My carpet wire protectors were galvanized from the factory luckily. I have a suggestion if you are interested, most people use dynamat to deaden the sound on the inside of their cars but my wifes uncle told me to go to Lowes in their roofing section and buy this flashing that has a tar substance backing. It is easy to work with and and works great. I even put a strip on the inside of the doors running long ways and you would not believe how it took the hollow sound out of them. I figure your after weight savings and this would not be an option for you but if you did decide to make it quiet its a cheap altenative to Dynamat. It is approximately 8" wide and comes in a roll.

 

Yeah, I've got a thread bookmarked somewhere where guys were talking about using that stuff instead of Dynamat and Fat mat. I did consider it, but you're right.....I decided against it due to weight. But it's something I'll keep in the back of my mind if the heat/noise inside the car gets out of hand. Thanks for bringing it up.

Today I started to work on dying/painting some more or my interior pieces. Here are the SEM products I’m using.



First I did my interior quarter trim panels. Here they are prior to any cleaning.



First I scrubbed them with SEM Soap and a blue scratch pad. SEM recommends gray scratch pads but I couldn’t find them locally and the blue ones are non-abrasive which I assume is the purpose for using the gray pads. Next I cleaned them with the SEM plastic and leather prep and a lint-free cloth. This stuff smells just like regular wax and grease remover used to prep metal surfaces prior to paint, so I’m assuming it’s the same stuff. Here’s one after cleaning and prepped for paint.



Now they were ready to paint. First I applied a medium coat of the SEM Sand Free, which is just a clear adhesion promoter. Then, while the Sand Free was still wet, I applied the first light coat of Landau Black Color. Then every five minutes or so I added another light coat with the fifth and final coat being slightly heavier. Here are both panels after paint.



And here’s a comparison of the newly painted panels next to my brand new black sail panels. You can see the new parts have quite a bit less sheen than the painted parts and almost look gray. So they got the same treatment as well.





I also did the moldings that run along the sides of the headliner as well as the steel a-pillar pieces. I feel good about the durability on the plastic pieces, but I’m not sure how this stuff will hold up on the steel parts.





In addition to painting the interior panels, I also wired my neutral safety switch, reverse lights and line lock to the shifter, as well as ran the trans brake and trans temp wires up through the floor board and up under the dash. This allowed me to go ahead and start fitting up my new carpeting around the roll cage.


And I also added two green LEDs to my gauge panel for my turn signal indicators. The yellow button on the right will be for the trans brake.

 

Your work looks great! I like the SEM products where do you buy them? I usually use Dupont for my vinyl dyes and automotive paint but they are sometimes proud of their products.

 

GAry,
The dyed pieces look great. Good job dude. LOL. I tend to say that ALOT in your build thread. LOL

 

Thanks man. I got most of the SEM stuff from yourautotrim.com but the shipping was a little high. So, when I needed two new cans of color I got it from a guy on ebay. I think his username was trimjobber or something like that. I'll probably still need to get a few more cans before I do my door panels and kick panels.

Thanks Jim!

 

My buddy Chris stopped over today after work to borrow a torque wrench and check out the car, so I pulled it outside so he could hear it run and see it in better lighting. And since it was out I figured I’d snap a few pics.






Oh……and I may have pulled it out into the street and dusted off the new tires a bit too…….

 

Hell it looks fast just sitting there!

No black marks in the background??? Your gonna have to pull a redneck move and lay down some for all the neighbors to see!!!

I see your first victim in the background, a Ford Mustang.

 

Thanks man. Look how it has the front end all hiked up in the air like that! Oh wait......I guess that's cause I haven't cut the front springs yet....LOL.

I scuffed them off a little bit, but not enough to leave any serious marks. But trust me....it was full-on redneck alright. Get this.....since the seat tracks are out getting blasted I was sitting on the floor! All I could picture was this bitch hooking up and me flying back and smacking my head off the roll cage and getting knock'd the f*#k out..... Next time I put on my helmet and come off the trans brake!

Oh, and that stang is a 6-banger and I'm suprised it still has a clutch in it. Every time they pull it up the driveway the stop at the bottom and sliiiiiiiip the hell out of it!

 

LOL!!! Seems as if your the "king of the road" in your neighborhood anyways!!!

I wouldnt cut the springs till I had everything back on the car. I had to end up cutting my new springs in the front. I ordered them to my exact spec and they still were way up there. The leafs were a whole different story. They settled almost 3"-4" over a 2 month period. I ended up getting a leaf added to bring them back up.

