I went out this morning determined to get the timing set up on the Jeepster.  I got so into it that I neglected to take many pictures.  I did take this one.  I was very proud of getting the dwell dead on at 40°.  There is only one problem, the dwell is supposed to be 30°.  I don’t know where I got 40° from but I had to do everything over again.

I tried to take some pictures of timing mark but the timing light really seemed to confuse the camera on my phone.  Anyway the end result was the car idles at 600 rpm at 30° at 5° BTDC.  The idle is a little rough, I will have dink with the mixture.   Some other time though.  Adjusting the dwell means working with an Allen wrench in a blind hole about 2 inches from the cooling fan.   I was ready to do something else for a while.

Let’s put the back seat in.  I backed the car out and put the top down for easier access.  Top goes down just fine.

These two bolts were in welded nuts behind that hole you see back on the side of the wheel well.  Obviously for seat belts.  But I will need two more.  A hardware store run!  Sounds like a job for a Jeepster!

Again I did not take pictures.  This was the first time I have gone more than 1/2 mile from the house and the first time in 3rd gear.  The best part was when I hit about 35 mph and the wind raised a mini tornado of rusty dust inside the car.  It must have looked pretty funny from outside.  I was too busy getting crap out of my eyes while driving to appreciate it.

The transmission pops out of first gear about half the time and once the engine is really warmed up it seems to have a low speed miss.  I will have to check compression again and see if there is still a ring sticking or something.  Anyway I got my hardware, put 10 gallons of gas in the car and came home.

The seat is easy to bolt in.  The front two bolts are hidden under the seat and take a little fooling around to line up.  But no problems.

The pile of parts I got with the car included a box of seat belts removed from some late 70s or early 80s GM cars.  Some were damaged but I scrounged this set together.  There are already belts in the front seat.

Well that looks good.  Or does it?  What is up with that middle seat belt?

The first time I connected the seat belt the button stuck.  Hitting it would break it loose, but I had another one of these in my box of goodies so I swapped it out.

About then my wife Maria got home so I took her for her first Jeepster ride.  Of course as soon as I told her how great it was running I flooded it and had to dive under the hood to force the choke open.  But we had a nice ride.

One side effect from my hardware run was I realized how hard it is to carry small stuff in the Jeepster.  Anything that falls on the floor is going to end up on the street.  The glove box is unsound.  So where do you put stuff? So  decided to install the console.

The console was missing the latch for the compartment in the console.  But I found a new one.  The latch was not working well I cleaned it out and lubricated it.

That worked.  Console is good.

Then this happened.  I will have to take the driver’s seat out to put the console it.  Not today.  I got sucked into another job I want to finish.

I started cleaning up the two window cranks I took off the back and decided to go ahead and clean all the handles.  They were covered with goop.  I cleaned them with fine steel wool and kerosene first then chrome polish then finally a coat of wax.

Shiny!  I did some other chrome bits as well.

Now the door panel looks like crap.  Oh well, baby steps.

The chrome thing can be another job that goes on forever.  I just kept going and started cleaning the window frames.  They ranged from ratty to deplorable.

Some of the chrome cleaned up really nice.

And some of it did not.  There is really not any chrome left here.  But I can’t fix this today.  I cleaned the glass, put the top up, and put the car away.  The stupid top will not go up by itself.