Day 9 ~ Last Prep. for Final Cuts

   As usual, things took a little longer than I expected, but we're good to go on the cutting tomorrow. I got the rest of the harness out of the way along the left inner fender support area, the windshield trough, and the dash area. I also cleaned out the wiper motor and assembly, computer, and cabin air intake from that windshield trough area just to make sure I don't mess anything up when the blades go flying in there soon.

  The dash took me a while to lower out of the way too. Just like engines the first time around, there always ends up being something else holding it up. A few connectors and harness straps needed to be removed, but the stupid part about the thing that I couldn't see for some reason was that 3-bolt dash support that bolts to the left inside A-pillar. I suppose I could have read that in the Bentley manual, but then I'd have wasted a bunch of time reading all the other steps that had already been done before I got the manuals. Something in Mark's pictures on the facebook cutting album and his blog reminded me of this piece, and sure enough once that was gone I could gently lower the dash enough to get out of my way for the cuts.

   As I'm sitting here typing I just remembered a part of the inner dash cut that I didn't mark, but other than that I'm ready to hack up the front end and most of the rear. There's still a question for me on the rear final cut, but I'll have to call Mark tomorrow on that.

NOTE: I knew I'd watched some of these before, but as they didn't make much sense to me without the thing in front of me, I'd long forgotten they existed until today. Thanks to JLP's build blog that I've read through several times, I noticed the link to Mark Smith's video's on YouTube. These provided great clarity and confidence now that I've actually gotten there. I will also post links in my sidebar for this purpose. Had I watched these last week, I could be a bit farther along. Not too far though, as usually I find plenty to do to keep going.

   Well tomorrow I'm off to start my day tracking down a reciprocating saw I can borrow as my own hasn't turned up. Due to the regular knowledge of inventory and location of all my tools, I'm beginning to believe my wife who thinks I didn't actually buy one, just shopped for it. Well, if my neighbor doesn't have one, I'm off to Fayetteville to go get one. It's okay really as I'll probably need a couple more blades anyway. Just bummed I didn't remember them right after work today. I guess that's the banes of living way out of the big cities. Maybe I'll get a good bike ride in. Been really missing that lately. = )