Suspended Development

This car spent a long time in the desert. Many juicy bits dried out. A few dry bits got juicy. You might recall a few weeks or months or however ago back, I mentioned the first few rides in the car. Rides that were, in a word, miserable. Clunking and thunking over ever pothole does not inspire confidence. So, I dug into the front suspension, and it's a damn good thing I did.

Looks OK from here!

The Volvo 1800 has a rather traditional double wishbone suspension. What this means is the wheel axle is suspended between two A-shaped (or "wishbone") control arms, which allows the wheel to remain more or less vertical throughout the suspension travel. This gives us moving parts more or less at either end of each control arm, plus whatever's needed to make the car steer. The car-side of the control arms mount to rubber bushings whose job is, quite simply, to allow a little bit of movement without a rough metal on metal contact. The wheel-side of the control arms mount to a ball-joint which looks just about exactly as you'd expect - a ball with a stick poking out of it. The stick can move in pretty much any direction. Ball joints are generally grease filled, though modern ones are generally "sealed" which is old-car-guy talk for "cheap crap with no place for me to stick my grease gun." Honestly, I don't know which is better. You guys can argue about it for a while. Go ahead, we'll wait.

Done? Good, look at this!

Uhm...

You know that time you made an ill-planned overtake on a two lane highway? Or perhaps that time somebody else made an ill-planned overtake into your lane? This ball joint gives me just about the same queasy feeling. It's almost taunting. "All I needed was two more good jostles to pop right outta here and drop your wheel off the side of the road!" And here I was worried about that fire extinguisher...

Now, back to the rubber bits. As you might imagine, a long time in the desert was not good to the rubber bits. Most were just dry, crackly, and a bit loose. One was just about completely gone allowing the parts to flop around. Several suppliers have new polyurethane bushings that should get the car back to better-than-new condition. I picked up a set from IPD, along with a new sway bar kit. A bushing job on this car is really quite straighforward, provided all the moving parts still move. The basic procedure goes like this (note: do not attempt to use these directions for anything at all):

• Jack up the front end of the car and remove the wheels - don't lose these, you'll need them later

• Remove what might have been a shock absorber sometime in the 60s but is now just a couple of pieces of metal grinding on each other

• Using a big mallet, large ball joint splitter, and lots of harsh criticism, split the lower ball joint. If you failed to support the lower control arm, you'll need to deftly dodge the spring and shower of car parts that will inevitably be flung at your head. When you return from the hospital, you'll need to peruse eBay for replacement control arms, brakes, hubs, ball joints, and anything else you just broke. If you did support the lower control arm, just get a brake line to replace the one you busted when you failed to support the hub/brake assembly.

SPROYOYOING!!

• Remove the bolt holding the lower control arm to the chassis. You will be using a mallet on it because it's 45 years old and there is no way in hell everything is still nice and straight.
• Split the upper ball joint, then remove the remaining bolts holding the upper control arm in place. Nothing will go wrong with this part of the process, unless of course somebody had replaced the control arm with an older one that won't fit your new ball joint. In which case, order a new control arm.

While waiting for your replacement control arm to arrive, under no circumstances should you clean the garage or pick up your tools. You'll need them right where you left them two weeks ago.

Should just about do it...

• The lower arms need a press to remove the old bushings and put in the new ones. Take these to somebody smarter than you, because after the whole spring explosion you really shouldn't be around high-pressure parts anymore.

• Replace all of the ball joints. They aren't that expensive, and you're already this far in anyway. Plus, you broke the old ones with the ball joint splitter, you brute.

Also, order new boots for your old-stock joints. Trust me.

• Reassemble everything in reverse order, keeping in mind that you will probably need to put those big gnarly lower control arm bolts in the freezer to get them back through the twisted hole they came out of. Locktite everything. Twice. Also, anti-seize it, for redundancy.

• Send somebody you trust but aren't particularly close to on the first test drive. Don't let them bring your dog, y'know, just in case. Not that anything would go wrong, of course. After all, you did locktite everything, didn't you?

Good as new!

