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A couple of more thoughts on painting and color sanding. Have your various grits of sandpaper in their own containers of water/Dawn soap as you don't want to have grit from a courser paint to get onto a finer one. Also, when spraying a base coat (especially ones with high metallic content) your spray gun direction must always be in same direction from start to finish, e.g. "left to right" (L2R) or "up & down" (U&D) don't mix L2R with U&D. If you sand a base coat, you must re-shoot the base coat. Some BC require clearcoat over them the same same. To shoot another clearcoat the next day or later you should sand with at least a fine paper.

I am looking for a replacement for the Chrome/Stainless drip rail along the roofline. I had to remove all of mine to fix the rust issue a couple of years ago.

The last time I looked you could get rolls of if from many places. Now I can't find anything except for made-to-order muscle car parts.

The pcs over the doors?
I had one bad one, I got a piece from a club member from a sedan and plan to trim it to fit. Another option perhaps?

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Does anyone by chance have a tri-five Chevy sitting out back among the Packards? I am wondering if the reproduction drip rails being made for the tri-fives will work on the 400.
My research indicates that the length is more than long enough but I can not find a good image of the shape of the drip rail.
I think they are both basically a "J" strip but I can not confirm that.

So, no one has a tri-five to measure... go figure. I will get to a car show soon and find one to measure (with permission of course).

Mike Dulinski tells me that these two cables on the wiper pivots are color-coded.
That may have been true a long time ago but not anymore. How do I know which one is which?

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it is the fittings on the ends of the cables that are color coded. One is plain, the other copper. You might see if you can clean and catch any of the original copper plating color.

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the pictured part is for drivers side and the cable near the windshield squirt is the copper colored one on a nos that I have from Randy's collection On old passenger side one the copper is on opposite side of nozzle.

I have three friends that have tri-5 chevys. I'll measure them in the next several days.

The painting has been going very slowly. It is partly the heat and partly due to other projects and mostly to me being a novice.

I finally got a hood and trunk complete. The delay/problem was not so much my painting technique as it was my buffing technique. I had never buffed new paint before. I now have a handle on the buffing and they look great.

I got the fenders painted last weekend but there is no clear coat yet. That will have to wait until next weekend.

I still don't have an answer on the drip rail replacement that I need but have not given it much thougth lately either.

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I have looked at several 56 & 57 chevys and they don't have a chrome drip rail. They have one that is painted and a part of the roof. They have a chrome trim piece that sits under the drip rail.