After finishing the making of the door panels, it was time for me to install them on the doors of the Dodge. This would involve putting the panel on the door release for support, while lining up the screw holes for the armrest so I can get the armrest in place. This really wasn't that bad since the door release held the panel in place. Once I got the armrest secured with its two screws, I was able to install the metal lever to the door release mechanism to complete both of those components. With the armrest and door release lever in place I was able to then plot the holes that I would drill through both the panel and the door body to place the sheet metal screws and their respective washers to further hold the door panel in place on the door shell. Another thing I had to do was trim the window crank hole to a larger size since the hole wasn't perfectly lined up with the window crank knob. After using a box cutter knife to whittle away material, I enlarged the hole enough to allow me to install the window crank and secure it. This had to be done on both door panels. There was a metal piece that divided the original door panel from the top door panel piece. This long metal piece had to come off to accommodate the homemade door panel since the dimensions of my panels are going to be slightly different. That's fine since these panels are to be temporary anyway. As for the screws, I placed six screws into the panel. There are four screws for the four corners of the panel and two more along the bottom, evenly spaced from the two end screws near the bottom. With these fasteners in place the door panels were nicely secured to the door shells, along with their armrests and door release levers. Everything looked pretty good and the doors even closed with no issue from the panels. The next thing I was able to get done was installing the 2nd pair of headlight housings that I had been waiting for. I got the LED bulbs just as well and since I had the H4 plugs pre-wired, all I had to do was remove the headlight bulb rings and swap out the old sealed beams with the new round housings, which I had already installed the LED bulbs. Plugging the bulbs up and installing, this whole procedure went pretty fast. Of course when I turned the headlights on to the high beam setting the four lights all coming on at the same time were pretty bright. I'm sure this will light up the road pretty good but that's the whole idea. With the headlights done on the car, along with the door panels, the next order of business will be to make templates so I can reproduce the side panels that go in the backseat area under the side windows. These will be similar to the door panels as I have to accommodate armrests and window cranks. I'll do everything just as I did with the door panels and from there, may look at trying to produce other interior panels for the inside of the sails going up to the ceiling as well as a panel to cover for the backseat area to block off the trunk area. Since I'm not going to be installing a back seat any time soon the least I can do is try to build up the interior to make up for this missing piece of the interior to at least try to make the interior of the car look better. Doing these little things will go a long ways towards making the interior of the car more comfortable aesthetically, at least until I can get the right components to complete the interior in the future. I also plan on getting a new wiper motor to replace the weak old wiper motor that's currently in the car. I did get it to work but it was weak and its reliability is very questionable so with the availability of new aftermarket wiper motors for a very reasonable price, I had to just go ahead and replace this item. At this rate there's really not much left to do before I can really put this car on the road comfortably.
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