 

LOL...I don't know. My little neighborhood is pretty stacked with cars. There's a guy up the road with a 2010 Camaro SS, a 69'ish Nova, and a late 50's Chevy truck project. The only one in his stable to watch is the Camaro as the Nova has a really tame small block in it and the truck is just being started. Then there's a guy right around the corner with a 69 Firebird with a 400....but it sounds really tame too. Another guy has what looks to be a 65 Mustang old man cruiser (hubcaps and all), but you never know what it might be hiding under the hood Then at the end of the street some guy has an older Impala (mid-60's) but I don't know what he's packing under the hood either. But I'm gonna guess it's nothing to worry about because I've never heard it run. I guess one way to find out is to call em all out with a nice smoky burn out past there houses! If they're true diehards that'll get em fired up!


Yeah, it's killing me not to cut them yet because I want to see the final stance, but that's what I'm waiting for....to get all the weight back on it. But right now these suckers are HIGH! It's sitting on the top bumpstops and I think it would/could sit even higher if I took them out. It's funny.....when I jack up the front end there is no movement in the front suspension. The front tires come off the ground immediately. I'm not sure if they'll settle any more once I start driving and working the suspension? The weight of the motor has been sitting on them for about a year now, so you'd think they're as relaxed as they're gonna get. The rear springs are what I'm most worried about settling though. I need to get the back glass, rear bumper, and rear seats in it and then fill the fuel cell up and see how much more it's gonna drop. But then again, I'm about 230 and when I put my weight on the trunk the car barely settles at all. These Calvert springs are pretty stiff.

 

I bought the OEM multi leaf springs for Classic Muscle and they were supposed to be to the proper factory spec. I guess if you like the car squating like a school girl then they were up to par. I wanted the front to nose over just a tad compared to the rear. What I ended up with was a jacked up front and a squating rear. I cut one round out of the front and added the leaf to the rear and she is sitting almost perfect for me. You ought to see the guy that added the leaf, he has a '73 Camaro that is on bad *****!!! He was big block with a supercharger and now I think he is spraying an LS. I know last time I talked to him he was in the low 6's in the 1/8th and still had room to play. This is a street car tagged and inspected. Full cage, caltracs, etc. etc. If I get a chance I will stop in and snap a pic and get a few more details.

 

I wonder when you add the sheetmetal and all of the accessories will it sort of balance out the front to rear stance a little?

 

Sounds like a cool car. Pics would be great.

I really doubt it, but it may just a little which is why I'm gonna wait to cut the springs. I've calculated that I've got a little less than 200lbs to add to the front end of the car still. That's including the windshield but not counting front seats which I guess will still have a little effect on the weight over the front end. This website comes in really handy for calculating the weight of 2nd Gen components: http://brian-callahan.com/Brians%20s...o_database.htm

Anyway, my weight (230) barely even budges the front end if I put all my weight on the very front of the frame rails, so that is why I say I doubt it will drop much more with what I have left to add. That does strike me as odd though. The Moroso Trick Springs I'm running are supposed to be the lightest rated ones of the three part numbers they list for a 2nd Gen. I guess maybe I need to check my lower control arm bolts and make sure I didn't get them too tight, causing a bind in the suspension. I know the bushings are greased to capacity so that isn't the issue. I'll probably use the old drag racer trick of backing the nuts off to where they're just touching to reduce the bind and then double nut them for security.

 

ok, im sure you did it, but when you installed the a arms and everything you need to have all your weight on the front end, then torque em down, otherwise it will sit up high like that..... might want to loosen em up a bit put about 250-300 lbs of weight on the front end then re torque em....

 

from what I've read the moroso spings take a bit to settle down...my buddy has them in his nova an it looks the same...everyone says run them for a bit and then see how much to cut if any...for most people they settle down enough that they don't have to cut them

 

When I assembled the front suspension there was no weight at all on the front suspension. It was done that way more out of necessity rather than preference because I had to get the car back into "roller" status long before the engine was ready to go in, let alone the rest of the front end weight. But the a-arm bolts were tighted without the springs in place and they would fall under their own weight when let go of. Like I said, I'm gonna have to loosen them back up once I get all the weight back on it, spring it up and down (with the shocks out), and then re-tighten the arms once it's settled down. But, I'm not conviced yet that binding is the issue. With these Del-A-Lum bushings, I really shouldn't get the same binding effect you'll get with rubber or even poly bushings. If these bushings are bound up, it's because I "He-Man'd" them down too tight, but like I said, I didn't. Just for fun though, I'll take a ride height measurement, then I'll loosen them up and try and bounce the car and take another measurement after with the bolts completely loose.

Yeah, I've heard they settle quite a bit too, but these things have had a motor sitting on them for almost a year now. I guess maybe it'll take the up and down motion of driving on them to finally settle them the rest of the way down? For what it's worth though....I think Moroso purposly makes them taller than needed so they can be cut to height. The instruction sheet that came with them says to install them as is, but to expect to remove them and cut them to achieve your desired ride height. Man, it sure would be nice if I didn't have to do that, but I guess time will tell.

