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loving Radial T/As. That's what this car came with. I never really took notice before, but after having owned a set, it seems like they're loving EVERYWHERE on classic iron. Seems like if something pre 1980 isn't wearing BFG T/As, it's probably wearing Cooper Cobras. I'm a bit of a sucker for RWLs though and I'm debating doing my COMP-2s with a paint pen or something  .
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Feb 8, 2016 23:09
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Cold as a witch's titty and still went out anyway. Don't wanna go nuts spending money on parts yet, but labor's free, right? First task of the day: have wife help put hood back on. Done.  It's a car again! Rear passenger corner still sits kinda high but I've got the hinge all the way down in the slots, so I dunno. Whatever. It latches. Now that it's all back together again, let's rip the loving interior apart! Had to take the front seat out first to allow myself to really get at the rear seat. Bit of a pain in the dong wrestling it out the door myself, but it came out easily enough. Rear seat put up a pretty good fight, though. There's these little clips on the floor that a wire on the seat slides and locks into. You push the bottom of the seat cushion down a bit and back towards the rear of the car and then lift to clear the clip. Holy poo poo those fuckers didn't want to come out. Ended up pushing with my legs and using a pry bar. Got it out though. Left the back cushion in place for now. Roomy.  Carpet was next. Take the sill panels off and it basically just pulls out. Adhesive didn't put up much of a fight after 40+ years. Carpet's pretty crusty and I think there's some mold on the rear section. Gross.  Gave it a good vacuuming once the carpet was out. Found 20 cents, 3 12 gauge shells (plus one spent shell), and an old teaberry gum wrapper that looks like it might from the original owner.  Then spent the next hour or so with a putty knife and a screwdriver ripping out most of the old underlayment. Got it all out with exception of the front foot wells. There's still some adhesive residue that I want to get rid of before I throw some paint down. What do you guys suggest for that? Wire wheel? Next weekend's looking better and better as far as temperature goes, so I might get some paint down on Sunday. We'll see how that goes. Happy Valentine's Day melon farmers.
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Feb 14, 2016 21:04
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That's a great looking car 
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Feb 14, 2016 21:12
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:There's still some adhesive residue that I want to get rid of before I throw some paint down. What do you guys suggest for that? Wire wheel? Try kerosine. Awesome car! 
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Feb 14, 2016 22:32
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ShittyPostmakerPro posted:Try kerosine. If you can get it, dry ice works loving great, as does biodiesel. Neither is toxic, and the dry ice doesn't even need cleanup. Just make sure to have adequate ventilation.
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Feb 14, 2016 22:37
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I thought the dry ice was great for the solid bitumen sound deadening, but it's less effective on the lovely residue it leaves behind. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hJbzCSWdN0 at 9 minutes. (PS this is a great project video log) Depending on the residue, ethanol or citrus 'label remover' may work better. Window tint residue comes off great with oven cleaner. Good luck. Pomp and Circumcized fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Feb 14, 2016 |
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Feb 14, 2016 23:40
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I'd rather not stink up my garage with kerosene or diesel fuel so I'll drop 5 bucks on a bottle of Orange Goo Gone. Still looking around online to see if there are any other ideas.
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Feb 16, 2016 02:03
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There's always just "heat gun and scraper" which works pretty well on any adhesive, just time consuming.
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Feb 19, 2016 22:51
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Man, this thing is loving gross. Pulled the back cushion out of the car so I could really get up in there and clean this poo poo up. 40 plus years of dust and dirt and other nastiness was waiting for me. Not a lot of air movement under the seats so once it works its way in, it doesn't really come back out on its own. Opened up the doors and trunk and plopped a box fan inside to try to at least keep the air moving out of the car and then I blasted the whole loving thing with the air compressor. Process was: - Blast the poo poo out of everything with the air compressor. Wait multiple times for the tiny loving thing to refill. - Scrub everything down with a dry scrub brush and parts brush. Just knocking poo poo loose. - Hit it all again with the compressor. - Simple green and the brushes again. - Wipe it down with shop towels and blast any still wet spots with the compressor. Forgot to get a good before picture, but this is after the initial blast all over and a dry scrub on the right side. Even the dry brush went a long way.  Once I got all that done, I tried the Goo Gone on the adhesive residue on the floor. This stuff kicks rear end. It's knocking the poo poo loose after a few seconds. Cleaned up the area that's normally under the back seat and called it a day for today. Didn't grab any pictures of how it looks now, but I'll get some tomorrow. Supposed to be another lovely day so I'll probably be out there for most of it.
