[MUSLCAH]

Nice ! I left my dash alone….the cigarette burns on the ash tray and lower dash ,tell a story…lol

[ZeGermanHam]

Ha, yeah... My old dash had a few too many stories it wanted to tell. It was really beat.

[ZeGermanHam]

Work on the odds & ends continues... Today I experimented with stripping the anodizing off of a spare piece of very scratched up aluminum window trim that I had laying around from my donor doors. I used Easy-Off Heavy Duty oven cleaner (yellow can, with sodium hydroxide), and it worked pretty well. I checked to see how much progress it had made after 10 minutes, which was not much. So I let it sit an hour, and that did the trick. All the anodizing came off pretty easily at that point with a green scouring pad.

At this point, I'm leaning toward not re-anodizing my aluminum trim. Based on what I've read from others here, it seems people have a pretty easy time keeping it looking good just by hand polishing every so often.






Also finally got my hands of every part of an exhaust system, including some Doug's headers. I'm going to cancel my order from Ram Air Restorations, since there is no ETA on when the manifolds I ordered in April will arrive. The rest of the exhaust is Flowmaster 2.5" mandrel bent tubing with H-pipe, and 16" Dynomax Super Turbo mufflers. Should sound good without being overly obnoxious, hopefully. I'm more of a turbo muffler guy rather than a chambered muffler guy, even though turbo mufflers hurt performance somewhat.


Lastly, I cleaned up my wiper motor, which was pretty ugly but functional before I removed it. Looks better now.

[1965gp]

Nice progress- the little details make the car

[proximity_alrt]

Love the updates here, ZeGermanHam. I've considered trying the greased lightning route on my anodized aluminum. I'm kind of scared to take window trim off. Your thread and Roger1's ongoing 69' convertible resto are some of the best project threads on this board right now.

[ZeGermanHam]

Originally Posted by proximity_alrt

Love the updates here, ZeGermanHam. I've considered trying the greased lightning route on my anodized aluminum. I'm kind of scared to take window trim off. Your thread and Roger1's ongoing 69' convertible resto are some of the best project threads on this board right now.

I was pretty spooked at the thought of removing the window trim before I did it, too. But when I finally got down to it, it wasn't terribly hard. You just have to work slowly and smartly.

The only item that I goofed on was the reveal molding along the edge of the door where you'd rest your arm with the window down. I didn't notice the forward most screw and kinked the trim a bit thinking it was free. Stupid mistake on my part... It can be bent back and reused, but I have a spare in good shape, fortunately.

But if your trim is beat up and needing attention, don't shy away from removing it if needed. It can be removed and reinstalled without damaging it if you're careful.

[ZeGermanHam]

A little update on my progress over the past few weekends. I got my grills out of the shed to take a look at them again and determine if they could be reused, or if new ones would need to be purchased. Here's one of them for reference. Someone had painted them fully black rather than silver & black. The paint was flaking off in many places, and they also had lots of red paint overspray from whoever painted the car from Cameo Ivory to red.



As one might expect, all but a few of the mounting tabs were broken off...


My solution was to cut away the cracked plastic and bend up some 1" wide strips of aluminum, then JB Weld them into place and drill new holes.


One of the attachment points for the parking lights was also cracked, so I again cut away the broken material and glued in some aluminum, then drilled a new hole.



Then came sanding and cleaning. I took a tube cleaning brush to clean each individual square of the grill face.


The anodized trim was a little beat up. Nothing super major, but it had some medium scratches and some slight bends that I was able to get out.


The GTO emblem was not pitted, but the paint was ratty, so I stripped and repainted it by hand.



No photos were taken of my fastidious masking job, but here is the final result in all its glory. They came out looking like a million bucks (to my eye, anyway). The I stripped the anodized trim with Easy-Off oven cleaner and polished them nicely on the buffing wheel. The black painted portion of the grills was done with Krylon spray paint, and the silver part is Eastwood Brake Gray, which has actual stainless steel flakes in it and is typically used for painting brake reservoirs and calipers. Looks excellent on the grills.





