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Here's my X back home from the body shop. The nose panel is now show room smooth showing no indication that it had ever been dented. The color doesn't match quite exactly but it's as close as one could reasonably expect. All in all a pretty good job. I guess it's obvious that I still need to replace the bumper, grill & etc.. as well as removing the OEM front marker lights that I had temporally installed for the trip to the body shop. That will give me something to do this winter!
Back on the road for spring! As you can see, all of the bits that I had removed before taking the car in for it's nose job are back in place with the exception of the "BERTONE" lettering. I do plan to replace the lettering but I'm waiting for my son Andy's help to get the images of the letters formatted properly so that the local sign shop can make new letters. Over the winter I also checked valve clearances, changed the transmission fluid (with fancy Redline MT-90), and replaced the belts. Much to my surprise I found that the old timing belt was a tooth off! The bad news is that I can only blame the error on myself as I was the last one to have replaced the belt. The good news is that the engine now revs more freely and is noticeably more powerful. Cool! I drove it to work today & took the long, curvy way home - great fun for a sunny afternoon!
At long last I have the new vinyl B E R T O N E lettering for my X's nose! The hard part was "cutting out" the letters from digital photos that I had taken before the accident. Indeed, this step was too hard for me so my son Andy did this step for me! I took a jump drive with the digital files for the letters to a local sign shop and came out 20 minutes later with the above vinyl letters in hand!
Of course, it's important that the letters be aligned properly. I used a rubbing that I made of the old letters as my guide while installing the new.
With the letters all properly aligned and taped in place it's time to adhere the letters to the car and remove the backing - this is the fun part!
After applying the new letters I gave the car the full Griot's Garage polish and wax treatment. Looks pretty good, don't you think?
We arrived at Mid-Ohio Sports Course for for the 2009 Vintage Grand Prix shortly before the rain. The track was wet and slippery when the other "show cars" and I took our parade lap around the track, so slippery that the MGB that I was following nearly lost it on the back side of the track! The weather soon cleared for an enjoyable afternoon watching the races and a topless drive home...
I often drive my X to work on sunny days and the good folks at Google Earth can help me prove it! Here is their "street view" photo of the pharmacy parking lot.