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Feb 21, 2016 04:17
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Progress! Didn't really get as much time in the garage as I'd really wanted, but I was out there for about four hours or so. Got the rest of the underlayment out and cleaned up with the Goo Gone. drat near killed the whole bottle, but it was absolutely worth the $4.50. Heat gun helped make short work of the actual underlayment. Once it was all cleaned up and vacuumed out, I snagged a couple pictures to compare to the one in the previous post.   After another good vacuuming and blow out, I hit it the back bulkhead and floor under the rear seat with some acetone as a final cleaning step. Then came the paint.  Set up the heater in the car and let the paint dry. It was colder on Sunday than originally called for, so that kinda sucked. Now, through the process of pulling the carpet and seats and whatnot out of the car, I'd pulled out some of the hard trim pieces as well. Door sill plates, B-pillar covers, and the trim pieces next to the rear seat. These were all just as nasty as the rest of the interior pieces so I figured I might as well clean those up while there out of the car. No sense putting dirty pieces back in a clean(ish) car. Overall, the sill plates are in good shape, but they're just overall kinda nasty. Paint is still pretty good in the logos and the rivets are still strong. As far as I can tell, the sill plates are NLA for the sedans. You can get repros for the 2-doors, but if mine ever need replaced, I think I'm SOL. Hit them with the Simple Green and my trusty scrubby pad. It's like a really big softer Scotchbright pad. Before and after:   Didn't get any pictures of the B-pillar covers or the other trim, but I'll probably end up painting all that anyway since I can't find replacements in black anywhere. I'll try to remember to take better pictures then because I'm kinda bad about it. I tend to focus more on the work and not on the photography. Oh well. Next weekend doesn't look great for paint, but I've still got lots of poo poo to do out there as far as cleaning and stuff goes. Until then.
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Feb 22, 2016 19:12
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I'M SO BAD AT PICTURES. gently caress. We actually hit 60 today so I figured it'd be a good day to finish getting the paint down on the floor. Just gotta wait for it to dry now.  Before I finished that up, however, I pulled out the rear package tray and sail panels. The package tray will be getting painted and the sail panels will get covered with the extra material that comes with the headliner I'll be ordering. Now, the B-pillar and rear side trims had me a little worried. I've looked drat near everywhere for replacement panels for sedans and I can't find poo poo. I eventually came to the conclusion that I'd probably have to paint them. I cleaned them up the best I could and hit them with some Krylon Fusion. It's supposed to 'bond' to plastic so I figured that was probably my best bet. I hit them with paint yesterday and in all honesty, I'm super happy with them. I've got a while before they're going to go back in so the 7 day full cure time won't be putting me behind any schedules.  You can actually see the driver side sail panel at the top of that picture. I was tugging on it a bit to see where it was hung up and I ripped the loving thing in half like a goddamned caveman. Peeled the headliner material off, fitted it back together as best I could (surprisingly well, actually), and rigged up a patch with a section of cereal box and some duct tape. :redgreen: Once it gets covered in the new material and reinstalled, no one will be the wiser. Hit the rear window trim end caps and the hanger hooks with the Krylon as well. Need to pick up another can.  Those end caps are possibly the most fragile pieces of plastic I've ever handled. I cracked one while wiping it off with a paper towel. Yeesh. Anyway, that's it for pictures today because I'm too focused on the drat work and I forget to take them. Oh well. I put together a list of just interior things that I want to do. It's long. Next steps will be getting the floor insulated next weekend, pulling off the kick panels and A-panel trim, cleaning and painting those, making a new bulkhead panel for behind the rear seat, painting and installing that, painting the package tray and reinstalling that, and pulling the rest of the headliner down. Once THAT'S all done, I figured out what I'm going to do to help the eventual T56 fit. I was looking around a few days back and ran across this:  That's a prefabbed tunnel from SpeedTech made for Novas to fit T56 swaps. It's $130. With the exception of the 2 welds at the back, it's basically just a bent up piece of sheet steel. I've decided to do something stupid and make one for myself. They have the dimensions on their website so I drew up a flattened version that I'll have printed off at the local large-format printing joint, transfer it over to a sheet of steel, cut it out, bend it up with an HF metal brake (which will then get returned), and install that. Might happen weekend after next. We'll see how sassy I'm feeling. Once that's in, new carpet will follow and parts will start getting reinstalled. I started working on the interior to keep myself busy while avoiding some major costs, but it's kind of snowballed on me. Kinda fun too. That's it for this weekend. See ya fellers next time.
