Lots to report today...I had meant to post throughout the weekend, but time really got away from us. Plus, The Gearhead caught a cold somewhere along the way so we were less productive than we hoped we would be this past weekend. Friday night was spent sans car at all; The Gearhead slept from the minute he got home from work till around 9:30pm and was back in bed by 11pm. So we lost some time there, but he really needed his rest so it was for the best. We both were up bright and early on Saturday and Sunday though.
Here’s what we got done:
The floor carpet was cut, sewed and installed. This is not a hard process, it just takes a while. We bought a roll of brown paper at the local home improvement store and it worked great for creating the template we used to cut the carpet down to size.
That paper also doubled as a backdrop for spray paint work that had to be done. We painted several things a matte black including the dash, cigarette tray, glove box and the gas can.
I finished upholstering the back seat side panels and rear shelf. And I have to say – what a pain. Granted, that was our fault for the design we came up with, but still. It does look great in the end though…very sporty with the alternating black vinyl and blue outdoor canvas fabric stripes. Then we installed these panels. This was another challenge because of the padding that we added to the panels. It made for some tight fits when it came time to put the back seat in. But it all worked out, just took more time.
We put in the door windows and also finally got to install the door panels too. After they went on (with a million tiny clips by the way – ugh), we installed the door pulls, window cranks, door handles and lock pulls. Everything is chrome except for the door handles and lock pulls; those are black. It all looks nice and polished and shiny!
Speaking of…I cleaned and polished just about everything under the sun. If a part had to go back on or in the car, it was dirt-free going in! From the bumpers to the hood ornament, everything got some spit and elbow grease. My hands are all dry and scratchy from all the cleaning supplies and water rinsing. It was a beautiful sunny weekend though and it was so nice to be able to spread out and lay everything on the grass to dry.
Most of the window weather stripping is in. All the new dark black is really impressive against the white/blue colors of the car. It really pops.
Pretty much everything is installed on the car now. Even the headlights and taillights are hooked up and ready to go. The only essential things missing are the driver’s side seat (need the room to work on the steering column and pedals) and the windows.
What’s left? The engine. We took out the front suspension last night so that we can get the engine dropped in. Hook that back up to the suspension and install the ignition switch and let her rip! Not so fast…also need to replace the shocks and work on the brakes. And we need to get the spare tire mounted and balanced. So basically all the mechanicals. Nothing like cutting it close.
On top of that, we re-thought our transportation out to the show. We were going to pull the car behind The Gearhead’s S10 via tow bar. But now that we won’t get a chance to drive the car around some to get a feel for wheel bearings and whatnot, we decided to trailer it. What that means is that we need to borrow my father’s trailer and his truck to pull it (the little 4-cylander S10 won’t cut it). My father and his toys live 2 hours away from us. So now we have to head there tomorrow night to pick those up. Which means one less day to work on stuff. There’s never a dull moment!
I have to say that I’m surprised at how much longer everything took to get done this weekend. I’m not sure if that’s because we were doing such a great job or if it was really just that hard. If we had another week, that would have been perfect. As it stands now, we’ll likely not get to everything. That’s ok though. There’s another show coming up this fall so it’ll give everyone something new to see.
Showing posts with label seats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seats. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Kadett Chronicles 11: Progress report (4/29-5/5)
Since the car has been in the paint shop, we’ve been working on other details of the project.
We booked our hotel room and registered for the car show. So exicted!
Then we cleaned up the seats of the car with good old fashioned soap, water and elbow grease finished off with a high-gloss Armor All chaser. We let them dry in the sun and they look marvelous! We really saved ourselves some time by choosing to pilfer another Opel for these seats; they are in great shape!
And we finished up most of our shopping to get all the supplies we need now while we have the time to talk through options and whatnot. One of our big decisions was around door panel recovering. Let’s talk fabric, shall we?
I love picking out fabric. It’s like putting together a terrific outfit but without the stress of making sure you find it all in your size. The original door panels were covered in vinyl and they had that fake stitching pressed into the vinyl so that there was a 4-inch stripe created across the panel where the window crank is located. I can only assume it was an attempt to create some interest in an otherwise fairly basic model. So we decided on a dual fabric combination to enhance that feature even more.
Since the interior is black, we went with black vinyl. Again, we’re just breaking the mold here aren’t we? The vinyl we chose is not smooth; it has a slight texture to it. Frankly, it’s the kind of vinyl you’d see in cars that had vinyl in them. So it works.
The complimenting fabric we chose is baby blue – exact color of the car or darn near – with a small diamond pattern embossed into it. It’s outdoor canvas fabric so it’s heavy, durable and stain-resistant. And we gave it a spray of Scotch Guard just to be on the safe side.
We designed a pattern that is pretty close to the lines of the original door panels…ours just includes two colors. This is repeated on the side panels in the back seat as well. We also used the fabric on the rear shelf cover too. It has a large stripe of the blue fabric down the center of the shelf with the black vinyl on either side. This follows the line of the painted stripe on the hood so your eye follows from the exterior to the interior through the whole car.
Overall, we didn’t use much of the baby blue fabric which I think makes it seem all the more special. I had thought about tufting all this too, but the seats aren’t tufted so I decided to save that idea for another car.
Beyond that, The Gearhead found a web site that makes vinyl headliners on the cheap so we ordered that up in order to save ourselves a wee bit o’ time to focus on other things. The headliner also comes with matching black vinyl for the visors too. Bonus!
We booked our hotel room and registered for the car show. So exicted!
Then we cleaned up the seats of the car with good old fashioned soap, water and elbow grease finished off with a high-gloss Armor All chaser. We let them dry in the sun and they look marvelous! We really saved ourselves some time by choosing to pilfer another Opel for these seats; they are in great shape!
And we finished up most of our shopping to get all the supplies we need now while we have the time to talk through options and whatnot. One of our big decisions was around door panel recovering. Let’s talk fabric, shall we?
I love picking out fabric. It’s like putting together a terrific outfit but without the stress of making sure you find it all in your size. The original door panels were covered in vinyl and they had that fake stitching pressed into the vinyl so that there was a 4-inch stripe created across the panel where the window crank is located. I can only assume it was an attempt to create some interest in an otherwise fairly basic model. So we decided on a dual fabric combination to enhance that feature even more.
Since the interior is black, we went with black vinyl. Again, we’re just breaking the mold here aren’t we? The vinyl we chose is not smooth; it has a slight texture to it. Frankly, it’s the kind of vinyl you’d see in cars that had vinyl in them. So it works.
The complimenting fabric we chose is baby blue – exact color of the car or darn near – with a small diamond pattern embossed into it. It’s outdoor canvas fabric so it’s heavy, durable and stain-resistant. And we gave it a spray of Scotch Guard just to be on the safe side.
We designed a pattern that is pretty close to the lines of the original door panels…ours just includes two colors. This is repeated on the side panels in the back seat as well. We also used the fabric on the rear shelf cover too. It has a large stripe of the blue fabric down the center of the shelf with the black vinyl on either side. This follows the line of the painted stripe on the hood so your eye follows from the exterior to the interior through the whole car.
Overall, we didn’t use much of the baby blue fabric which I think makes it seem all the more special. I had thought about tufting all this too, but the seats aren’t tufted so I decided to save that idea for another car.
Beyond that, The Gearhead found a web site that makes vinyl headliners on the cheap so we ordered that up in order to save ourselves a wee bit o’ time to focus on other things. The headliner also comes with matching black vinyl for the visors too. Bonus!
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