Headliner Shell Fit Check

Finished removing and cleaning the fiberglass headliner shell, and I learned a lot of how to, and how not to do things. The mold was destroyed in the process, but since this is the only part in existence, there is no need for another mold.

I'm quite surprised at how well it fits in place. Maneuvering the big flexible shell in through the window opening by myself was a pain, but I made it!. As expected, all the sides need trimming, but that was the intent. Better too big, than too small. Only one corner came up a fraction short, and it might work, but I can't measure that accurately until the re-chromed windshield surrounds are returned. I might have to add a small patch if the chrome piece doesn't quite cover it.

The other area that could be a problem is where the visors mount, but that will also have to wait for parts to verify.

After trimming, I will add a final coat of resin to the fabric surface to repair a few places gouged when the mold release didn't do its job, and I will also reinforce the back side if needed. If I decide to use chrome strips to keep it from sagging, it won't need more reinforcing. That decision will depend on if I can find the plastic trim/windlace that secures the headliner to the roof rails.

Funny How Time Slips Away

As I was looking back at old blog posts, I was amazed that car related things that I thought happened just a few weeks ago, actually took place a couple of years ago! Between trying to sell two houses half-way across the state, having out-of-state visitors, trying to finish all the projects on my wife's to-do list, and being slowed with health issues, I haven't accomplished much in the way of car reconstruction recently.

I did finish laying fiberglass, but have yet to separate the shell from the mold. Because it's thinner than the typical molded part, I have to be very careful not to crack it during removal. I now wish I had used a thin plastic wrap, as a mold release. The paste wax didn't do the best job as a mold release, even after five coats. I have it loose around the edges, but I might have to destroy the mold to convince the middle portion to release.

Wiring behind the dash is going to be a nightmare with all the A/C hoses and the Vintage Air housing eating up the already limited space designed for the stock heater. I decided to cut off the lower portion of an old, rusty Savoy dash that came with the Belvedere, and use it to more accurately locate duct outlets and wire bundles. At least I'll be able to access most of the work from the front, instead of having to lie on my back and work overhead.

While working on the end of the console where it meets the dash and firewall, I decided it would be a good idea to re-design the home made metal duct intended to direct air toward the driver's floor. There just wasn't enough clearance to jam everything that has to fit in that tight area. I finished the new duct, and incorporated a mounting bracket for the A/C relays, so I hope I pick up enough room to stuff everything out of sight and in a way that the wire bundles don't rub.

Fiberglass at Last

The great experiment to create a headliner that uses modern fabric glued to a headliner shell is underway. Though the weather turned to cool days and cold nights, I had one day of temps over 70 so I could build the first mat layer. There were a few problems, but nothing unexpected or too serious.

I hope to keep the weight down by adding and additional layer of glass only in the areas where it will be attached to the body. Temperatures to work with the resin won't be high enough until late next week, so I have to wait again. I could heat the workshop, but the odor is more than I want to put up with in a closed area.

I took a drive to the plating shop I used for my last batch of parts, and discovered they no longer chrome plate due to new EPA regulations. There is now only one place left in Fort Worth that does chroming. I found a place in a smaller town near the Oklahoma border that does show-car chrome at show-car prices, and since they modified their shop to comply with government regulations, the price estimate was about three to four times the price a similar amount of work cost two years ago in Fort Worth. It's easy to understand why new car trim is all plastic.

No word from the machine shop doing my steering column work, other than they are falling farther and farther behind since the owner had his heart attack. It's been three months, and they have their regular customers to pacify, and are not too concerned about a customer who brings in a small job now and then. I might have to search for another machinist, but that shop has the best reputation and I hesitate to take a chance with the other local ones. I'm glad I don't have a real need for it yet. Maybe it will arrive in Santa's sleigh!

Running in Place

A good friend had a favorite saying..."The harder I work, the behinder I get!"  That pretty much describes my recent progress. Though I've been spending a lot of time on car related work, I have little or nothing to show for it.

I got tired of limited workspace, messy standard parts storage, and misplaced parts, so I built the low workbench and bought three new parts bins. That required several hours of sorting and organizing all the nuts, bolts, screws, clips, clamps, electrical terminals and miscellaneous other parts.

Once that was done. I decided to sort and store the bigger parts in some semblance of order. That took another few hours adjusting shelving and re-boxing parts to gain more space.

Between housekeeping tasks, I searched for the parts and materials I'll need next. Some things have been ordered, and some are still to be located. A couple of so-called universal light sockets will not fit as hoped, so I'll have to find some used parts in better shape than the ones I have, or design a work-around with what I have.