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Feb 29, 2016 03:34
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This weekend ended up being pretty productive even though I was only out there for about 7 hours or so total. Got kind of a late start on Saturday so I was in a bit of a squeeze since we already had plans for dinner. I got lots of pictures though, so maybe I'll be less wordy this time. Starting out with a list of most of the poo poo that needs to get done with the exterior. I took this a little later in the day, so I'd already scratched something out. You'll see that in a bit.  So I'd gone out earlier and hit a couple places including Harbor Freight. Picked up some clamps and their 30" metal bending brake. It's not a bad little piece of kit. If I had the space for it and planned on doing more sheet metal work, I'd have probably kept it, but as it is, it did the job I'd intended to do with it and was returned. 60 bucks I didn't have to eat. Picked up the sheet metal earlier in the day as well. 26 or 28 gauge. Can't remember which. Not real beefy, but it really doesn't need to be. I'd had the plan run off earlier in the week and cut it out to get it ready. tacked it down to the steel with some magnets so it wouldn't wander around on me.  Trace around the edges and...  ...attack with snips...  ...and follow up with the bend lines to leave me with a soon-to-be custom trans tunnel extension.  Add in a little internet fast-forwarding through the bending and we're left with this:  It's my first time doing any metal work like this and I'm really happy with how it turned out. with the exception of the welded rear corners, the stamped logo, and some general cosmetic differences, it's a pretty good knockoff of the SpeedTech piece. About 110 bucks cheaper too, so I'll take that. Cut an arc out of the bottom of the back and did a little massaging to the front and got it mocked up in the car.  Marked it off with some masking tape so I could see my Sharpie marks for where it needs to go. That will tell me where I need to make my cuts in the floor. It's not attached yet as I still had some crawling around to do in there. That took a little while so I didn't have much time left in the day. Again, got started kinda late so I didn't have much of a window as it was. Figured I'd knock out the bulkhead/trunk divider panel so I could finally trash the old one. Just looking at the drat thing will get you dusty. It's kinda strange because the divider in my old '72 was like a really thick tar paper whereas this one is like a thick fiberboard/cardboard material. I couldn't find any non-corrugated cardboard thick enough for this, but I got a big sheet of corrugated stuff for free so I guess I can't really argue with that. Plopped down the old one on a corner and traced it out.    And that was it for Saturday. Only a couple things, but progress nonetheless. Got a bit of a late start today, too, but did what I could to knock off a few things from my list. Number one priority for the day was to get the kick panels out and maybe (hopefully) painted. Sweet gently caress what a pain in the rear end these things were. They're technically only attached with 5 screws per panel, but that doesn't mean they came out easily. Step one was actually to get the A-pillar trims off first because they cover part of an edge on the kick panels. 2 screws and a little wiggle and tug and they come right out. They're metal, too, so there's no real risk of tearing them up.  They're already cleaned up in that picture so they'll get some paint and then get reinstalled eventually. With those out of the way, I took the screws out of the kick panels and started the process of removal. Well, most of the screws, anyway. The top screw on the driver side panel is behind the parking brake pedal assembly and completely unreachable. Totally blocked. No loving chance. Consensus online in Nova forums is that the parking brake assembly absolutely has to come out. One bolt at the front of the bracket and two nuts in the engine compartment on the studs for the bracket. Once those were all undone and I disconnected the cable, the assembly came out so I could get to the screw. Even if the screw wasn't there, I'd have to take the pedal out anyway. No loving chance I'd get the kick panels out with it still there. Since my car doesn't have A/C, it's got the kick panel vents. There's a little duct that pulls in fresh air from behind the front fender. Combines very nicely with the vent windows to keep air moving. Only problem is, that duct has about a 1/2" lip around it and it's poked through a hole that seems to be a little smaller than the diameter of the duct. Made the process of getting it out of there a real peach. Anyway, twist, turn, pull, yank, and swear enough and it eventually comes out. Rinse and repeat for the passenger side (without the necessity of removing pedals of course).    Disassembled the vent mechanisms and cleaned them up the same as the other plastic trim. Scrub with Simple Green and wipe down with acetone.  Hit them with about 4 coats of paint and they ended up looking really nice. Saved myself about $220 bucks painting these instead of buying new black ones. I'd say that's worth an 8 dollar can of spray paint, wouldn't you? Did the pull knobs and tubes as well.  I pulled off the visors and the mirror as well but apparently I forgot to get pictures of those. I'll probably pull the fabric off the visors since I'll either recover them with the extra material the comes with the headliner or just buy new ones. Either way, they're not staying green. I've been cleaning up all the screws as well and most of them are actually shining up pretty nicely. I'm just hitting them with a green Scotch Brite pad so there's not much effort involved there. Gotta keep track of what goes where, so:  And that's all for this weekend. Knocked a few things off my list, so that's good. Didn't get any of the floor insulated like I wanted to, but oh well. Need to clean the floor again after getting it all dirty today getting those panels out anyway. Hopefully the pictures make this post a little more interesting. See you guys next weekend. Boaz MacPhereson fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Mar 7, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 04:45