If you've got a good eye, you might have noticed something is missing... New bushings are in, new ball joints installed, new springs installed, new shocks.... a gorgeous set of Koni Classics sitting in a box waiting for their mounting plates to dry.

Why didn't you plan ahead for me?

So, what to do while we wait? Let's go ahead and empty another big box from the basement. IPDs big beefy front sway bar comes with all the remaining front bushing bits that weren't replaced earlier.

I think I just blue myself.

Easy to install, waaay more blue than the old part. Definitely worth the time and effort. Sometime tomorrow I'll install the shocks, but you guys sure won't find out how that goes.

Stay Squishy, my friends.

Happy Holidays!

This was sposed to be done around Thanksgiving, so I could go down the typical list of things I'm thankful for. Guess I didn't finish writing it in time. Oh well, Happy Holidays!! My favorite gifts for the year are my girl, my family, my dog, beer, and my Volvo (see what I did there?). Next question please.

Oh, you want to hear more? OK, let's start with the girl. Let me tell you a little story. It starts, as so many bad decisions do, with an ad on Craigslist...

P1800 Sports Car. Super Nice. Ran When Parked.

The Folly of Craig

So, I peruse the Craigslists quite often. I see what neato cars are listing for this week. I look at motorcycles and dream of a life in a larger garage. Some time about two years ago I saw a weird old Volvo and managed to overcome my fears and put it in my garage.

But there's the problem. You see, the fear of the weird wasn't just the only thing holding me back from starting something new. It was also the only thing keeping me from diving off the cliff. From becoming an old car guy. You know, the masculine equivalent of the cat lady. Old cars parked everywhere. Transmissions and longblocks lining every shelf. Permanent blackened fingernails.

Gross.

And then there's Craig the Enabler. A whole pound full of sad little cars just begging for me to take home and give better lives. And now, with that fear of an unending march of litter boxes gone, they can all be mine.

Temper Your Enthusiasm

So, why isn't my garage full of cars and associated paraphernalia? This girl right here:

 (In the red, not the blue)

I showed her the very first Craigslist photo of the Volvo and she asks "Why?" I show her pictures of complete ones and she says "ooh pretty... looks like a lot of work." I say it's cheaper than divorce and go buy it anyway (remember boys and girls, it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission). She warmed to the idea of a project car pretty quickly when it got me to stop playing video games.

She's pretty good about not letting me take on new projects while I still have that god damned 240sx sitting in the driveway. God, she hates that car. I don't see why though. It's quick, it's light, it's fun, and it packs easily into overhead bins!

Who, Me?

Which is why I was shocked and amazed when I showed her a picture of an old Mercedes wagon (TURBODIESEL!!!) and her first words weren't "I've gotten you an appointment with the therapist for your problem. Isis and I will be living with my mother for a few weeks." Maybe she likes the thought of me putting my spare time into something more productive than practicing for Jeopardy tryouts. Maybe she appreciates me putting time and effort into something I really enjoy.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's her way of getting rid of the 240sx. "Oh those are cool! Just gotta get rid of the 240!"

...We're gonna need a bigger garage.

The Project Car

Let's Ride!!

Just when you thought the work ended! You'll be happy to know that I have weeks and weeks worth of stuff to tell you about. Grab a beer and sit down, we're gonna be here a while...

Wrapping up the Inside

I have a confession to make. My last blog post was a lie. You might have noticed in one or three of the pictures that the driver's side door looks a little sparse. That's cause I didn't finish it. 'Cause I'm a liar. And you all sit here and listen to my lies and cheer me on. Man, how can you people sleep at night?

Anyhow, rest easy tonight. The door is done. The B-pillar panels are up. Now if only I could get the new windlace seals to wear in so the doors will shut smoothly! I'll try stealing the lovely lady's hair drier to use a bit of heat. Don't worry, I'll be safe and do it when she's not home to yell at me. Hi sweetie!

Prince of Darkness

I'm no electrical engineer, but that's OK because whoever designed the wiring for this car sure as heck wasn't either.

