| This month's
story is a
compilation of crap. Frankly, I have spent most of the time either
under
the car (I seem to hate it more as I get older), or with electrical
wiring.
I jacked up the rear of the body to:
- to remove rear tires and paint the whitewalls, which didn't work out at all - they turned dark grey - paint the insides of rear fenders with POR-15, which did work out, although the rotary wire brush / angle grinder combo ran out of my hand and tore up my leg! - drop the gas tank to find out why it ran out of gas while there was 10 liters of gas in the tank - needed to reconstruct the pickup tube - OK now - to cure the air leak at the driver-side airbag - should be OK now - to remedy the rear axle yoke-to-pinion leak - OK now - to install lap belts for 4 passengers, 2 front, 2 rear - OK now - to fabricate bracketry for the Emergency Brake - OK now - to make a temporary driver-side exhaust pipe out of corrugated stainless pipe. Had to add some mounts for the passenger-side pipe, too. - for numerous minor reasons that I can't remember anymore I had to crawl
under the
dash to finalize wiring to: turn signals, taillights, brake lights,
instrument
lights, map light, glove box light, courtesy lights, rear deck
lid
solenoid, airbag solenoids, heater (12 volt motor), defroster (6 volt
motor
+ ballast resistor), horns (6-volt), you name it. Lots of work. The
only
piece left of the original wiring is the white wire from the dome lamp
to door switches, which is the only plastic-insulated wire in the
original wire harness. Everything else is brand new.
|
I used the original front parking brake cable, shortened it a little,
and
fabricated some bracketry to mate it to the rear cables that came with
the '89 Trans-Am rear. The bracket is mounted on the torque arm. I
never
use the parking brake with automatic trans, but now with a stick shift,
it had better work properly. |
 It
took me years to restore the Steering Wheel. As you can see, the
original
wheel was in sad condition. I even purchased a 1949 Buick steering
wheel,
in fair condition, to replace it, but I liked the 1946 or early-40's
style
wheel better, so I decided to restore the '46 wheel. I started by
lightly
sandblasting the rot away from all the crevices, to establish a good
contact
for epoxy. I used a product called PC-7, which is an epoxy with
filler,
to re-construct the basic shape. PC-7 is available at
Eastwood,
or in Finland, at Mobitive.
I then used a half-round file to trace the finger convolutions at the
back
of the rim, one at a time, and various grits of sandpaper to dress the
whole rim back to shape. |
 The
surface was still rough, and full of tiny cracks, so I followed an
advice
(which I came to regret later) and covered the whole rim with regular,
flowing epoxy (slow-curing Araldit). It sure took long to cure, and I
didn't
know it back then, but epoxy doesn't like thin layers, and tended to
scale
and peel off, especially after sanding it. After numerous rounds of
finessing
with polyester filler and primer, I was able to coat it with white
pearl.
Looking at the finished wheel is rewarding but I'm still unsure if it
was
worth all the elbow grease and frustration.
For restoring the shine of the chrome pieces, there are many products, but I have found the German-made Autosol to be superior. |
 I
finally decided to get serious, and bought myself a used industrial
sewing
machine. This one is a Mitsubishi, and it looks like a carbon copy of
the
renowned German-made Pfaff. This machine is made of STEEL - no plastics
allowed anywhere - and has the power to sew heavy and thick materials,
even your fingers if you will...
It's got a walking needle, which will positively pull any material and provide uniform stitch length - a must when you have a visible seam. A commercial household sewing machine may be good for sewing drapes, but for what I'm doing - polyfoam and multiple layers of vinyl - it surrendered at the very beginning! Here I am sewing welting on the main body of the rear seatback. Things got so much easier when I got this machine - I just love it! It's so ballsy that Tim Allen (of Home Improvement TV-show) would already have installed some V-8 power in it ;-) |