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Rain moved in this weekend and brought the humidity with it so I couldn't really do a lot of painting. Got some done, but there's still a couple things I need to shoot. Luckily, I was able to finish up the package tray so that's ready for installation in about a week or so once it cures fully. The package tray is a piece of thick fiberboard with some vinyl-ey fabric-y stuff sewn to it. The fabric covers a piece of foam and then gets glued to the top of the rear seat support so you get a nice pretty transition at the top of the back seat. Replacements for coupes are available, but I don't know if they'll fit sedans as well. With my luck, they probably don't. Mine's got a couple lovely holes cut in it to make room for the PO's 6x9s. Not too worried about that since I'll be keeping speakers there anyway. I had to paint this thing in a couple stages. One for the panel itself with paint and then a second stage for the vinyl strip with dye. Decided to do the panel and paint first. There's a little gap between the vinyl and the board so I tucked the edge of my tape in there and folded it over the vinyl.  Once that had a few hours for an initial cure, I pulled the tape off. Good so far.  Now, here's where things got a little tricky. I wanted to mask of the panel so I was only shooting the fabric strip. I tested some masking tape on the paint and when I pulled it up, it lifted some old paint off with it. No good. Time to re-strategerize. Tape was obviously out of the question, but I needed to get something between the fabric and the panel. Then, inspiration struck in true ghetto-masking fashion: index cards. I started rummaging through the house for the index cards that I assume were hiding somewhere. Doesn't everyone have at least a hundred index cards in there house? Well apparently all of ours were in my wife's classroom. After explaining to her exactly what I needed to do, she had an idea. Old wacky owl sheets.  Used a putty knife to gently tuck the lip of the sheet in the gap between the fabric and the panel. Worked like a charm. Laid down a few coats of the dye pulled the sheet out. Perfect mask, no peeling.  Thus concluded the painting for Saturday. Got that done fairly early in the day as we had poo poo to do that afternoon and the humidity was starting to roll in. Didn't get back home until about 4:30 so that was the end of that. Sunday was rainy and lovely all day, but it was still warm enough to work in the garage without a sweatshirt on so that's nice. I figured today would be a good day of turning the floor of the car into a baked potato. Did one more vacuum and wipe down to get the floor as clean as I could and then started sticking down the insulation. I'd only bought one roll to begin with so if it turned out like crap I wouldn't have to deal with returns, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out so I need to go grab a couple more rolls. Got the front third or so done.  Once I ran out of stuff, I made the decision to rip out the rest of the headliner and the bows. Took down the front shoulder belts and hangers first as they attach above the rear doors. With those out of the way, it was just a matter of pulling the bows and headliner out. If any of you guys ever pull the headliner out of a car with this style that uses the wire bows, be sure to label them somehow so you know where they go. They're different as you go from front to back so you'll probably piss yourself off in a major way if you gently caress them up. Once I got all that poo poo out of the way, it was more cleaning. Scrub, Simple Green, scrub, wipe.  I'm pretty loving intimidated by the prospect of installing the new one by myself, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. There's one more thing I need to paint, but it's actually part of the structure inside the car. Gonna take some serious masking, but I'm going to try to get that done this week so maybe it will have some time to cure for the weekend and I can get the package tray back in the car. Once that's done, it'll be getting the rest of the floor insulated and then getting the trans tunnel painted and installed. Laid down a couple beads of RTV on the rear seams of it yesterday so it should be ready to go. Need to get some paint on it too. I'm a little nervous about cutting a gaping hole in my floor, but oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. Once all that's done, new carpet!
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Mar 14, 2016 17:55
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Awesome seeing this come together for you. Definitely makes me nostalgic for my first car, a '72 Dodge Dart 4 door in the exact same old man green. Finding another one and fixing it up is on my list, but who knows if that will ever happen. Nearly all '72s I find are 2 door, and those that aren't are pretty much junk. There's just no love for the sedans, I feel your pain.
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Mar 15, 2016 03:40
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Only made it out on Sunday this weekend. Never made it out of the 40s, but since all my work was being done inside the car, I just put the heater in there with me. Nice and toasty. First order of the day was finishing the floor. I had bought a couple more rolls of stuff on Saturday. Each roll is 15 square feet and I figured the floor to be around 40. Three rolls worked and I had a little bit left over.  Once that was finished, I really wanted to get the trim under the rear window painted. I couldn't let that stay green while everything else was going black. Couldn't remove it as it's part of the structure so dusted off a little ingenuity again and got creative. Picture turned out a bit crap because of the light coming through the window, but you can kinda see what's going on.  Spend the next several minutes taping cards up and here we are. Laid down some cardboard to cover the deck. Not really necessary, but whatever.  Five or so light coats later, and it actually turned out really nice. Very happy with the finish.  I actually tucked the package tray panel back in there, but I guess I didn't get a picture of that. Used some leftover insulation on the bottom of that to help pad a bit and maybe cut down on some noise and vibration. Should hopefully help to isolate the speakers a bit when they go back in as well. Used some spray adhesive to stick the fabric back down to the bulkhead. In between coats on the panel in the car, I figured I should get some paint on the tunnel extension as well. Gloss this time since that's what I had laying around. I really just wanted to get something over the bare metal.  While I was digging around in there waiting for various paint to dry, I figured I'd start pulling the dash apart a bit as It's going to need paint too and the dash pad will need to be replaced. Pulled the ashtray out with 4 screws, glovebox out with 6 or 8 screws and three small bolts for the door, then started working on the nuts for the dash pad. There are 5 studs on the pad that get little half-inch speed nuts on the back of it. Pulling the glovebox out first made this a lot easier. There's a screw and one last nut behind the instrument panel so that has to get dropped a bit to clear. Once all the nuts are off, the pad pulls right off. A lot easier than I figured it would be. Sometimes you can get away with patching these pads and re-dying, but mine has a couple decent-sized canyons running through it. No good.  So here's the skeleton. Needs a good cleaning and then I can to figure out how the gently caress I'm gonna paint it.  Carpet's next. I'll take a little tax return money and pick that up. Once that's in, the lower trim pieces can start to go back in. I'm going to end up putting speakers in the kick panels so I may pick something up and do that before I reinstall them. We'll see.
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Mar 21, 2016 14:44
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Great progress, I'm loving this car!
