buckets but the rear seat could wait. I also told him I'd like to put it on his schedule to get the top installed in mid-October if possible and he thought it might be doable.