well 6gc its finally over.
Our very own Mkernz came through on delivering my radiator tie bar and after a little work I popped it on the car. I cannot say enough good things about Mkernz. Great communication, AMAZING packaging, and I even got the rubber trim! My experience is exactly when 6gc commerce should be. Thanks bud!
anyway, first thing I did with the tie bar was strip off the old finish and hit it with some rustoleum. Next I took the rubber trim and cleaned off the years of grime and soaked it in a mix of water and back-to-black to condition and soften up the rubber. Thankfully the marinating worked and the rubber is like new again

from there I mounted everything onto my car only to realize that I had some more adjustments to make. The hood gap was almost non-existant towards the middle of the bar. I spent an hour and a half pulling on the radiator support to get it perfectly aligned. It turned out that the vertical bar connecting the tie bar to the lower radiator support was too long. What a surprise considering the body guy welded it. No matter, I was still able to finesse everything into the proper spots.
oh does anyone know how to adjust the hood w/o having to remove the fenders? I've already adjusted it as much as I could by messing with the hinges on the hood side. Now I need to get at the other end of the hinges. I was thinking of using some offset wrenches... anyone have any insight?
I'm sorry for the lack of pictures with this update but I'm waiting on day off with good weather to take a proper set of photos. Till then all I have is this picture:

Thank you to everyone who offered advice and motivation through all this. The restoration woulda sucked w/o 6gc!
This post has been edited by enderswift: Sep 18, 2010 - 1:16 PM