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Mar 21, 2016 21:20
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Pictureless mini update since I didn't really do much this past weekend. I spent some time on Sunday cleaning the dash up. It wasn't really that bad, but it was fairly dusty under where the pad was. Hit the whole thing with some Windex and it's ready to go. Pulled out the old dash speaker, too. I'll probably just leave it empty and run 4 channels. I'll go over it with acetone before paint. Painting's gonna be kind of a bitch to get down right next to the windshield. I really don't want to remove it so I think I'm going to have to get creative similarly to how I did for the back window. I'm sure I'll figure something out. I pulled all the armrests off as well since that's easy enough to do. 2 big screws per back rest and 3 big screws on the fronts. I cannot find replacement rests or pads for the rear ones at all, so the bases will have to get painted and the pads will get dyed. I've had good luck with that process so far so I'm not too concerned there. Both of the pads on the front ones are trashed and the driver side base is kinda haggard. I'll get new pads for those and I might pick up a new base. I cleaned all four bases up the best I can and the two rears and the passenger front should be fine to paint, but I'll have to see how the driver front turns out. I might get away with just painting it and save some cash. So the tax return should be coming back in the near future, hopefully, but I'm going to wait to see what I get for my birthday as well as that's in a couple weeks. Depending on what happens then, I may actually end up getting the control arms, but I'm not holding my breath. I figure I'll probably at least pick up the carpet and headliner though. That gives me at least three weekends to do poo poo before the carpet shows up. Luckily, I still have poo poo to do:
Then poo poo will get real expensive real fast. New seats (Corbeaus in front, custom in back), steering wheel (MOMO), built custom console, and a stereo. Once the control arms happen and the interior is finished, then it will be time to start shopping for an LQ. 
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Mar 29, 2016 18:43
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Man your not far from me. If you ever need a second set of hands who has wrenched with a lot of old gms like this just private message me. I can bring tools and know old guys who worked on these new and can also answer some questions if needed.
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Mar 29, 2016 20:22
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SouthsideSaint posted:Man your not far from me. If you ever need a second set of hands who has wrenched with a lot of old gms like this just private message me. I can bring tools and know old guys who worked on these new and can also answer some questions if needed. Yeah, it's kinda at the point now where I really don't need another pair of hands. Little piddly poo poo, you know? But when the control arms happen maybe I'll give you a buzz. Depending on what I find in the rear doors with the window hardware, I may seek your advice there, too. Don't really know a whole lot about what goes on in there. I'm going to have to look through my manuals.
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Mar 29, 2016 22:52
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Yeah man just let me know. My. Is a knows a lot about gms of that era. And he is a phone call away most days. So whenever you need just message or what not.
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Mar 30, 2016 02:43
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Today was a bit 'bluh'. Spent a few hours out in the garage since it ended up being pretty nice, but I didn't really get a lot accomplished. Started off with cleaning the seats up a bit. No pictures because they look exactly the same as when I started. I basically just beat them like rugs, blew out what I could with the compressor, and wiped down the vinyl with some Windex. Just trying to mitigate the amount of dust that goes back into the car and all over the nice new carpet. Once those were 'clean' to my satisfaction, I turned to the rear windows. Neither one will roll up the whole way and rolling down or back up is a clunky jerky ordeal. I had my fingers crossed that nothing was broken when I pulled the panels off. Good news was nothing was nothing was actually broken. Basically, the window regulator works like this: when you turn the crank, that raises or lowers an arm with a roller on the end of it. This roller rides in a channel. This channel is also attached to the bottom of the glass. There's no adhesive, but there's a plastic/rubber insert in the channel that grips the window. This metal channel was off the glass and the roller and sitting in the bottom of the door on both driver and passenger sides. I don't know if the insert was originally rubber and has just hardened after 40 years or if it's actually plastic, but during the course of fishing the channel out of the door and then trying to reattach it to the glass, I pretty much destroyed the driver side insert. I could get the glass into the channel and it was fine as I rolled the window up, but as I started to roll it down, the glass would hang up a bit in the vertical channels (as it should, really), and the bottom channel would just pull away from the glass. After trying a couple different solutions and being disgusted at each one, I moved to the passenger side. Again, regulator channel was laying in the bottom of the door. Fished it out and the insert was in decent enough shape. Still fairly brittle, but it was all in one piece. Cleaned it up a little bit and then I managed to actually get it fastened back to the bottom of the glass. It's just a friction fit, but it's tight. Once it was on there, I kinda helped it along by pushing on the glass while I rolled the window up and down. Channel stuck to the glass and that side seems to be good. Gonna get some silicone spray lube and hit all the moving parts in there to hopefully prevent this from happening again. Moving back to the driver side, I came up with a plan that I'm still not sure if it's any good. A while back, my dad gave me a can of black RTV that comes in what equates to an Easy Cheese can. Bend the nozzle over and a nice bead of black RTV comes out. I've used it on other stuff and I like it. So I cleaned up the channel as best I could (fairly rusty; moisture's a bitch) and laid down a bead of RTV the whole way down the channel. Not super big, but a healthy bead along the bottom. Maneuvered the channel back into the door (by the way, working inside of doors loving SUCKS) and rolled it up about halfway or so. Lowered the glass down into the channel and made sure it seated all the way down. I have no idea if this will work, but I sure do hope it will. I'll find out in seven days when the RTV fully cures. Feeling absolutely defeated and not really sure if this cockamamie plan would actually end up working, I figured I'd go do something I knew would work out. Pulled off the front door panels. I ended up using my headlight spring puller hook thing to pull out the clips that hold on the door handles and window cranks. Worked a loving treat. I actually cleaned the back doors after I pulled those panels but my hands were tired and beat up by the time I pulled the fronts so I just left them dirty for the time being. Once all the panels were off, I figured I'd hit the arm rest bases with some paint. The scuzzy driver side base came out ok so I'll probably just live with it. Krylon for the bases and Duplicolor dye for the pads.  Cleaned up all the hardware, too. It will all get replaced eventually with other poo poo, but I'll probably use them until that happens. Might try to sell the door handles when the time comes.  That's it for pictures today. Too busy fighting the drat windows. Still need to get the trans tunnel done, the windlace painted, the dash painted, and make sure my super stupid window 'fix' worked. Fingers crossed on that one. Need to drill out the holes for the rear speakers as well. PO loving butchered that one. Deck screws holding the drat things down.  Hopefully next weekend will be more productive. Sorry for the wordy update.
