The unusually nice weather this spring has continued with several more days in the 70’s. Yesterday after work, I took a few hours to enjoy the weather and work on the car with the garage open. After all the work I did over the weekend, I was in a good spot to just get a bunch of various bits re-assembled in the car. I was hoping I’d be able to drive it to work this week. After a couple hours, I had gotten the interior re-installed in the car. There’s not a lot to discuss about it, since it was just a matter of putting parts I’ve already fabricated and described in previous posts into the car, but I wanted to get an update on here with photos of it.
I wanted to avoid having to remove bits of the interior again any time soon, so part of installing the console was installing some of the carpet. Using Super 77 spray adhesive, I mounted the carpet onto the transmission tunnel top and side walls.
It took a good bit of time to get all the various bits bolted into the top, and I was missing some of the bolts I needed, but I got the trim bits mostly installed.
The aluminum detail really works well in the cockpit, I believe. I’m not entirely happy with the way the console sides mount, and the addition of the carpet has moved them apart enough for the front panel to not fit quite right.
During the install, I think I also cracked the thinnest part of the MDF on the passenger side panel by the e-brake handle. With the vinyl and aluminum on there, its still solid, but there’s a flex there that wasn’t there before. I may have to redo these with solid wood at some point. Its easy enough to remove the vinyl later and move it to new pieces. It took me weeks to fabricate all these parts the first time, but redoing some of them will be fast now.
The cupholders are just press fit into the console — I need to figure out how I want to secure them from behind, but for now they stay put well enough.
The e-brake also needs a boot — at some point in the next week or two I’ll sew one up for it, although its a bit of a pain to unbolt the trim at this point, so I may just wait until the next time I have everything out of the car.
I’ve been thinking more about the seats recently. I’m not sure if I’m going to recover these, or look at either a new set of seats for the car. I think this is fine for the summer — a pair of beat seats sort of goes well with the unpainted body, but I need to make a decision when I get the car painted.
I still have no plan on when I’m getting the car in to deal with the oil leak, but I’m hopeful it’ll be within the next 2-3 weeks.
I probably won’t have any more time to work on the car other than dealing with the oil leak for a few weeks, but I do hope to get more time to drive it.