Resurrecting the Rambler

[Pinballer]

(Early November on the catch-up)
The 1980 blue car has been picked of everything immediately useful and has been laid to rest out back at the Rambler Ranch, AKA Pinball Heaven. Time to get serious on transforming this red '82 Spirit into the '79 AMX model it needs to run as.
Big-time clean-up on the car first just so I can work on it. Both door handles are broke, (every AMC guy is laughing now reading this because ALL AMC's break these flat pot metal door handles), and crawling in and out of the rear hatch, which is electric solenoid operated and also now disabled because there's no battery in the car, is not my preferred method of entry. Ordered a couple new outside door handles, but put a spare useable one I had on the driver door so I could get going on cleaning up the squallid interior. No telling how many cats had kittens in this thing, and the possum leavings and damage are everywhere, even some dashboard pieces are torn up. Spares from the other car will go in though. The animals got in through the shifter hole by chewing away the rubber shifter boot, there's nothing left of it. Before and after interior pics below. Once vacuumed out, an industrial odor-removing chemical for school carpeting disasters was used to get this thing tolerable again. Who said building a car was glamorous??
The engine and trans from the '80 needed a bath real bad so those went to the car wash in the back of the Dakota. That poor truck sees nothing but abuse from me, it's kind of like an old farm truck, but that was it's purpose when I got it for cheap already pre-wrecked in the back. Once the engine and trans are clean, I'll take them to my workplace where it's dry and heated.