The hood has been sat at the paintshop waiting to come back, and they rang me yesterday and asked if they could drop it off today. It was due late morning so after I dropped Poppy to school I came home and tidied up a bit so I could put it straight on. I'd bought some heater hose in the week so I pulled the temporary loop off and drained the system out before I fitted it. With it all filled up I started it and let it heat up. No problems, so thats another part done.

When the hood arrived, I bolted it loosely in place to see how badly out it was. The drivers side sat about an inch too high for some strange reason, and after loosening and repositioning it all it still did. I pressed down on the hood corner and it dropped into place. After some investigation, I found the hinge was very badly worn so I'll have to push the back down when I close it for now. After a bit of shimming, it sat as equally as I could get it so I tightened it all up and took the latch assembly off to see what was up with it. After ten minutes or so of cleaning and oiling, it works perfectly and locks up securely. I also bolted down the bottom of the striker plate which was a nightmare as its behind the intercooler. A quick polish of the chrome trim and the bird and they were ready to re-fit. The bird is pretty bad, but it still looks good.

With decent weather on my side, I pushed the car out and finished off the last of the Dynamat in the boot. I also got the front screen down and gave it a good clean up with a razor blade and thinners. It's covered in scratches that look like they came from the wipers, and is generally pretty tired. With it as clean as I could get it I left it balanced in place and found the trim for the front. This was in a really bad way when I got the car, and I hadn't helped by bending it when I took it off. I hammered out the worst of the dents, and gave it all a good polish up. It was completely the wrong shape now as it had been squashed too when I stored it. Theres a lesson for me there somewhere. It took a fair bit of bending and re-shaping to get it to fit.

I lay the screen on my lap and fitted the rubber seal to it then test fitted the trim. With a few more tweaks it fitted perfectly and I put the screen in place ready to have it fitted. I also fitted the rubber for the rear screen and put that in place as well. I havent put the rear trim clips on yet, and I've read that it's better to use more than they supply in a kit so will find the old ones and give them a clean up to fit too. I also put the two rear quarter windows in, so once the screens are in it's all done. I'd arranged for a car glass fitter to do them both, but he hasnt shown up after I've rung him twice. Will find another one who can be bothered to turn up.

I picked up the new glass in the week, so the plan was to fit some of it this weekend. I put the rear quarter in when I took the glass in there that night, and I decided to get the rear screen down to compare the tint. I pushed it out on Saturday and carefully lifted the rear screen down from where it had sat in the roof for the last two years. I didn't want to risk cracking the glass so I got the new seal out and fitted it before resting it on the car. Not sure if it's on the right way round but it's not fitted yet so it doesn't matter too much. With the car safely back in the garage i started to carefully bend the fur channels into shape. It's harder to do than it looks, and I managed to get one side perfect and the other at a slightly different angle.

Not the end of the world, just annoying. I had pinched an old inner tube from the garage across the road from work so cut a strip to put in the glass channel to hold it tight. It's a tight fit to get the new glass in at the back, but after a bit of careful moving about I got it in place and tested the window. Worked perfectly, so screwed the channel in place and had a go at the front. This all went a bit wrong when I kinked the channel, but I managed to straighten it back out and work from the other end to hide the damage. I popped the vent in temporarily too and there it was, one side glazed. Apart from the window winder mechanism being badly worn it's all good.

The last bit of the wiring that needed to go in was the central locking, and an alarm. I wanted to make sure that the motors did not get in the way of the window mechanisms, so I dug the old glass out to fit temporarily to check. The glass channel on the front door has two brackets that are riveted in, and one of them had broken off. The glass had to come out of the channel to put it back on, and there was a crack in the window so I carefully ran a knife through the existing seal and tried to cut it loose. It wouldn't shift, even when I tried to melt it out with the heat gun so I had no choice but to carefully prise it off. It cracked some more, but stayed in one piece so I taped it up to keep it together and tacked the bracket back on. I wedged the glas in with some cardboard and fitted it back in the door. Windows! For the first time in years.

With that done, I positioned the motor where I thought it should go then marked and drilled it. I clamped it all up to test it before going any further, and after a few little adjustments it worked perfectly. I drilled the other hole for it and that was one done, three to go. The back door was a bit more awkward but worked fine after testing it. The one thing that was worrying me was getting the wiring from the body to the door as they are such a wide opening. I decided to go for it and drilled two holes and fed the lock wires through along with speaker wires. I heatshrunk it to hold it together as one lump, and fitted grommets into both holes. It needed to be bent down a little so that it stayed in the door frame area when it closed, but apart from that works perfectly. I did the same on the back door wiring, and fitted the other two motors using the measurements from the other doors. The front passenger door lock needed another clean up to work smoothly, and the rear drivers side is sticking too so that will need a clean when I turn the car round. Just the other two door looms and I can hang up my soldering iron for a while.