Like a rainbow in the dark

It's been about a month, here's where my free time has gone so far: The kid got braces, the fox that lives in the drainage ditch is back with three new pups (distracting but interesting to watch), we found an old 1966 newspaper with a VW ad in the classifieds stuffed into the wall of the bathroom we tore apart (good news is that it's now nearing completion), we sold a bunch of random stuff that was crowding the garage, got my 2nd COVID vaccine (and did jack shit that weekend) then I went to New York/New Jersey for a week for work.  Came back and fixed a leaking shower valve, installed a hitch receiver on the daily driver for my bike rack...and, two days ago, I finally started on the wire harness install on the VW.  Work has been a real fucking treat - my evening commute usually means I'm either too tired or too apathetic to do anything when I get home so 'projects' only happen on weekends - and replace working on the car.

In the spirit of transparency - it took me two days of laying on my back, removing the steering wheel and two of the three gauges to get the basic part done.  Seems damn near impossible to get anything done on this car without taking five other things off first.

I have to run wires for the accessory gauges from the engine bay, install those gauges and install the electric fuel pump and safety shut off relay.  I guess that'll take another day of me sitting on the floor of the car, scratching my head, mild swearing and a couple of light bulb moments until it's done.  At least I feel like something was accomplished.  For now.

The engine should be coming back shortly - I'd like to have this part done before the engine returns.  I'm almost ready to put the left front fender back on the car but I'm waiting for warmer weather so I don't break the brittle fender beading.  Front fender goes on, front harness gets completed, lights go back, bumper goes back and two big tripping hazards are back where they belong.  I'm trying to finish things from the front to the rear and, so far, it's kinda sorta working.

Drilling out the stripped threads for the right rear suspension is still on the list but I hope to knock that out soon-ish.  I'm trying to stay focused on the wiring task because it's so fucking tedious and if I get distracted by something else - it may be a while before I come back to it.