| I finally got
the carpets
and seats ready and installed! And the itch to get it on the road is
getting
almost intolerable! There are still a few things left with the
upholstery,
like the door panels and kick panels, but the car needs to be first
moved
outside to allow the doors to be fully opened.
The carpeting isn't really visible in these pictures, but I used maroon loop-pile carpet. On top of the floor pan, there's now a 4 mm layer of bitumen, then a rebond padding and the carpet - should be quiet now! The front seat was pretty straightforward to upholster, but I needed to work out the springs a little to correct some unevenness, and needed to renew some of the batting. And you know what, the sideways location of the inserts on the backrests match those of the cushions. By accident of course ;-) The wiper cable
was broken,
and I got a working cable from my friend Kartsa's 1949 Buick, but I
didn't
get the '49 wiper knob. The 1946 knob couldn't be mated to the 1949
cable,
so I machined a custom knob from stainless. It looks original, though.
|
 |
 The
Super-T10 shifter location necessitated notching the bench seat, as
seen
here. Both the seat frame and cushion needed modifications. I'm only 6
feet tall, but when the seat is at the rearmost location, my left leg
hits
the steering wheel when I move it to the clutch pedal! And while I now
have a 1963 Riviera steering column, I'd swear the wheel is at the
original
position. The notch allows the seat to be moved some 50 mm forward, but
even Tuula will be able to drive it at the rearmost location.
There was a funny incident in making the notch. There's a rod running the lower edge of the seat. I cut it apart, and welded back a half-circle. All the cushion materials are highly combustible, so I covered the surrounding areas with wet rags. Only the MIG welder tends to spit. When I was done with welding and removed the mask, there were half-meter tall flames flashing from the seat! I had a pail of water at hand which I threw on the flames, but that wasn't enough! This happened in the winter, so I grabbed the whole seat and rushed outside of the garage and dumped the seat deep in the snow. I had to literally bury the whole seat in the snow to extinguish it, and left it there overnight. Scary. |
 The
rear seatback was a challenge to to upholster, because there wasn't
much
anything left from the original upholstery to use as a template. I
installed
lap belts for the kids. They feature the early-Vette or aircraft style
buckles, and I got them from Southern
Rods.
I couldn't resist adding a pair of speakers, either. Although not period-correct, at least the speaker grilles are shiny metal as opposed to black plastics. Funny how roomy the Buick seemed before the seats were installed. It's still roomy but not luxurious. Kids can hardly wait anymore to get a ride. |
Notice the tachometer on the left, under the dash? It's a bullet shaped, chromed half-sweep no-name tach that I found from eBay. The seller didn't know which car it came from. It's supposedly from the 1960's, maybe from a Mopar? Inside the tach there's a logo with letters "DC" and nothing else. Ypu can also select between 6 and 8 cylinders. There are only 2 wires to it, the one from the distributor, and one for the illumination. I suppose it gets the 12 volt supply via the illumination wire. |