Time sure flew by really fast and the appointment for painting my car sneaked up on me.  I did make some time to remove the door locks, handles, and radio antenna.  I also drilled holes for and test fitted the moldings that go across my trunk lid and rear quarter end caps.  My skills at drilling holes in a perfectly straight line definitely could use some improvement, but I was able to enlarge and file everything so that it all fit OK.

I chose to drop off my car the night before the appointment based on the weather forecast.  It ended up raining earlier than predicted so I had to drive in a light rain.  That didn’t turn out to be an issue.  Since I had removed the outside rear view mirrors, lane changes were a bit challenging.  And without the door weather stripping the wind noise was pretty bad.  My family followed me in our minivan to give me a ride home.  They commented that my car’s exhaust smelled badly of gas until the car warmed up.  It sounds like I need to do some choke adjustments and carb tuning after I get the car back from paint.  I also noted that the car burned quite a bit of gas on the ride.  I drove about 75 miles and used about half a tank per the fuel gauge.  I don’t know how accurate the gauge is, but I would expect to be able to do a bit better than that.  It probably ties back in to the gas smell my family noted.

I’ll post updates as I receive them from the paint shop.  For now I just need to be patient and wait for the car to be completed.  I was told to expect it back in 2 or 3 weeks.  The date is contingent on how much body work is required after the car is stripped down to bare metal.  You just never know what is hidden under all the primer until you strip it all off.  Hopefully there won’t be any big surprises.  I will just have to wait and see.