A "Captive Nut" is not an incarcerated crazy person

Stuart got my hint the other day and made it by yesterday to help me get the last screw into the second sugar  scoop.  I wasn't happy with the fit of the lens that I had mounted the other day so I took it back off to see what I could do to make it better.  While messing around with it, I managed to break one of the little cages that hold the nuts off of the bodywork.  it was originally spot welded on, but not having a spot welder, I broke out the 2 tubes of structural adhesive, mixed some up and put the little cage back on the body inside of the headlight opening and clamped it.  That's where I quit for the day.
 
Today, I managed to get both of the headlights with gaskets and chrome surround installed today.  It was not an easy task.  There are six machine screws that hold the chrome trim on.  The screws go into some captive nuts around the perimeter of the headlight opening.  Unlike most captive nuts, these are allowed to move around a good bit so that the ill-fitting trim ring and the likewise ill-fitting gasket will still allow the screw to find the nut... in theory.  In actuality, none of it fits.  It is becoming more and more apparent that this car took a substantial hit in the nose at some point in its life.  The gasket (or seal) that I got in the "complete rubber kit" was completely different from what was on the car when I took it apart.  This new one looks much more impressive.  Thick soft foam rubber with little slots where each of the screws is supposed to go.  But the slots don't line up with the screw holes in the bonnet or the holes in the trim rings.  The simple solution is to make bigger slots in the rubber, which I did.  Last night I put some windshield sealer in the slot in the gasket where the glass headlight cover goes.
The covered headlights is one of the most distinctive parts of the Series 1 E-Type so it has to look good.  I thought that this windshield sealer would dry with a firmness that would help hold the glass in the gasket...  wrong.  it just made a gooey mess.  It took a while to clean the glass and every time I touched it, I left another gooey fingerprint.  Anyway, I finally got it all cleaned up and got the first one installed on the bonnet.  I had one already installed the other day, but wasn't able to get all of the screws started so I had to take it back off and run a tap through each captive nut again.  after that, I got lens number one fully installed.  Lens number 2 wasn't as easy.  It took several passes with a tap through the captive nuts, I was afraid that I was going to break the little cage off that I had repaired yesterday...  it held up fine though.  with much struggling, I finally got the second headlight lens, gasket and trim ring installed.  This whole project killed most of my day.

 But I had some more time so I picked up the center section of the instrument panel that I had glued new vinyl on the other day and I got my X-Acto knife and started cutting out the holes where the instruments and switches go.  This project went off without a hitch. It's not totally complete though, I had to fold the two ends up and glue them down and clamp them.  It should be cured completely in a day or so.  In the meantime, I'll replace the vinyl on the right and left sections of the dash.  Man!  There is a lot of stuff to do when you are building a car.

An interesting thing I noticed, obviously done at the factory, the body number of my car, 7559,  as it appears on the ID Plate is written on the back of both the right and left dash panels.