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Apr 4, 2016 01:23
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Awwww yeeeeeeeee Early birthday present from the wife. She was going to wrap up the box and make me wait until my birthday, but when it showed up yesterday the box was so big she didn't want to gently caress with it and just gave it to me . It came all rolled up so I've got it laid out to hopefully relax a bit. I need to get the tunnel installed before the carpet goes in so I'm going to try to get that done on Saturday and then follow that up with the carpet. Once that's done, I call start getting the lower trim pieces reinstalled. The carpet is a big step and I'm pretty pumped.
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Apr 6, 2016 14:53
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Just popping in to say this project is hella cool and I am enjoying your updates.
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Apr 6, 2016 19:27
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Big weekend. I got the carpet earlier in the week so I was anxious to get that installed. Like you see in that last picture, the carpet comes in two sections. Front and back. Overlap is under the front seat. I did the back half on Saturday since it was pretty much ready to go. Got some super duper trim and carpet adhesive and went to town. Easy enough to do. Some trimming here and there and some cutting of holes for seat and seatbelt mounts, but overall not too bad. Once it went in, I went ahead and put the rear side trim panels, lower B-pillar trim, and rear sill plates back in as well. Quick before and after:   That's all I got done on Saturday. Sunday was supposed to be cold and rainy and it definitely was. Set up the heater in the car again and that kept me plenty warm though. Plan for the day was obviously to get the front carpet in, but I needed to get the trans tunnel extension in before that happened so I wouldn't have to rip it all out again in the future. That would be no good. So with a plan in mind, I prepped the patient for surgery:  The first cuts are made.  And the panel is removed. Didn't even start any fires!  Next step is to apply a judicious amount of RTV and rivets. Ignore the large amount in the top left. I couldn't get them to go all the way through the floor. Last two finally got the job done. Dicks.  Once that was in, it was more of the same for the carpet. Took a little maneuvering to get it cut and placed around the tunnel, but it ended up turning out pretty well. I actually did a little more poking and trimming after this picture so it looks even better now.  And a parting shot.  In other news, my super ghetto fix for the rear window totally worked! Rolls up and down like a dream now. Hit all the window and door hardware with some Teflon lube as well since I had everything open and ready anyway. Got the rear speakers that came with the car mounted up as well. I figure I'll run some wire from them up to the front of the car now so it will be ready to go when the stereo goes in. Gonna get some 6.5" for the kick panels and install those before I put the panels back in as well. Overall, really pleased with the progress as I'm starting to put stuff BACK in the car. That's always nice. Birthday's coming up on Friday so we'll see if I get anything worth posting about. Supposed to be nice this weekend, so fingers crossed. Boaz MacPhereson fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Apr 11, 2016 |
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Apr 11, 2016 14:28
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I don't comment on this thread as much as I should, but goddamn man, looks amazing. Really nice work!
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Apr 11, 2016 15:04
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It looks like you're damned close to being able to fire it up and take it for a drive. I'm jealous beyond belief.
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Apr 13, 2016 04:07
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Nice progress, looking forward to seeing the finished product!
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Apr 13, 2016 05:54
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Didn't really do much out there this weekend. Didn't get any parts for my birthday, but I got some goodies for another unrelated project and some scratch for the budget for the Nova. Probably order some parts some time this week. Need to get the headliner and maybe the dash pad. I did spend a little time out there yesterday after I washed the Mazdas, though. Cleaned up the front doors since I didn't do that when I pulled the panels off. I still need to get the b-pillar in front of the rear doors. It's pretty gross in there so I need to get at it with a pressure washer or something. That can wait until I can get it on the road and back over to a car wash. Gave the windlace/window molding stuff one final scrub down and then hit it all with the black dye. Barely got my 5 coats in after my can ran dry. I was originally going to see if it would work on the visors, too, but I don't plan on buying another can on just an experiment. The headliner comes with extra material to cover them so I'll give that a shot. Worse case Ontario - I gently caress them up royally and have to buy new ones. Oh well. Still need to get that dash painted. Gonna be tricky. Didn't take any pictures as they would have been boring as piss. "Look, these lines that used to be green are now black." Still trying to figure out what I want to do for front speakers. I've settled on some Polk 6.5"s for now and I'm hoping they won't be too tall. Grilles are kinda ugly, too, but whatever. Maybe I'll change my mind again. Anyway, sorry for the boring text post this week. Next one should be more interesting.
