Triumph Sports Cars

Seasons greetings to all ...

Been more than a few years since I've posted here, but thought it was about time I chimed in :-)

Am finally back at the point I can focus on getting the (once)-lovely Mrs. Peel back on the road. After a couple of moves -- from Honolulu to Las Vegas to Palm Springs and on to SE Alabama, I'm finally at a place where I can put her back together on on the road. For those of you who missed earlier posting, here are the Cliff's note. Moved from Hawaii to Vegas with Mrs. Peel -- a '76 Spit -- I'd had shipped to LA. Decided I didn't want to drive her to Vegas myself, so I had a company to ship it there for me. Was supposed to take a couple of days; ended up being more than a week with the non-English-speaking transport guys offering no explanation as to why it was late. Anyway, about a week later, the engine -- which had run fine in Honolulu -- blew up, and I needed to find a mechanic (in a place where know no one) to get it fixed. Finally found a crazy Aussie who t convinced me he could install a Miata engine/transmission in place fo the ol' 1.5L and have it on the road in a couple of month. Months turned to several years and he was unable to complete the task (although it was somewhat diriveable, so I finally had it flat-bedded to Paln Springs (where I'd move in the interim). Married my long-suffering girlfriend in the meantime, and we moved to Alabama, where her daughter, son-in-law and my now step grandkids live (this was in late 2020). We bought an awesome house with a 2-car garage plus separate two-car garage/shop, where Mrs. Peel has sat while I took care of various other renovation jobs, chief among them insulating and drywalling floors and ceilings on both floors, insalling shelving and wood benches, and fabicating some fixed stairs up to the low, peaked-ceiling shop loft, where I've got a rowing machine, a flat screen, a dorm-room sofa and some tables, lamps, etc.. Now that all that's done, it's time to fix Mrs. Peel ...

Now to the present: I have since gutted the instrument panel, as the nice custom koa-wood dash I had done had seen better days (FWIW, I had the center section done with add'l openings for oil and volt gauges. Turned out awesome when new but it had suffered from the Las Vegas summer heat and sun. Anyway, I'm in the process of having the dash redone here by a local guy who does marine work. In the meantime, I've re-carpeted the interior and fitted most of the other vinyl bits from the doors back (except for the door panelss, as I still have to install both sets of window seals).

That takes us to the present. Now, I have a question: bought a pair of the inner windows from Spitbits and the metal part on each end extends further than the fuzzy seal material. Seems pretty easy to fit the outer seals (I fabricated a flat metal hook to cinch up the clips) but an unsure how to fit the inner seals. Can anyone help me catch up with the rest of the class? I don't recall encountering this confusion when I did the first restoration 20 years ago ... I