Let's go on an adventure, shall we? We'll start off like any proper adventure, at the battery and a normal every-day stroll down a big fatty wire to the starter. Disregard that wire heading off to the headlight switch, taking all the current through the switch and then back out to the lights. It's a strange path, but we will stay the course across the engine bay to the voltage regulator, where we should be. From there it's a short hop to the fuse box like any good wire should do.

However, here's where things get really wonky. Instead of a jaunt through the fuses, we've got two other wires heading unfused off to the clock and igntion switch. The ignition switch wire takes all of the current for the ignition and accessories, and routes them both back out to the engine bay for the coil and accessories fuse. Yes, just the one fuse. Spose I should have mentioned the main fuse is singular too. It's OK though, because the parking lights have their own dedicated 35 amp fuse between the light switch and the bulbs.

As you might have guessed, when I got this car nothing worked. One fuse was blown, another fuse box had a bent tong, and none of the fuses actually made an electrical contact. It took many hours drinking beer and studying the wiring diagram (because studying the diagram sober would have driven me to the asylum), and another thirty minutes to clean the fuse holders to get things working.

Don't you wish your gas gauge was hot like me

Oddly enough... Everything seemed to work. Except for the courtesy lamps. They had no voltage at all until I slammed a door. Then they went on and wouldn't go off until I pulled the damn bulbs out. Ah well, what's the fun of a hobby if it can't keep you out of trouble?

So, what's next?

Well, with my almost not quite ready Volvo almost running, I took my lovely girlfriend for a ride to a dinner party at a friend's home. I learned two important lessons. First off - be sure you have a fire extinguisher in your classic car, particularly for it's maiden voyage. Secondly - when you forget your fire extinguisher, under no circumstances shall you say aloud "Oh shit, I forgot my fire extinguisher." Your date, who is already unhappy that you made her late because you spent all day working on the car instead of performing basic hygiene before the party, will not be amused.

None of this was helped by the fact the car rode like an old man with Parkinson's. Which brings us to the next task, suspension overhaul.

Aww Geeze, Not This Shit Again

The joys of the project car.

View from the Inside

Hi mom and Isis! Hi beautiful assistant!! We're off on work travel this week, so the car is on hold for a bit, but you would both be shocked and amazed at what the past couple of weeks have brought about. Or maybe you wouldn't, since one of you hangs out with me every time I work on the car, another took half of the pictures here, and the third does both...

These cars look so nice from the outside, it's almost a bummer that the driver is stuck on the inside where they can't see that beautiful sheet metal. Only almost a bummer though because these cars are pretty frikkin' sweet on the inside too, and I like to think I've made mine just a hair sweeter.

Sounds of Silence

Part of pulling up the old asphalt means putting in something new. A lot of folks simply cover the floors with Dynamat and move on, but an obsessive nerd like myself couldn't live with that. So, we go to the internets. There are three main materials used for sound and thermal insulation:

• Constrained Layer Dampers (Dynamat and similar), primarily used to reduce resonant vibrations in sheet metal. This is the sticky rubber stuff with aluminum backing you see advertised as "sound damper." Most folks use CLD alone and cover everything, sometimes twice. While this usually works pretty well, it's an inefficient use of these materials whose main purpose is simply to keep your sheet metal panels from vibrating like the head of a drum.
• Decoupling material (closed cell foam), primarily used to separate panels that would rattle or squeak against each other. This also acts as a moisture barrier. My main use for CCF is in between the door panels and the metal. It replaces the old plastic barrier that kept water from coming in through the door, among other things.
• Sound insulation (Mass loaded vinyl, insulation, etc), used to absorb the sound coming through. Most folks use a heavy vinyl material to insulate the sound - the mass provides more effective sound deadening for a given thickness. Another route is with a fibrous insulation like Thinsulate Acoustic, which is what I went with. It'll take up more space than a mass loaded vinyl, but should be more effective as both a thermal and acoustic insulator - plus it will be far easier to stuff in all the little nooks and crannies.

So, how to go about installing all this crap? Well, let's start with getting rid of the existing crap attached to the metal. Remember all the old tar paper my beautiful assistant pulled out?