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Apr 18, 2016 15:03
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Polk makes a shallow mount version of the 6.5s, if it's mounting depth you're concerned with. I have the regular (non shallow) 6.5 coaxials, and they just baaaaarely fit in my doors. The tweeters stick far enough out that my door panels barely clear them as well, so you're kinda stuck with the grills.
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Apr 19, 2016 00:12
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some texas redneck posted:Polk makes a shallow mount version of the 6.5s, if it's mounting depth you're concerned with. Yeah, it's not the depth behind the panel so much as how far the grille stands out from the panel. I got a mile behind the panel so I'm not worried there at all. Might have to trim a little to clear the magnet, but whatever. I just don't want it getting in the way of my foot, you know?
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Apr 19, 2016 01:10
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Not really much doing this weekend. Didn't order any parts and the lack of headliner is kinda backing me up. Most of the other poo poo kinda hinges around that going in, so I have to find stuff to do before it gets here. Luckily, I have an entire dash to try to paint  . I'd previously taken the ash tray and glovebox door off so I figured I'd get those painted first. I've already taken the lock hardware out of the door and cleaned both pieces up so I just gave them one more wipedown with acetone and got to spraying. Before:  And after 4 or 5 coats:  Between coats on those pieces, I started taping off the windshield in preparation of painting the dash. Progress was kinda pokey with tearing little strips of tape and making sure they were stuck with a putty knife, but if there was one place to take my time, it's this. Started with a row of short pieces along the very bottom then did a long strip across the top of those pieces to even it up. Ran a couple rows of index cards up to cover a little more efficiently. I think I've got enough on there, but I may do another row. Not sure yet.   The last coat on the ash tray and glovebox door was the last bit out of that can, so that was my stopping point of the day. It had already hit 5:00 (got started kinda late) so I didn't really want to go out and grab another can. At least now the front of the ash tray and glovebox will be from the same can as the rest of the dash, so I shouldn't have any issues with paint mismatch. Need to get at the ashtray from another angle too to cover some stuff that got missed. Sort of a complicated shape to paint. I'll probably order that headliner late this week so hopefully the dash will already be painted and cured by the time it's ready to go in. The headliner has me kind of intimidated, but once it goes in a lot of stuff will follow in rapid succession. Still need to get some front speakers and speaker wire so the kick panels can go in, too.
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Apr 25, 2016 22:07
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I'm bored at work so I figured I'd throw a short update on here. I ordered my headliner and front speakers earlier this week. Headliner should be here tomorrow and the speakers should hopefully ship tomorrow (Amazon!  ). I still haven't put any paint on the dash, but I'm going to try to get that rolling this weekend. Weather is supposed to be nice so I should be good to get some paint down. I realized that I kinda stepped on my own dick a bit and forgot to get speaker wire and some replacement clips for the headliner bows. I think I'm missing a couple of them. Speaker wire I can probably pick up locally somewhere to at least get it run, but the clips kinda piss me off. Summit's got them and they usually ship pretty fast. We'll see. Either way, the headliner comes with extra material to cover the sail panels (C-pillar panels) and the visors so I'll at least be able to get those done while I wait for paint to dry. I need to find some vinyl edging stuff to go around the outside of the visors. Not real sure where to look for that. Fabric store maybe? So goals for this weekend are sail panels and visors covered and dash painted. Speakers and kick panels sometime next week maybe and then the headliner next weekend. Once that's all done, it will be reinstalling more trim pieces and such and then the REAL money spending can start: - new dash pad - $200 - new door panels - $300 - new steering wheel - $350? - new seats - $Texas  Should have an update for you guys on Sunday or so if all goes well. Boaz MacPhereson fucked around with this message at 19:53 on May 5, 2016 |
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May 5, 2016 15:59
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Holy poo poo, busy day today. Got a lot done, though. Headliner showed up on Friday as scheduled and the speakers shipped then as well. Luckily, though, they showed up on Saturday. Nice having an Amazon distribution center less than an hour away. Ordered a little jar of headliner glue as well. Sweet crap that stuff stinks. First step was getting the headliner unpacked so it could start to relax a bit. Did that when I got home from work on Friday. Neo magnets are the poo poo.  Pretty sure I mentioned it before, but the headliner comes with extra material to re-cover both the sail panels and the sun visors. I figured I'd try to cover the visors and if they came out like garbage I can always buy replacements. I'd already pulled the vinyl edging off the visors to kinda see how they're put together.  Hard fiberboard and metal core, then padding, then the cover material.   Trace around the cover a couple times...  ...and cut them out.  Closeup of the material. It has a nice basketweave pattern that I like.  Making sure everything looks good and tucks in where it should.  Now, I hit a little bit of a wall here. I had no idea where to get the vinyl edging to go around the seam on these things. Looked around online but didn't find anything. Wife and I went to go see Civil War on Saturday so we hit the fabric store afterwards. I was looking for something the same width in some kind of vinyl material but couldn't find anything. What I did find was a big roll of vinyl poo poo. 20 bucks a yard. I needed about 2 feet by 1.25 inches. Luckily, they let me buy an eighth of a yard. Picked up some heavy duty needles and thread, too. I was happy with the material so I cut out a couple strips of the appropriate size.   