I finally decided which products I need to finish the headliner shell, and should be able to pick up the fiberglass materials on Monday. The counter guy at the retailer obviously didn't want to take the time over the phone to verify he everything was available, so I'll be heading there on Monday to see how much they have in stock. I never expected it would be so difficult to find fiberglass materials without taking a trip to Dallas or Fort Worth.

I made a trip to the machine shop to check progress on my custom steering shaft. It's now been there over two months and doesn't look like anything will happen soon. I was informed that the owner... the one who does most of their custom jobs...suffered a heart attack and wasn't expected back for several weeks.

Our first freeze arrives tonight, so I have patio plants to move inside and green tomatoes to pick, or cover so I better get busy!

Courtesy Lights

I'm making some small progress with wiring. The 18 gauge pink wire, LED courtesy light bulbs, sockets and new door jamb switches have all arrived.  The courtesy light wiring is installed, but I learned that the Dorman universal door jamb switches are not quite universal when it comes to Mopars, but that's no surprise. A search for switches with a better fit turned up nothing, and a dozen different supplier part numbers that are supposed to replace the Mopar number show the Dorman part. I can modify the ones I got, but I can't locate the 90 degree terminals needed to provide clearance for the shaft to move inside the jamb. I'm trying to de-rust and salvage the old terminals, but they are in bad shape and may crack when I try to re-crimp them on the non-conductive post, and I'm sure they are far too rusty to make a decent solder joint.

I also had to devise a non-stock method to mount the courtesy light sockets in the housing, as the OEM method is unique and there are no similar replacements available. Since the LED bulbs will be much cooler than the stock bulbs and should not damage a good epoxy, I used J-B Weld and a
homemade bracket to secure the socket.

Finding decently priced replacement lenses is another challenge. Apparently no one makes reproductions, and NOS parts are priced from $35-$45 apiece. Nearly every used lens I can find is cracked, and all of them have been scorched where the bulb comes close to the plastic. LED bulbs should not generate enough heat to be a problem, but I'm not even positive the slightly larger and different profile LED will clear the lens and I might have to use incandescent.

I'm watching lots of youtube videos and educating myself on the newest fiber-glassing methods before I order any materials for the headliner shell. It's been over 40 years since I did much work with fiberglass, and I've already discovered lots of new products that should make the job easier. The buck is painted and ready to use as soon as I get the appropriate glassing materials.

Another garage project is underway to make organizing parts and pieces easier. The temporary bench setup I had was much too small and was too low for my bad back. I had been wondering what to do with a homemade twin bed platform I kept from our other house, so I decided to re-purpose it for a low work bench. I also had a 24" X 72" heavy piece of glass that fit almost perfectly for a work surface. Three new parts bins will hold more nuts, bolts, washer and electrical parts stock, as well as more drawers for small car parts that tend to get lost. I didn't even take time to paint it, but so  far, it looks like a big improvement over what I had. The bins are US made and much higher quality than the Chinese crap I had before.

One other non-car job that got finished was hooking up the 20kw generator that has been serving as nothing more than a lawn ornament for the past three years. The price about put me into cardiac arrest, but it's an improvement over the way it was installed at the other house. It now has dual, smart transfer switches so it will sense the total demands and power the entire house. not just selected circuits. Lots of junk hanging on the house, so it looks like I'll have to plant some shrubs to hide it.

Mowers and Headliners

Just spent the better part of two days repairing my John Deere lawn tractor and didn't get much time for the car, but in between mower fixing in the hot side of the workshop, I did take a few minutes to cool off in the air conditioned side while working on a few small Plymouth tasks. At least the mower is finally back together. While it was disassembled I had access to everything, so I gave it a complete lube and oil change, a tune-up, and adjusted the mower deck, so it should be good for another year.

The headliner buck is down to the final shaping and leveling phase. After one more sanding, it will get a coat of paint to seal the dusty, plaster surface before attempting the first shot at making a fiberglass shell. I'm still not confident the project will work, but if not I can always fall back on the OEM method with bows, tacks, and windlace.

More electrical wire arrived, so I can begin stringing the bundles that go from front to back. I have yet to find sockets for the courtesy lights, so they may require a custom setup if I can't locate good stock replacements or a similar aftermarket design.

The Beat Goes On

Not to be outdone by a computer crash, my three-year-old John Deere D140 threw the drive belt off the transmission pulley before I finished the weekly mowing. I towed it back to the garage and cleaned out the grass cuttings so I could at least find the drive belt! I now have the deck removed and the tractor up on jack stands, so when it's cool tomorrow morning I'll check the belt for damage. The part that's clearly visible looks good, so I'm hoping it can just be reinstalled.