Rust Encapsulated

I covered the exposed metal with rust encapsulator, paying special attention to any bits of surface rust. Then, start cutting up the sheets of CLD and sticking it to the metal. Focus on expanses of un-reinforced metal. Creases and seams break up planes of metal that would otherwise resonate quite well, so they're a lower concern. Larger expanses of flat metal should be covered. Most resources say you can get by with 25% coverage. I aimed for 50% and think I came pretty close. You can get rollers to help lay this stuff in, but I found the best way was to peel off the wax paper backing and use that to rub the CLD seductively into the grooves and bends with my fingers. The beer bottle helped with a few creases, but was largely just used to hold beer. Bonus points if you can guess the brew (Isis, you're barred from guessing, and from drinking my beer).

Vibrations Damped

Of course I failed to take any pictures of the next two steps. Deal with it and use your imagination. The Thinsulate isn't as effective when it's crushed under feet, so I put some hardwood flooring underlayment I had leftover in between the carpets and the floorboards. Once I'm satisfied with the fit, I'll be going back through it with some spray adhesive and finishing screws to keep things together. Thinsulate was used over the transmission and driveshaft tunnels (which are also covered pretty thoroughly in CLD).

Carpets Carpetted

The carpet is the low-cost eBay special. It comes in a dozen or so pre-cut and edged pieces. You can buy better carpet kits, but for the price and for my first attempt at rebuilding a car, it works very well.

Wall Coverings

Speaking of working damn well, let me tell you a bit about the door and wall panels. The panels are quite basic and easy to put together. Lay your old panel on some fiberboard, outline it, cut it out, staple vinyl to it.

How to Tame Your Panels

But, that simplicity gives you a lot of room to play. Mix colors, back your vinyl with soft stuff or leave it hard, stitch in patterns... Go nuts! I may or may not have mentioned a month or two ago that I cut out the vinyl and handed it and some quarter (or was it half?) inch scrim to a good friend and said "have fun!" Boy did she! Hand stitched horizontal stripes across all of the panels, plus decorative diamonds on the door uppers. The results are absolutely stunning.

God Damn, Look At You.

But enough about the wheel humps, the doors are where it really comes together. I could describe the process in detail, but that's a lot of words nobody wants to read. Here are some pretty pretty pictures!

Stuff With Thinsulate, Spice With CLD

Wrap In Closed Cell Foam

Trim The Fat

Install Lower Panels and Test Mechanicals

Hire A God Damn Beautiful Lady To Show Off Your God Damn Beautiful Work

Fan Freakin' Tastic!

There are a couple of gotchas to watch out for. We call them "Lessons Learned" in my line of work. For starters, those panels you cut out are too big. Trust me, shave them down by 1/8th inch. This will make the vinyl fit on better, and the whole door will come together with less wailing and gnashing of teeth. Second, no matter how hard you try, you will not line up your panel clips evenly and will inevitably break some. Measure twice, cut once, measure again, cut a little bit more. Third, completely ignore the first two lessons, stick a stainless steel screw through a finishing washer, flat washer, the door panel, and the door. God damn, that looks good.

A Seat To Call Home

Now we're bringing it all together. Bolting the seats in is one of the easiest parts of this job, yet I still managed to screw it up and put the seats on the wrong rails, then put the seats on the wrong sides of the car. Lessons learned: Give yourself an extra hour, because you'll screw it up, too.

This is me doing it wrong.

I guess there's really not a lot to write about putting in the seats. I picked up new sliders from a newer 1800 that didn't quite fit my seat bottoms. Some time with a 3/8th inch drill bit solved that. Bolt in the sliders. Bolt in the chairs. Snap on the bottom cushion. Done!

Classy.

At some point we'll delve into finishing the interior, installing stereos, overhauling suspension, and futzing with Lucas electrics. But, that's for Future John to deal with. Now, where's that lovely assistant. Let's go drive!

Back Together Again!

Trimmin' the Hedges

This car has a lot of shiny bits of stainless trim. Front fenders, rear fins, doors, sides... That stuff is everywere. Plus, it takes a shockingly long time to do even a half-assed polishing job, let alone pop out the dents and dings. Something like thirty minutes per spear... eight spears... four hours with the polishing wheel on the dremel. FML.