Now, I hadn't originally planned on buying Pioneers, but the price was right on these as were the reviews. I've enjoyed several sets of Pioneers in the past as well so I'm pretty confident that I"ll be happy with these. I might eventually pick up the matching 6x9s for the back, but we'll see.  That was it for Saturday. First order of the day today was getting the sail panels covered. Spray adhesive on the front and then headliner glue on the top and bottom of the back. The front and rear actually get glued to the car so they stay loose for now. There's a couple little bubbles that you can see in the picture, but once it goes in the car I'll hit it with some heat and they'll go away.  Once those were done, I wanted to get a speaker installed in a kick panel. I'd already found the center of where my hole needed to go on the driver side so I did that one first. Speakers came with a template for the hole and since I don't have a 5" hole saw, I had to trace the template and hit it with the Dremel. It actually turned out a lot nicer than I had anticipated, but it doesn't really matter as the hole just gets filled with speaker anyway. Haven't done the passenger side yet as I still need to figure out where exactly my hole needs to go. Gotta do some measuring inside the car for that.  With that finished, it was time for the visors. Fired up season 5 of The Wire and gathered my tools.   That's right kids. My first foray into hand-stitched upholstery. Took me a few hours and I struggled a bit to get started, but I can say that I did these myself and in all honesty, they don't really look much worse than the factory originals. Really. I might be able to smash some of the bigger buckles down with some heat, but I can absolutely say that I'm happy with them. Again, the covering's a little wrinkly, but I'll hit it with a heat gun to tighten them up a bit.  Now, the main hurdle of the weekend was the dash. Bit of an elephant in the room for me. While I was doing all this other poo poo today, I was running out to the garage to throw coats on the dash and the glovebox and ashtray. Did probably 5 or so coats all said and done. Happy with it.  I'll give all that paint a week or so to cure and then next Saturday I'll see if I can get that headliner going. I feel like I accomplished a lot this weekend and I'm pretty proud of what I got done today. I've never done any sort of upholstery like this and I think the last time I picked up a needle and thread was in junior high. I think getting the headliner in the car is really going to bring the interior together. See you melon farmers next time.
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May 9, 2016 04:01
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Mini Saturday update. I mentioned earlier that I don't seem to have all the clips for the headliner bows. Should have five, only have two. No bueno. These guys:  They go into little slots on the roof then get turned 90 degrees to stay in place. Then the headliner bow gets snapped in there so they're not all flappy. If I want to gently caress with that headliner this weekend (sidenote: may not happen unfortunately), I need to get these clips figured out. Then, I'm laying in bed one night and inspiration strikes as it's wont to do. I've still got casting supplies from a previous modelling project. It's no fancy Geirskogul 3D printing, but it oughtta work. So I build a little plastic box, seal it up, fill in the hard undercuts on my clip with some clay, then pour a mold. 18 hours later...  Looks kinda ugly there, but I'm not real concerned. Really only worried about the part that the bow clips into. Everything else can be cleaned up easily enough. Luckily, the casting doesn't take near as long as the molding does. Mix up equal parts of the casting resin and pour a cast. It starts to set and turn opaque about 45-60 seconds after mixing:  Give it about 5 minutes to set and wiggle it out:  Like I said, the undercuts are filled and it's a big ugly on the sides, but the clip looks perfect. Took it out in the garage and it snaps on the bow just like the factory clip. Spent a minute with a dremel cleaning it up and I'm left with a perfect(ly acceptable) copy of the original factory clip.  Tried it in the roof and it slips right in. Super happy. Just gotta cast 2 more and I'll be all set with my clips. Don't know how much other progress I'll make this weekend, but this is one more thing off my list of poo poo to worry about.
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May 14, 2016 19:40
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Went to lay out the headliner so I could put the bows in and start the installation process. I have six bows and only have slots for 5. It's about 3 inches shorter than the ceiling where it needs to go. The bow loops don't even come close to matching where they need to be. Beyond pissed off.
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May 15, 2016 20:46
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So is it for the wrong car?
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May 15, 2016 21:28
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Sure as poo poo ain't for third gen Nova sedans like it claims to be. Sent an email to their info mailbox as their phones don't get answered on Sundays. We'll see what happens I guess. In other news, I peeled some of the masking tape off the windshield to check the dash and sure enough, the paint didn't get down on the very front of the dash just like I feared. Gonna have to figure that poo poo out. The one positive note of the day: got the other front speaker mounted in the passenger kick panel. Need to move a little metal with the grinder and I should be able to get them both installed. Not going to be today.
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May 15, 2016 22:08
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Those home-cast parts look awesome. Nice job 
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May 15, 2016 22:12
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Cool casting dude. What did you make the mould out of?
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May 15, 2016 23:16
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Seat Safety Switch posted:Cool casting dude. What did you make the mould out of? It's all Alumilite stuff. Mold maker and resin. Originally bought it all to cast 1/24 scale T56s.
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May 16, 2016 00:04
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