So, to bring things up to date;
The seats have arrived from Cobra and they look great. I'm really pleased with the textured vinyl and the colour as well as the custom embrodery. All in all I was a very happy boy (even if I nearly turned purple getting the box into the back of the car to take it to the workshop!).
So, the next step was to get them in the car.
I bought 4 M8 threaded studs online and then ground one end sharp using the bench grinder. With these screwed into the base mounting holes of the seats, I put them into the car and carefully scribbed some guide lines from side to side and then from front to back in the position I wanted the seats (basically as far back as possible due to my 6'2" frame). Then, taking these marks as reference plus the actual measured spacing of the mountings measured off the seats, I marked out my 4 location hole centres. I quick buzz with the drill and the spiked studs were then able to guide the seats into place.
At the moment the holes are only through the floor of the body and further reinforcement will be needed, but this will do for now to allow the makers of the roll cage to see where the seats go and make sure the cage doesn't interfere and that the harness pick-up on the rear tube is also at the right height.
So all was going very well until I had a couple of bits of luck (not sure if good or bad luck just yet).
First, I came back to the workshop to find that a huge chunk of ceiling plaster had fallen on the Corvette (!). It had come down on the seat and screen area but the combination of the car cover and the plastic bag on the seat itself meant the seat survived unscathed. The car cover wasn't quite so lucky and now has a 6" tear in it which I'm planning to fix with some tent repair products.
The second thing was that my other classic got in the way both physically and figuratively.
My other classic is a '56 Studebaker Golden Hawk also needing restoration. It was going to be a little more on the back burner while the Corvette was got underway. The only trouble is that it sits between the Corvette and the exit from the workshop and despite having run (briefly) on arrival from Florida, now that I needed to be able to back it out it refused to go...
Long story short, I figured out that the fuel pump was to blame, probably not helped by the draining of all fuel from the tank and hence a load of c#4p getting sucked into it.
I have no idea why I'm smiling as the offending pump in my hand had taken a good few hours of my time to identify as the guilty culprit (thanks to Connie for turning the key whilst I had my head under the bonnet to figure things out!).
So after a little bit of thought I decided that rather than try and get a refurb kit for the pump (and helicoil a damaged mounting screw hole) I would be much better off to fit an electric pump.
A few auctions on ebay later and I had all the parts I needed and a quick installation on the Studebaker was rewarded by the sound of a V8 getting a plentiful supply of petrol!
So we are back to where I thought I was about a month ago ready to call up the Cage manufacturers and get a date to drop the Corvette off; though I still have to fix the winch on the trailer.... Still, can't feel down in the mouth as I just have to click on the movie to hear that v8 sound :-)