Also received another shipment of parts from Ames. This time, interior stuff. I got the 2nd to last pair of bucket seat covers they had in stock, which I was grateful for, since they are now experiencing 6-12 month waits on upholstery. Also picked up a headliner, sail panels, carpet, and various other items to redo the interior. Gotta say, these Legendary seat covers look fantastic. So much nicer than all the reproduction stuff I used to see in GTOs 15-20 years ago.



Lastly, I decided this afternoon that I wanted to test my horns to see if they actually work, since they were never wired up when I used to drive the car in the '90s. Who knows the last time they actually were used. Could've been 35+ years ago. Hooked 'em up to a spare battery and tried the high & low tones. High tone sounds good. Low tone sounds a little buzzy. See for yourself: https://youtu.be/a0VC53dnrCo

[gtospieg]

Awesome job on the grills...my horns did not work after sitting for 30+ years...worked when parked...lol.

[70L34]

Great job. I am intrigued by how you recreated the mount bosses with aluminum and JB Weld. Do they seem strong?

[ZeGermanHam]

Originally Posted by 70L34

Great job. I am intrigued by how you recreated the mount bosses with aluminum and JB Weld. Do they seem strong?

Yes, they are very strong. Zero flex and the JB Weld bonded very well.

[ZnbOlds455]

Looking really good! Great job with those grills!

[ZeGermanHam]

This weekend I disassembled the passenger seat now that I have decided I'm going to overhaul the bucket seats myself. Between the information that is available here and on YouTube, I now feel confident that I can refinish them to a high standard. It goes without saying, disassembling 55 year old seats is pretty gross!

Here's what I started with. It's the original upholstery, tearing in a few places but I've seen worse.


Lower cover panels had some surface rust.


Yuck. Can't say I didn't expect it, though.


All torn down. No broken springs! I'm hoping to have the same luck with the driver seat, but it of course sees a lot more wear & tear, so fingers crossed.


The seat tracks had a healthy amount of surface rust on them. Since there is no easy way to disassemble these for sandblasting (don't want sand in the bearings), I submerged them in Evaporust for about 24 hours.


The Evaporst worked like magic!


All cleaned up and sliding like new again. I know they weren't painted like this from the factory, but I'm not building a points car and I'd rather they not rust again.


My shop recently got a new blast cabinet. Great timing!


Ah, so fresh & clean.


Also blasted, primed, and painted the lower covers and the seat back panel.




Still about 3 weeks out until I (supposedly) receive my seat foam which is on backorder, but I'm pretty excited about this aspect of the project. Can't wait to have a couple of fresh buckets to install.

[gtospieg]

Nice work Z...again.

[Scarebird]

That stuff really did the job! I would gather that a resto shop worthy of it's name would have a big 100 gallon tank of the stuff so they would not have to blast everything.

My experience with upholsterers is they are even less reliable than painters and machinists.

[ZeGermanHam]

Yeah, the Evaporust was really nice to work with, too. Very minimal odor, biodegradable, no acid, safe on skin (although I always wear gloves with any chemical), non-toxic, and it's resuable. I cleaned up some rusty springs, hardware, and other smaller items while the seat tracks were dunked, all of it came out looking like new. Great product. Would be nice to keep a 5gal bucket of it around, but at ~$25/gal, it's not free.

[MUSLCAH]

Originally Posted by Scarebird

That stuff really did the job! I would gather that a resto shop worthy of it's name would have a big 100 gallon tank of the stuff so they would not have to blast everything.

My experience with upholsterers is they are even less reliable than painters and machinists.

Hey Now !!

[ZeGermanHam]

Finally got all the parts needed to completely overhaul my seats (had been waiting on the foam and installation kit for a little while). So with a deep breath, I set about re-padding and reupholstering my passenger side bucket. I've never attempted any form of upholstery work before, so this was my first rodeo. Here are the results:







The Legendary upholstery and American Cushion Industries foam are excellent. I'd be lying if I said I didn't work up a good sweat stretching the new seat covers over the foam and frame, though. The upper seat back was particularly tough, and there was one point when I thought it had me beat. But I was persistent and didn't take no for an answer, and it all worked out very nicely in the end. No wrinkles, no tears, no problems. Total success! Now I have to get busy with the driver side...

[Cardo]

That looks really good! Nice work!

[OG68]

Excellent! More incentive for me to get off my behind and finish my seats

[OCMDGTO]

Those seats look fantastic, quite a first effort