In the few minutes I took to work on the car, I did manage to install the substitute backup light lenses and they look okay if you're not a stickler for a perfect restoration. The gaskets fit perfectly and only lens modification needed was to slot the mounting holes. Now to find the safe place where I stored the new bulb sockets I bought several months ago!

The machine shop hasn't called to say the steering column is complete. He said it would be about two weeks, but it's been nearly four. Not that it's needed yet, but I'm beginning to get a little nervous with no word from them..

The Midas Touch in Reverse

Seems like everything I've touched recently is going to hell. The hard drive  in my five-year-old computer crashed only days after installing the newest version of TurboCAD. Naturally I hadn't backed up anything since before I left on my trip and I lost quite a bit of info. However, except for twenty years of CAD files, most of the important stuff is okay...especially my Quicken files.

Biggest problem is recovering old software. MS Office was seven years old and I couldn't find a way to reload the 2010 version as I bought it new as a download without a disk, so this time I had to rent the Cloud version or spend a fortune for a disk. Now I'm really at the mercy of Microsoft, but at least everything in Office was backed up and I think I saved it all. Several other programs were salvaged by being on DVDs or having access to the original download sites.

Several small programs that I really liked and used a lot were also lost and there is no way to replace them. Recovering the backed-up files also scrambled a lot of folders, especially pictures, so lots of time consuming reorganizing to do.

Obviously, nothing is happening on the car, but the good news is I'm feeling better and might be able to make better progress once I get my computer issue resolved.

Trunk Lid Install and B/U Light Lenses

Got the trunk lid installed today. No, I couldn’t find a willing helper nearby again so I had to rig the come-along to lift, adjust and hold it in place while I installed the bolts. It worked fine, but the whole operation took about two hours to rig and install. With a helper, it would have taken 15 minutes. I still have to adjust the hinges, but at least I can do that without help.

I’ve been looking for backup light lenses for quite a while but gave up trying to find good used, or reasonably priced NOS parts. I finally ended up doing something similar to what Old Ray wrote up in a Forward Look post back in 2014.

I bought a pair of Grote 62011 lenses for a grand total of $6.50 from Unity School Bus Parts…the cheapest source I could find when I ordered. For everyone’s info, the OEM lens is .97” tall and 3.68” in diameter, while the Grote part is 1.00” tall and 3.5” in diameter.

The choice I have to make is either to use the new Gary Goers gaskets  and slot the lens mounting holes, or turn the lens 90*and tap new screw holes in the housing. Slotting would require sealing small gaps in the slot that could let water in.  That method would also position the lens with the inside casting  lines in a vertical position.

If I drill new holes in the housing, the stock gasket wouldn’t match, but it would probably have better lighting characteristics with the focusing pattern cast into the lens.

As few times as I would use the backup lights, I think I will go with the first option. Maybe the lenses will be reproduced for a reasonable someday and then I could replace them without repairing the housing. Until then, the lights installed my way should suit my limited purposes...and the price was right.   

Updating No Progress

The beautiful weather we've been experiencing recently would be perfect for outdoor painting, but I don't have anything ready to paint. Calm mornings and evenings with temps in the eighties during the day and fifties at night, tend to prevail in the fall, but at the rate I'm going, painting won't be happening until at least next spring.

I mentioned some health problems, and they have taken their toll since I got back from my trip. Too many household chores piled up while I was gone and I've been pushing too hard to catch up. Another trip to the doctor this week was encouraging, but he thinks it will be weeks and possibly months before I'm back to whatever passes for "normal" at this age. Frustrating!

The biggest local car show of the year takes place in nearby Denton tomorrow. I pre-registered my '64 Valiant convertible, but I'm not sure I'll attend. I cleaned the exterior the this morning, but ran out of strength before I finished the interior, so I won't make a decision to go until tomorrow morning.

Between chores, I do get a few minutes to accomplish minor things on the old Plymouth, but I foolishly agreed to another project my wife is pushing for.

We're planning to build a 10' X 16' pool house/greenhouse/studio/guest cottage adjacent to the workshop, and I have to draw up the plans as I haven't found a standard design that would work for multi-use. I thought drafting it would be a one evening job with my TurboCad program, but I discovered that Windows 10 doesn't like TurboCad version 18 and many functions don't work. I really don't want to upgrade the software as it's expensive and I seldom use it anymore, so it's back to pencil and engineering pad!

With so many contractors heading for Houston to repair flood damage, I'm guessing I don't stand a chance of finding someone to build it anyway, so there probably isn't any rush.