Screw it, the dents and dings can stay - it's all classy patina anyway. This isn't meant to be a concourse competitor, let's just get out and drive!

Half Way Done!

Scorchin' the Earth

The big job inside the car has by far been pulling out the asphalt sound damping. This stuff somewhat resembles roofing underlayment, and I am wary of its effectiveness compared to modern constrained layer dampers (Dynamat and the like). So, I begged and pleaded and eventually convinced the beautiful girlfriend (you met her in a previous installment) to crawl inside with a spray bottle of mineral spirits, a scraper, and rubber gloves. After many (many many many) hours of scraping, chipping, and soaking, the floors are nice nekkid paint - albeit slightly scraped.

Before

After

As you could expect, pulling up ancient sound damping revealed some flaws underneath. The biggest problem area being underneath the pedals. It appears water ingressed through the air inlet at the base of the windshield and sat at the base of the firewalls on both sides resulting in some rather serious surface rust. Being the detail-oriented guy that I am, after some serious integrity tests of the underlying metal (consisting of some finely calibrated pokes with a phillips head screwdriver), I swept the issue under the rug. Also, under a heavy coat of Eastwood Rust Encapsulator. Future John will be in a far better position to work on it than Present John (Dear Future John: Sorry 'bout getting lazy on the floorboards. Also, sorry 'bout that donut I had with breakfast. I hope you understand).

Another before and after shot:

The metal is quite solid, with no evidence of deterioration on the underside. I have high hopes that it will last several years living in a garage in the desert. Future John promises to follow up on the longevity of the rust encapsulator.

Polishin' the Knob

Oh right, we covered this already.

...

Let's just move on.

Splatterin' the Bugs

As I'm sure I've mentioned in several angry rants in the past, I broke the windshield the car came with. It wasn't the end of the world and it was an aftermarket part anyway, but it definitely hurts in the already bruised and battered pocketbook. Luckily, VP-Autoparts has them available at almost half the price of the dealership. As with iRoll, they were an absolute pleasure to deal with, getting me a well packed windshield within a week and saving me a healthy chunk over going to fast glass or the dealership.

To preface this, everything I know about installing windows I learned from YouTube. Anything you could possibly need to learn has been recorded and is waiting for you watch. Need to sync a pair of SU carbs? No problem. Re-sole an old shoe? Been done, by a cat no less. Install a windscreen in your classic car? Gotcha covered! Prepping the windows for installation starts with mounting the gaskets, a time intensive process requiring a lot of patience, a little bit of cursing, and a bit of lube. Interestingly, this same advice applies everywhere in life, car repairs, plumbing, cooking on hard anodized pots and pans, relationships, you name it.

Easier Job with Six Hands

I mounted the trim on the gasket before installing the whole assembly on the car and am glad I did. It was challenging enough getting the trim mounted when I had easy access all the way around the window, I can't imagine trying to hold a piece in place while walking to the other side to keep working the trim in.

Mounting the window into the car takes the same holy trinity. Start by running a cord (I used weedeater cable) through the groove that fits inside the car. Give a decent spritz of silicon lube to the window opening. Set the window in place. Pull the cable out through the groove while simultaneously slapping (not hammering, punching, or hitting) the outside of the window to jostle it into position. If you do this right, you'll get the inside lip of the seal around the inside of the window frame and will be done! If you don't, you'll lose the lip at some point and have to start over (and over, and over, and over). Again, the help of a beautiful assistant is instrumental in achieving success. The more beautiful the assistant, the more successful your installation will be, according to my research on the subject (and I have a 100% success rate).

Now you can spend a few relaxing hours cleaning the glass while your beautiful assistant celebrates the couches she discovered buried for centuries under your old windows...

Stay Tuned!

We're very close to being on the road with this thing. Insulation, carpets, seats, and interior panels are all I need to get back on the road! Then I can dig into fixing the heater, replacing the bushings, shocks, and brakes, and installing a radio.

