Having too many vacation days at work is never a bad thing, especially when you have a deadline to use a good number of them by. I’m in that position right now, and as a result I’m pretty much taking every Friday off for the next six weeks. While I have been using that time for lots of things, I spent a few hours yesterday working on the car.

A few days ago a neighbor stopped by with his hot rod, and when I was looking over his car, I noticed he had a storage bag mounted on the rear of his cockpit in the car. I talked to him about it, and how he’d done it, and decided it would be handy on my car as well.

The bag is basically a small storage bag that I picked up at a local Army/Navy store. Its got a couple large pockets and a flip-top.

The large pocket is in the back, but the front flap opens with spaces for pens and things like ID cards and whatnot. The bag itself is heavy-duty cotton canvas, and the pocket is “weatherproof”.

The bag had a shoulder strap, which I removed, and a large hoop on the back, presumably to use with a belt. I cut two small holes an inch and a half apart and crimped two 1/4″ brass eyelets onto the strap.

I decided I wanted the bag on the rear of the cockpit between the seats. I had originally thought of bolting it flat onto the console, but it made the console feel crowded. I also wanted to keep it below the rear storage box. If the car didn’t have the rear storage, this would be a great option for the rear of the cockpit in general. To mount the bag to the car, I drilled two holes an inch and a half apart and set two 1/4″ rivnuts into the panel between the transmission tunnel and the rear wall.

The bag bolted in looks good, and fits in well with the interior of the car. It’ll be handy for storing sunglasses and things like that. Its not secured storage, but that is what the trunk is for (and possibly the rear storage box, if I put a locked door on it.

The two bolts can be seen holding the bag to the car, if the bag is pulled slightly to the side.

I also spent nearly two hours working on wiring the center console. I don’t know what my problem was, I managed to screw it up and have to redo it twice, and like all the wiring in the car I really am not happy with the result, but it works. The 12v outlet and the climate control is all working. The seat heater switches I left not hooked up, as I don’t need them at this point and the seats don’t have the heaters in them yet anyway.

I will likely redo this at some point, although I’m resisting the urge to just replace all the wiring in the car.

I also spent a bit of time on the alarm system in the car, but those details don’t get posted on here, for obvious reasons.

I’ve confirmed the passenger valve cover is definitely leaking oil, which really annoys me considering it wasn’t leaking as much before it got “fixed” by Fortes. I’ll either replace the gasket myself or bring it back down there one of these Fridays to get fixed. Its not terrible, it just leads to some smoking from the header when I first start the car. I had an e-mail conversation with Mike Forte the other day, as well, and he thinks I probably didn’t fix the transmission leak — as I said, I thought the leak could’ve been between the top plate and the riser in the mid-shift unit, and he says its almost definitely there, not in the seal of the midshift to the transmission. Next week I need to call him and find out what the fix is for it. Thankfully neither of these leaks is particularly messy, or at least is a localized mess unlike the original oil leak.