Bustle

Slowly making some progress on the rear part of the body. I have the “bustle” mostly done, though of course there are minor errors here and there, and the joinery is not what I hoped. That’s what epoxy is for, right? Right?

The biggest error: trimming the side rail too short, where it meets the cross-piece in the back. You can see a small gap in the smoothed corner, above. I’ll fill it with epoxy/sawdust when I glue all of the joints and shape it to match the rest. Best part is I STILL have not learned to wait until all the pieces are in place before deciding on final trim. Maybe one day…

I did all of the shaping with a rasp, a bit slow and sweaty but any sander worth it’s title wielded by me would, odds-on, see ruined pieces, so hand-work it is.

The original rear rail was let into the arch, so I followed suit and made a router template — seen lying on top of the fuel tank supports — to cut my own. It wasn’t a total disaster, so one for the win column.

Here’s the rail in place. I decided to make this in two pieces as the fit is fussy and confining the fuss to a short piece at the top seemed to be a better idea.

You may remember I moved the bulkhead back an inch to allow a bit more leg room, and decided on this modification at the top of the body frame to match. The original piece was entirely in front of the top pivot. By building it this way, I was able to move the top of the seat backwards three-quarters of an inch, so the seat will be ever-so-slightly more upright. I had to relieve the back of this new piece for the top frame (on here for test fitting and not yet “restored”).

In the “misc” column, here is more weirdness, doubt it’s factory, but who knows. All four fuel-tank supports are like this, triple-folded pieces of steel filled with solder. I mean, my local podunk hardware store has brass, steel and aluminum strip in the right thickness to make these without getting out the torch. I’m mildly tempted to put them back on to let a future restorer puzzle over, but probably will make new,

Random photo to show the trim next to the seat, which on this car does NOT extend backwards into the “luggage” area.