Man, there's gonna be so much to write about.

Broken Records

As some of you might know (or might not know, given my only reader is Isis the dog, and border collie mixes are world-renowned for their absolute inability to read English), Mr. Irv Gordon set a significant milestone last week by clocking three million miles in his 1966 Volvo 1800S. For some perspective, that's 380 trips around our planet, three times the distance Apollo 11 travelled, and about 1/30th the distance to the Sun. Few people will put on that many miles in their lifetime.

Some Perspective

Now, the mechanical achievement of this car is mind-boggling. At the time, most cars were not expected to run much past 100,000 miles, and certainly not thirty times that. By average lifespans, this car is a month-old may fly. A rose that blooms for over a year. A ninety year old guppy. A water heater that lasts three centuries. It's 15,120 in dog years.

Can I do it, too?

No, you can't. How Irv got there is a two-part equation. The first is mechanical. The car is powered by an over-built 1.8 liter inline 4 cylinder engine that makes about as much power as a really fast sewing machine. Cruising along the highway it's under about as much stress as a dog napping in the sun. Couple an over-built and understressed engine with meticulous maintenance and you get above average miles. It helps that these are very easy to maintain machines with astonishingly great parts availability. But, as mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, Irv's Volvo doesn't have above average miles, it has astronomical miles

That brings us to part two: the person behind the wheel. If the average person drives 15,000 miles per year and drives for 50 years, they've covered 750,000 miles (again, these are rough order of magnitude numbers, caveat emptor, ymmv, beware of dog, etcetc). So, how to get to three million? A long daily commute to work is a big chunk of the equation, but far overshadowed by the long-distance road trips. My back-of-the-armpit calculation gives me something in the ball park of 25,000 miles spent per year on his above-average commute. Three million miles over the last 49 years is a bit over 60k miles a year. Simply put, the guy must love to travel. A lot. But, even loving travel isn't enough. This is 49 years of more or less driving a single car. I don't know about you guys, but I'm on my sixth car that's been titled in my name, and I'm only 222 in dog years. I love road trips and expect I'll break a million miles on my own odometer, but there's no chance I'll do it all in the same car.

The secret sauce

This is where we put the two together. Take a person that loves travel enough to cover over three million miles behind the wheel and couple him with a car that's not just capable of that sort of mileage, but engaging enough for the driver to want to keep it through all those miles. That is the perfect storm of Irv Gordon and his Volvo 1800. Notice also, that I've called it a milestone and not a record. The three million mile record has already been broken, and will be broken every time Irv gets behind the wheel. Keep rolling, Irv.

See more at http://www.3millionreasons.com

And we're BACK!

Don't you love it when you step away from your table at a restaurant for a moment, and return to find your food has arrived and is waiting for you to enjoy? I had the same feeling when I dropped the vovorine off at the paint and body shop before skipping town on vacation. You all saw the "before" pictures in the last installment of this blag. You have been following along haven't you? Haven't you??

Anyhow, here's the "after":

Shiny New Paint!

The body work is done! The paint work is done! Now all I have to do is re-assemble it, right? Right. Wrong. Now I have to rebuild all the stuff that isn't the seats. Let's dig in, but forego any particular aim or order, 'cause that way it can take longer.

Step 1: Dat Dash

I'm not gonna lie. This is a damn expensive project car for a cheapskate like me. I splurged on the seats and suspension elements. I'm gonna cheap out on the dash. Thankfully, JC Whitney carries more than just LED washer nozzles. They stock the Palco ABS dash covers (based right over the hill there in Stead, NV!) which almost fit perfectly and almost look wonderful for almost a bargain! Hey, they had me at "free shipping." Installation wasn't too tricky with the front window out. Aside from a minor kerfuffle on the drivers side of the complex lower dash, the new covers fit excellently and feel quite nice for cheap ABS plastic. I removed the vent trim pieces and reinstalled them over the new cover, so from the top, from a distance, if you squint just right, it looks like a pristine factory dashboard! At least as long as you only look at the passenger side. We'll see how well they hold up in the long run. Fingers crossed!

