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!