Out with the old and in with the new!

[Holshot]

Don Johnson called and said he wanted his interior back from 1982... I couldn't take the blue interior a day longer so about 2 weeks ago I started with the interior restoration. I was pleasantly surprised when I removed the old carpet the the floors were solid as a rock! No rust to be found anywhere and a sigh of relief was had. Just to be safe I decided to peel up the old tar insulation which by the way was a nightmare, never again!

In the end I kind of regret going as far as I have as there was no need to pull the tar up to lay down the Por15 considering how clean it was but once I started I had to see it through. I found a nice deal with a "kit" from Eastwood that came with the cleaner, metal prep (very important step not to be overlooked), and then of course the Por15 and some brushes, ect... I got the quart size and it was more then enough to do 2 coats over the entire floor pans, trans tunnel and I actually did the rear section as well because I had the material left over.









After the ordeal of the tar and applying the Por15 I decided to add some FatMat a DynaMat like material but just a little cheaper but after some searching I found that a lot of hot rod guys use the roofing flashing called Peel n Seal which looks to be the same exact thing just even cheaper. It can be found in you local Lowes or Home Depot in the building materials section at a fraction of the price. One tip is to lay it out with the tar side up in the sun and let that heat it up and get it nice and soft so that it really sticks and doesn't require to much to get it to adhere but let me warn you that once it sticks it will not like to come back up so be sure that when you place it, it is where you want it.

All and all not a bad job, more tedious then anything and annoying the times it did catch while I was not aware and then having to wrestle it back up but once finished I was happy with the job and hope it does a good job with the heat the noise. I actually laid 2 layers, again since I had the material and decided once I was there I might as well do it now then later and have to take out the interior yet again. This stuff is thin thus another reason going over it again and for the piece of mind knowing that it will hopefully do a good job and all this added extra work was worth it in the end.

[Holshot]

I worked on the seats off and on for the last few weeks here and there and have been a little disappointed on the kit I received form World Upholstery. I placed a thread when I originally received my first set of covers which were torn/damaged upon delivery and they were the wrong kit regardless pre '79. I gave the guys over there praise for righting the wrongs so quickly and sending out another set immediately with a return label for the original damaged/wrong set before even getting back the first set. The first seat cover I attempted was the rear lower and things went great and smoothly with the install with the exception of the supplied pliers snapped midway through.

I was warned that the hog ring pliers they supply are really cheap and would most likely break at some point during the install but I wasn't expecting it to happen that quickly. Luckily with all the random tools I had laying around I decided to start getting creative as it was over the weekend and no way finding a set locally so I sacrificed an old set of pliers which actually work out for the best in the end as they turned out to work much better after some tweaking and made the job much more bearable considering how small the ones from World in my hand. I did however modify the World set from the get go as I found that having the tips rounded down worked better and I also deepened the pockets the the hog ring sits in as the first few had a habit of slipping out so I then did the same for my homemade set.







Now that I was on a roll I knocked out the lower rears out pretty quick and without much fuss and said a little prayer hoping the rest went just as smoothly. For those who are deciding on tackling this project themselves... I used a roll of wire that you can get in the garden section of you local Lowes/Home Depot that is used for tying rebar. It's very strong and easy to work with and found that to work the best for me. What I used in the listings on the lower rears was basically wire from those hangers you get from the dry cleaners but I didn't like how where the rebar wire when pulled from the back tightly you could almost see each one of the pulled ties instead of a nice smooth sweeping arch. On the rest of the seats I went with round bar stock found in the hardware section and I think it was 1/8 or 3/16 I'll have to double check on that and update which worked out perfectly and did not show the pinch point as it is much stronger then the hanger material and will not pinch or bend when pulled tightly from behind to get it to seat properly.

[Holshot]

After breezing through the lowers I went onto uppers and the nightmare started. As you will see they were considerably shorter length wise by about 3.5". Now I know that these are a tight fit and they need a little heat to be able to stretch to have a nice tight fit but there is no way this was going to stretch over 3" inches, impossible... I sent Mars a quick email he said that they can't be wrong and that they are all made the same exact way. The lowers were about an inch in difference from the stockers that I pulled off and after letting them sit in the sun for a little bit they were easily pulled over the foam/frame with just a little bit of effort. Now an inch overall is one thing but 3" is a whole other problem.



Again, for this problem after being told that it's right and it "must" be installer error I had to get creative yet again so I built a frame of sorts and split it in two with a jack in the center to slowly expand the cover and pray to God that it would stretch far enough and not tear in the same breath. I did throw the entire cover in the oven to heat it up and soften it up in the hopes it would also help out after the torture chamber. Again, for anyone doing this and who happen to stumble across this thread in the future be sure to set the oven to its lowest temperature setting possible. In my case I was able to go down to 150 and I only left it in there for a 2 or 3 minutes MAX.



After sitting in the torture chamber over night I thought it would have been enough to be able to allow me to slip it on but still not close! So after pulling it out of the oven I had to act quickly while it was still warm and pliable and with an extra set of hands and a lot of pulling and tugging we were able to get it to just barely slip on. Success! Kind of... It was now on, buuuuut it was pulling so much that you could see the stress and strain on every seem not to mention that because it was to short to begin with the seam on the ends are about an inch or a little less inboard and I don't like the way that looks but as they said over at World they are all the same and CAN'T be wrong... But tape measures' don't lie, these things were cut small end of story. If they are meant to be this tight and require to have to build torture chambers to stretch them out before installation then why wasn't that the case with the lowers...? Hmmmm

I thought I had a pic of the uppers but apparently I don't at the moment so I'll update tomorrow with the finished job and you'll be able to see what I'm talking about with the two outer seems pulled inward. The fact that they are being pulled so tightly also scares me as the weather changes and cycles as I'm scared that eventually they could just burst at the seams. It was like trying to fit Christina Hendricks, think hot red head from Mad Men into a size 2 dress, it may go (doubt it) but eventually she's going to pop out of that thing! I just hope to be there when it does Hendricks that is not the seat cover...

Well that's my story and I'm sticky to it! Time for bed... Will update tomorrow or next week as I'm headed out of town for the weekend.

[dmwhiteoak]

It's ashamed to pay good money for something and have to go through all that for it still not to work to your satisfaction. I wod pull them off, send them back and source covers from elsewhere. Good luck

[Sambo42]

Great work - especially with the floor. I am SO jealous at the lack of rust! Keep it up.

[PininF]

Great job and well done !
Any chance I could get you over sometime to do mine

[Shadoobie]

You said you were switching from a blue interior... you wouldn't happen to have your old interior pieces in good shape, would you? I would be willing to buy them.

[Holshot]

Thanks guys for the vote of encouragement! I'm still out of town and just popped into a Starbucks to get on their wifi and enjoy a coffee as I don't have internet access where I'm staying. It's actually been some what refreshing to unplug but at times a little annoying as my cell provider does not have good coverage down here and I can't even check my email on my phone...

Hey PininF- if you buy me the ticket I'd be more then happy to come over I've always wanted to visit Australia... Just saying, haha...

Shadoobie- I never thought anyone would have been interested so I didn't save the covers or the rear panels since they had big holes cut in them for speakers. I didn't toss the panels because they were in such nice shape it really would have been a shame to toss and I thought that someone may need a fresh set and since they were no longer available I thought I would give it a shot. The arm rest haven't faired as well but if you want them I'll through them in and you can decide what you want to do with them. Lmk...

Ill be sure to update when I get back into town and again thanks for the kind words!