Shiny New Dash!

I'll be using the same type of covers for the arm rests and door caps, expect more when I get around to building the interior panels (you are gonna read all of my posts, right?). Also, as you can tell, this is not a frame-up restoration. There isn't enough body rust to justify that sort of effort. Plus I'm lazy. And I'm cheap.

Step 2: Dat Glass

Before the paint I had thought to myself "Self, this rubber is crap. Rip it all out, paint the naked body, then put it all back in." After hours of prying, cutting, ripping, sweating, cursing, and cracking, I wrung pre-paint me's scrawny little neck for that suggestion. First off, old rubber is hard. It's like cutting into the plastic on that crappy laptop your kids gave you cause they didn't want it taking up space in their house anymore (hi mom!). Second, old sealants are hard. Like chipping away at, I dunno, a puddle of nail polish your kids spilled in your drawer and hid until forty five years later (hi mom!).

The side windows and rear window came out without much drama. The front windscreen loosened slightly and promptly cracked. Oh well, at least they're still available, and I did save all that money on the dash covers...

Anyhow, the re-install steps are pretty straight forward. Attach gasket to glass, run a line of cord along the gasket lip, set glass/gasket into openening, pull cord. Making these steps work is a bit of a challege starting with "install the window in the right gasket" and ending with "how the hell do you put on the trim strip anyway?!" Thanks to the 1800 Yahoo group, I found out the the reason I couldn't install my quarter panel windows was that they are indeed not flat and can't be swapped side to side (something the lady had hinted at, and I had promptly ignored). Putting everything back together will take far longer than pulling it apart. At this point, I at least have gaskets on all the glass and the side windows are installed. I did manage to pry the old stainless trim back on to the rear window. With any luck the brand new trim I picked up for the windshield will go on easier.

Shiny New Seals!

Oh yes, the door seals are also in and so far are about the only thing to go in smooth! Window channel felts are coming up, perhaps I'll do those the next evening I can talk the missus into crawling back in and chipping away at tar.

Step 3: Steering and Shifting

Maybe you remember the old pictures of the steering wheel (You have read all of my posts, RIGHT?!!). From the factory it's a lovely two-spoke stainless wheel with a thin plastic grip. Time and the dry air has taken it's toll on that grip. Gaps appear at random throughout, and no amount of scrubbing seems to get rid of that rough grimy texture on the backside. Time to sweep it all under the rug. In the spirit of my cheap dash repair, we'll simply cover up the problem with a luxurious leather wrap! The wrap is a Wheelskin purchased through IPD, and graciously (and expertly, I might add) laced on by my lovely, brilliant, kind (did I say lovely?) girlfriend. All done while killing it watching Jeapordy (Trebek, if you're reading this, we're still waiting to hear back on her online test!). Meanwhile I was banished to the garage to polish up the horn button and center trim because: 1) I'm terrible at trivia, and 2) My metal polish stinks something awful.

Shiny New Wheel Cover!

Sort of happening in the background of everything else, we've been sanding, polishing, and dipping the shift knob in a puddle of clear stain. It's really held up quite well to its abuse, but good gods does it soak up a lot of stain. The wooden shift knob is one of my favorite parts of the car. It goes something like this: Round headlights, shiny gauges, stainless grille, shift knob. I'm easy to please.

Shiny Old Shift Knob!

Coming up!

Also in various stages of work are building new door panels and cleaning out the old roofing-underlayment type sound damping from the floors and walls. I'll be laying in some new high-tech stuff before buttoning everything up. Stay tuned! You are going to stay tuned... Aren't you?

Ghost in the Shell

Restoring a car is a lot of work. I was expecting to turn some wrenches, pry off some trims, dip it in a puddle o paint, and then slap it all back together. That's still the gist of the effort, but the sheer number of wrench turns and trim prying boggles the mind. That, and apparently I'm terrible at time estimation (I'll have it done, five, ten minutes tops!). In any case, after gutting the interior, I sent the Vovorine off to my good friends at Classic Restorations (in Verdi!!!) to deal with that problematic bump in the trunk.

Ew, gross!

