Work continues.....
Here's how my completed car was found at A-Team Collision. No top or glass installed, no panels aligned, no wet sanding or buffing. Hell, they didn't even finish painting it! (The guy in the pic. is David not Mike West, the owner. David's a good guy. He felt my pain!)
How about that panel alignment!
After bringing her home, I've been working on the interior while I wait to get a verdict (and hopefully some money) from Small Claims Court.
First, I ground off the rust on the floorpans and trunk. Cut out and welded in new metal in the front floor. Used Por-15 throughout and then splatter painted the trunk. Looks good as new.
Trunk before and after.
Now in with 3 layers of underlayment to smooth out the bottom and make it nice and soft. Then with some cut pile carpeting to finish it out.
Front floor pan before and after.
Now that the floor pan's repaired, everything from the firewall back has been covered with Por-15. Over 50 square feet of Dynamat has been added to the firewall, floors, doors, and trunk area.
I've insulated all the interior panels with Reflectix, which you can purchase from Home Depot. It is made of two sheets of foil with something similar to bubble wrap between them. Besides providing incredible insulation (equal to about 1/2 of what a typical wall in your house would have) it also adds some padding. I haven't even installed the carpet yet and it's beginning to sound dead inside...like a recording studio. Cool!
I made sure to insulate the firewall too, all the way to the underside of the cowl. Should keep the engine heat at bay!
Carpet underlayment will be added in the footwells and on the rear "hump" to give it extra padding. Then new cut-pile carpeting will top it all off.
The heater box was pulled and many horrors were discovered. About 10 years ago, critters had invaded and made it their home. Their nasty bathroom habits were quite evident. Also the whole back of the box (under the yellow insulation) had collapsed and fallen apart. I had to rebuild it with fiberglass. I took everything apart, cleaned it, installed new foam on all the dampers and a new heater core. The A/C condenser had new connections installed and was pressure tested. Finally texture coating was applied to the box and all hardware zinc coated. Good as new!
Before and After
Before and After
Now to finish installing the carpet, then on to refinishing the interior panels, reinstalling the dash and fabricating brackets for the custom seats. More coming soon....
