"AfterGlass" - One Door Panel and One Dash Panel

Finally,  some visual progress! After adjusting the door glass, I was finally able to start installing some interior again... and got some work done on the right side. I did run into a few issues, though. First, even though the dash pad and the dash panel were made by the same company,  and purchased at the same time (7 years ago), they didn't match up so well. I had to redrill holes in the lower left pad and used finishing washers to prevent the screws from going through the vinyl all the way. Looks a little odd,  and maybe it's supposed to be done that way, I don't know -I've never seen the dash installed. Nor the door panels.

But, here I am having the right panels installed. Happy for me!

CentOS 7, Pidgin, and OTR

I recently upgraded to CentOS 7 for my desktop (probably a mistake, but that's what I do). I ran into a problem - I couldn't find the OTR plugin. I checked the EPEL repos - and I couldn't find what I needed. I could find the pidgin-otr-debuginfo RPM, but not the straight pidgin-otr plugin. Hrrrm. I need the plugin, so here's how I got it. http://rpm.pbone.net/ is a great little resource for finding packages from other distributions, so I ran out there and grabbed the libotr, libotr-devel, and pidgin-devel packages for RedHat EL7. I needed a couple of other packages that are available in the standard CentOS repository to give me the requisites, so fired off the following :

yum install libpurple-devel.x86_64 libgcrypt-devel.x86_64 gtk2-devel.x86_64

I then installed the pilfered RPM's grabbed through rpm.pbone.net :

rpm -ivh libotr-4.0.0-4.el7.x86_64.rpm libotr-devel-4.0.0-4.el7.x86_64.rpm pidgin-devel-2.10.9-1.el7.x86_64.rpm

Once I had the basics down, I needed to grab the source code for the plugin. I grabbed this from https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/ (the "OTR plugin for Pidgin" download). I extracted it, and ran through the normal compilations :

tar -xzf pidgin-otr-4.0.0.tar.gz
cd pidgin-otr-4.0.0/
./configure
make

Then as root :

make install

However, upon restarting pidgin and checking "Tools" -> "Plugins", I couldn't see the "Off-The-Record" plugin showing up. I reviewed the results of the make install, and found it installed to /usr/local/lib/pidgin/. So, I copied the files in place :

cp /usr/local/lib/pidgin/pidgin-otr.* /lib64/pidgin/

I restarted pidgin again to get it to pick up the changes, and viola!

Corvette Door Glass Finally Adjusted

Amazing what you can do when you aren't plagued by tree removal, then stump removal, then hole digging (by hand, not by auger or even shovel), and then fence building.  We finished our fence last week (but couldn't do much as we had a holiday up in northern Idaho around the Wallace/Osburn area), and that project freed up quite a bit of stress and "can't do because of a fence" demotivation.

So, with the fence out of the way, I was finally able to finish probing the electrical.  I knew I had to replace the power window regulator, which I had already ordered.  A screw and two plugs later (this is why the dash isn't installed - it was really easy to get to it without any panels), I connected the battery and pulled the door glass out (it was sitting there on top of the railings, and would have shattered if left in while working switches).  Once out, I checked the motors - the drivers' side was perfect.  I re-installed the glass, getting it into the right position, and everything came to a grinding halt when I realized....

... the painter from years ago and introduced a problem I had worked around, and the glass didn't fit evenly with his newly installed door panel.  [sigh].  I again made more adjustments, and pulled out the window felt strips I had adjusted earlier.  I made added adjustments, and reinstalled them, then reinstalled the window again, only to pull it back apart and made more adjustments to the window felt.  A couple of times doing this, I called it as good a compromise as I could get, and reinstalled the window glass once last time.  I ran some adjustments (luckily I have the AIM manual that had instructions, though I do know the Factory Service Manual has better instructions).

I had to redo the windshield chrome trim on the passengers' side - but once that was out of the way, the window was adjusted in 5 minutes.

So, it's time to start putting the interior together.  I run out and grab the door panels I've had squirreled away before I sent the car to the paint shop, about 6 years old - never installed to the car.  I never thought of things like this - I figured they'd be nice and stable.  Not so - they WARPED and don't fit:

Considering I'd love this car to be perfect, I was curious to see what it would cost to replace them.  Curiousity kills the car (not the cat) so I load up Ecklers to check prices.... $440/side.  There's no way I can mentally accept an $880 payment when we're trying to save for an adoption.  It's unacceptable.  So, the next step is to put the door panels on the back porch for a while with some weights on them to see if I can straighten them out.  That will be a HUGE step toward finishing the interior off.  I'll get there, though.  A little at a time.