Much Better

It's All In The Details

The trunk work is just the teaser. Now it's time to get nekkid for the paint work. Every conceivable piece of rubber, glass, plastic and steel on the outside of the car comes off. I budgeted a weekend and an extra after work day or two to do this project. I spent two weekends and the majority of the week in between doing it. Oy.

Don't Bend It!

The car is trimmed out in stainless steel. For the most part it's a thin and delicate metal, to be treated with the same care and precision as you would the Queen's new grandson. I of course ripped it out like The Hulk - except for where The Hulk is green and supremely strong, I am not. Speaking of supremely strong, though, the front grill is a mesh of fairly substantial stainless steel rods.

Solid.

Blinkety Blink

With the windows and stainless bits off, it's time to get down to the electrical bits. Being Lucas, I expected to find barrel plugs with mismatched metals all over the place. Alas, it was not to be. Instead I found a solid wire from inside the headlamp bucket all the way back to the source, and of course no way to pull out the buckets (or hide them inside the fender) without removing the cable. Curses. Sounds like something Future John will be able to take care of. We'll just snip it apart with some tree loppers and try to catch the blinker fluid before it all evaporates. Oddly enough, the tail lights and signals did have convenient barrel plugs...

Ow! My eye!

Finishing Touches

Finally, remove the door seals, kick plates, wiper posts, washer nozzles.. The old rusty trunk lid gets replaced with a slightly less rusty trunk lid picked up at the Davis VCOA meet and we're all ready for the paint shop!

...Goodbye cruel world

See you in a few weeks!

Guttin'

It's been a bit since I've written, but that's not for lack of progress. It's just that I'm juggling the remaining tasks while not getting any actually completed. The motor works. The transmission works. That crazy electric overdrive thingiemajigger works. If you don't count the questionable brakes and shot suspension bearings, I have a functioning car! Now I just need to turn it into something my lovely girlfriend would be happy to ride in. Which leads to the final countdown: rust repair, paint, and interior. At some point I'll do one more post about the stereo setup, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. First up, interior.

You've seen the starting pictures (and if you haven't, go read the old posts, you lazy bastage). Crusty dark blue skin that used to be vinyl barely clinging on over a foam that has long since turned to a pale orange powder. Gross. So to start with, let's rip the shit out of it.

Something was definitely living back there...

Interesting how much plywood you find in an old car. At least it's easy to replace... The shelf in the rear is a pair of plywood sheets screwed to a bit of a hinge. The rear seat-back is built on a piece of plywood. I'm told the headliner is stretched across a wooden frame. Strange, nowadays the only "wood" in a car is the veneer trim put there to look classy. If a car's measure of class is the amount of dead tree in it, mine wins hands down!

Speaking of which, let's pull the doors apart while we're at it...

The mechanicals in the doors are all in good working order. I'll give them a decent cleaning and lubing, then stuff the doors with vibration damper and Thinsulate Acoustic before wrapping them back up again and burying them behind the door panels. All of the interior panels are simply flat pieces of fiberboard with some vinyl stretched across. I'll see if I can pull that off myself, wish me luck. I'll be using generous amounts of sound deadener before I reassemble - I want this car to be better than new. The wheel humps look to be two pieces of vinyl stitched in a curve, maybe I'll exchange stitching new wheel humps for some fine beer (any stitchers feel like taking me up on that?). My cheap-o carpet kit might be an object lesson in why not to get cheap-o carpet kits, but I won't know that until I get to em.

But Wait, There's More!!

I picked up my seats from Classic Restorations in Verdi Nevada, and they are looking great! They're refinished in leather for all the parts that matter, vinyl on the rest. The back seats are vinyl as well, but only Isis the dog and stinky children sit back there anyway, so who really cares if it's not perfect? New foam, new elastic webbing, and cleaned up mechanicals. They're looking and feeling great. I'll need to replace the rear seat webbing, but I'll burn that bridge when I get there.

So fresh and so clean!

Isis goes here.

(or more likely, on the top with the seat folded down)

We're getting down to the last few tasks, but it feels like there's still so much left to do!