 

I've got a little progress update for today. I got my stuff back from being blasted earlier this week and everything cleaned up really well.



I finished painting it all last night. The seat tracks, carpet guards, rear bumper brackets and licence plate bracket were done with appliance epoxy.



And the interior metal pieces were done with the same SEM paint used on the plastics.



This this morning I got up early and drove up to Gilbert (east Phoenix area) and bought this full set of seats from another nastyz28 member (thanks blownbaldwinmot!). Originally I had planned to have my own seats reupholstered black but when these came up for sale so close to me I just couldn't pass them up. Style-wise they're originally out of a newer 2nd gen, but I still think they'll look great in my 73. I kinda like the more squared off looking seat backs better than my round top originals.




Of course I couldn't wait to see how the rear seats were going to look next to my newly dyed interior pieces, so I installed them for some pics. Camera flashes aren't too friendly to black interior pieces since it kinda washes out the color and showes all the dust, but it looks great in person in my opinion.







Hopefully tommorrow I can get a little more done.

 

Seats make the car look whole again. I think the new seats are an improvement for sure.

I was wondering for ***** and giggles could you measure the width of the back portion of the rear seat. I want to upgrade my 69 with a style similar to the one you bought. I will be using Corbeau for the front but wanted to do something different in the back. The factory fronts have to be the worse comfort design ever made. Or I am just getting old.

 

Those seats you picked up are perfect for the car.Looks really good.

 

Thanks to both of you. I'm pretty happy with them as well.

tsnow, I took some measurements for you on my old rear seat back. It's about 45 1/4 wide at the top and the bottom, so its fairly square. I hope that helps. Let me know if you need any other measurements or pics. It's just sitting on the shelf now.


I got a few more things done today despite our 95* temps (which led to a lot of breaks inside). The goal today was to get the rear glass installed so I started by cleaning the old window sealant off the glass. It would have originally been installed with butyl ribbon but it was removed when the “repair” work was done on the passenger side quarter back in 87 and I think it went back in with urethane. I don’t know for sure though. All I know is, after cleaning that stuff off, I can now see why a lot of people just kick their windshield/rear glass out and start with a new one. That stuff was a mess to clean off.

I had been storing the glass outside so the sealant was already warmed up. So I started with a plastic scraper and dug as much of it off as I could. Then I was left with a thin stubborn layer still on the glass. The stuff reminded me a lot of tar or melted rubber. I usually clean the rubber off of my quarter panels with WD40, so I decided to give it a try and see what it would do. Well, it did to this stuff exactly what it does to rubber and tar; it melted it and made a real mess…..but after a lot of spraying, wiping and throwing away rags, I got it all mostly all cleaned off. But there were still some stubborn spots holding on pretty well. So, I decided to give Citrus Strip a try. I brushed a bunch of that stuff on and let it sit for a few hours.

While I was waiting for the paint stripper to work its magic, I moved into the shade of the garage to work on another little project. I needed a way to mount my windshield wiper switch to my aluminum gauge panel. I had heard of some guys just gluing their switch to the bezel or attaching it with double sided tape, but I don’t see that being a very durable option. The factory bezel has diagonal “tubes” molded into it that the switch assembly screws to, so I made my own out of some threaded aluminum spacers from the hardware store. All I needed to do was cut the proper angle on them for where they meet the bezel. Then I roughed up the back of the panel with a grinding disc and epoxy’d them in place.



Here’s how switch assembly mounts to the back of the panel.



And here’s how it looks from the front.



With that job complete I went back out and finished cleaning the remainder of goop off the glass with scratch pad and some water. Then I cleaned the glass about 5 times on each side with glass cleaner and……..I still have streaks. I guess I better not quit my day job.
Here’s the glass as clean as I could get it and ready to be installed.



And here’s the pinch weld prepped, supplies laid out, and the molding clips installed.



My buddy Chris came over to give me a hand with the rest. We started by dry installing the glass with the setting blocks in place to get everything lined up just right. Next we installed some masking tape from the glass to the body to use as reference points when reinstalling the glass for good.



We then cut the tape, removed the glass and laid out the butyl tape on the window. The instructions say the preferred method is to install the butyl in the pinch weld but putting it on the glass first also works. I put it on the glass because I wanted to be sure that it followed the edges of the glass perfectly. Once the butyl was laid out it was time to set the glass. I’ll spare you all the details, but suffice it to say….it went in just fine.



Hopefully I’ll have some more updates before the end of the weekend. Until then…here’s some more pics…..just for the sake of pics. Something is still missing here……