Yesterday I swapped my Grant steering wheel back to a standard B body wheel. That was fun and went well.
A little background is needed about the hood swap before I proceed. I swapped my bulge hood for a ramcharger hood and had it paint to match the car. They also painted the grill area, fenders and blended the doors. I had them paint the black on the interior of the passenger door since there were a thousand paint chips and I had them paint the new driver's side door hing since the doors would be off. There is little evidence that anything was done to protect my baby while ECL had her with the exception of tan masking tape
left on some painted surfaces here and there and the one time when I was there to drop off the hood scoops I saw plastic covering the door openings after the doors were removed; apparently that wasn't very durable.
After I finished swapping the steering wheel I spent several hours cleaning the absolute mess that ECL Body Shop in Moore, OK left. I'm still not done and think I have a sinus infection even though I was wearing a dust mask. There was mold on all of the carpet and a pile of dirt in the driver's floor. The seats and glass were covered in dust as well as the rest of the interior. All of the bare metal surfaces have surface rust, as well as some of the coated hardware. For example, the screws inside the console were brand new before they took the car and now I have to replace them because they are oxidized. How do zinc plated screws inside a covered console get oxidized? My insurance and title docs and case for my reading glasses that were in the console had signs of water damage. WTF??? The car looked and smelled as though it had been in a flood. Thankfully I installed mold resistant sound and heat barrier under the carpet that is aluminum backed on both sides and sealed on the edges.
I had to take the brand new polished aluminum American Racing to a professional metal polisher to have the schmutz removed and polished again at $75 per wheel. The polisher said they were all etched on one side. The front wheels were the worst. The chrome lug nuts are etched, too. A lot of the finishes are dulled under the hood (new brake booster-dull, new master cylinder plated cap-etched, new radiator-dull, MP valve covers-dull, freshly powder coated intake-dull) you get the point. And there is still a lot of clean up left under the hood and under the car. The powder coated suspension components are all now dull and flat black.
I still have a lot of cleaning to go but I don't have the patience or stamina to do it all at once. Here are some photos of what I cleaned and some of the damage they did to the car.
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