Some Assembly Required – Waiting Between Concours

I don’t have a lot of material to work from for this article, as I have basically been somewhat inactive for
the last 2 months, waiting between concours. But I do have a few stories to tell. One deduction that I
received at the concours in DC was that the bonnet chrome trim strips didn’t intersect well where they
met the headlight chrome trim. This was a valid comment, as the last inch of the beads was raised above
the profile of the bonnet by a small amount. The fix was to add an additional securing clip at the very
end of the trim. Unfortunately, to reach this area required taking the headlight glass and bulb out, for
access. I always dread taking the glass out because it always seems like those little screws that hold the
glass/rubber/chrome “sandwich” together are just holding on at the limits of their capabilities. If you
ever strip out the small captive nuts that secure the screws, you will know you are having a bad day.
They are not easy to repair. But the disassembly was required and so it was done.

If you’ve ever secured this trim, you know that the clip that secures them is a strip of brass, folded into a
circle at one end, with two parallel legs. Kind of like a cotter pin. In the subject spot, you are very close
to the headlight bucket and the standard brass piece has to be shortened to allow it to fit. Once
installed, you spread the two legs of the strip, again kind of like a cotter pin. I got that part done and
patted myself on the back, so to speak. Of course, during this effort small bits of debris had collected on
the sugar scoop. Debris on the sugar scoop is my nemesis. It appears from nowhere, especially when
you are preparing your car to look its best. I had had some success in the past blowing compressed air
into the space. I decided to take this a step further. If your sugar scoops are like mine, there is a small
gap between their top edge and the bonnet. For reference, directly below are the horns and the wiring
harness for the front lights. There is also a small oval access opening to this cavity, that you can
see/reach through the bonnet front opening. I had in the past put my compressed air gun into this
opening and just blasted the whole space. This was actually surprising effective. I decided to take this to
a new level and install a dedicated plastic hose for this purpose. In general I jammed a length of clear plastic hose into the top space of the sugar scoop. You can see it if you stoop down and look but it is not visible from a casual glance. The other end is left a little long and tucked into the cavity, next to the access opening. This end can be pulled out when you want to use it to direct an air blast into the headlight area. It helps if you tip the bonnet up while doing this. I did a demonstration video at the time, which can be viewed at https://youtube.com/shorts/ho23vDu8GEE. More importantly, as I got my car ready for the Richmond concours, sure enough, there was a new piece of debris right in the middle of the sugar scoop. A blast from my new “air hose extender” moved it out of sight. Of course, it is probably lurking nearby and will descend right when we begin the Operational Verification check. It is truly a game of Whack a Mole!