Drilled/cut my welds on the handbrake mount and re-did it 1.25 inches higher and about 1/4 inch back so the handle could lay down, so it will look more correct and also not poke the driver's calf muscle. Also cut the brake mechanism slightly to allow the lay-down. The thing had to be mocked up with screws and installed five times with driver's seat to get everything to clear. Also shimmed seat up 3/8ths or so in front. Would be better to cut the rear mounts and lower those a half inch, which maybe this weekend...
All this took 3.5 hours today (my welds were pretty tough). And I started it yesterday...after re-glassing a little patch on the inside of the hood because when I took the hood off for final paint prep I found a new, almost invisible crack coming from the fuel filler hole. After glassing the inside I flipped it over to do some kitty hair on the top and, after V-ing it out a bit discovered:
Turns out it was the plug the PO made for the previous fuel filler hole....the one Thunder Ranch pre-cut in the hood to make everything easy.
So looks like I'll be laying up a little more glass this weekend and final finish on the hood will have to wait a while for it to cure.
Pisses me off... I glassed what I thought was the only hairline crack in that hood and skimmed the inside with Fibral in the summer of 2017, and figured I had it licked. That hood's been opened and closed about 1500 times since then to fit the fuel filler and the gas tank and the hood pins and the latch. No sign of a crack until now.