Today we said our final goodbyes to this young man, my son Steven. He passed away on the 30th of May after suddenly and unexpectedly
suffering a heart attack on 21 May.
Those of you who have met him, will know that he was a pretty unique guy, I think you’ll admit, and I don’t have enough words to pay
tribute. He was everything that any dad could want his son to be, and more. He was a husband, a brother, an uncle, and a friend to so
many. He was always friendly, always positive, he was clever and silly and funny and serious, and my heart is bursting with pride that
my boy grew up to be the man he was.
We have been overwhelmed by the the number of messages and memories we have received, and even his typically silly stories. On his last
journey today, we stopped outside his beloved Livingston Football Club, where he has been a loyal supporter since before his teens,
even setting up a supporters' website and message board when he was only 11 or 12. Today the staff and players came out to pay their
respects, along with what seemed like hundreds of other friends and family members who were unable to attend the funeral itself because
of Covid.
He has touched so many lives in so many ways, big and small. No-one has a bad word to say about him. At the end of the day, what more can
you ask for?
Except for more days...
I have argued with myself about posting this here - it seems awfully self-indulgent. However, coming from a man who has a huge website
dedicated solely to his silly wee car, self-indulgence shouldn't be a consideration. So here it is.
You might remember (but probably don't) that in my last update last October, I mentioned that the paint was falling off in chunks and that
I really need a garage - and until then, I'm not paying a fortune to get the car resprayed. Well, that last winter hasn't been any kinder,
so some of the affected paint areas just look terrible.
So to occupy my time, I decided a couple of weeks ago that I was going to tidy them up a bit so that the car looks presentable stationary
from 20 feet away, rather than moving past at 40 feet like it does now. I'm going to rub the worst bits down and rattle-can spray it!
So first, the car passenger door. Unfortunately I forgot to take "before" photos, but most of the paint from the front of the door handle,
back to the edge of the door, came off with a screwdriver in 2-inch chunks (that's 50mm for our non-American readers). It took with it
about 1/4 inch of filler - why do US restorers do that? I've seen some programmes where they just automatically cover the whole car in a
layer of filler and then sand it down to something approaching the cars original shape...
At this stage, it's obvious that the handle is going to have to come off, if I'm going to be able to make a half-decent job of this. And so
commences a battle to remove the internal armrest, then the window and door handles and the internal window frame and door trim. After that,
there's a metal plate screwed into the door aperture, and then finally I can see the screws that hold in the door handle!
They're difficult to reach, but not too rusty, so at least they come out. I've worked on cars 6 years old, not 60, with more rusted screws
than this...
So after a good rub down with various grades of sandpaper then wet&dry, I mask off the surrounding trim and give it a couple of coats of primer.
Another rub down with finer wet&dry, to get it all nice and smooth...
followed by a couple of top coats, applied nice and thin to prevent runs. It's not exactly brilliant but it's better than it was. It'll be
better after it has been polished down a bit after the paint has hardened.
Then it's all about putting the handle back on, and re-assembling the inside of the door.
A couple of days later, it's the turn of the driver's door, where the filler had cracked off around the door handle (because one of the screws
was loose) and also around the door mirror (again mainly around the mounting screws. Same routine of dismantling the door to get the door handle
off - at least I'm getting better at it!,
I also unearth some filler that had been used to fill a couple of small dents, which I suspect is where the mirror mounting screws were originally
- the mirror is now about 2 inches further back from where I think it was before. Those need a little smear of filler to bring them up level with
the door, before priming and painting.
Finally (for now anyway) the paint is blistering around the bottom corner of the back window. This corner was leaking water into the car until
I managed to re-seal it, but the water has obviously got under the paint in that same place. Again, after I have scraped off the loose blistered
paint, the car underneath doesn't look too bad.
Again, run down throughly with a sanding block (and a multi-tool!) and fire on a couple of coats of primer...
another wee rub-down...
and a couple of coats of paint.
At least today I had the sense to work under the shade of the garage door - the last few days I've been working outside and managed to get
sunburnt...
So there we are - at least the car looks reasonably presentable. I'll have to give the new paint a bit of rubbing compound and a polish just to
bring the shine up a bit, but it's a significant improvement on what it looked like before. We'll see if it lasts!
