Sunday 3 November 2013

More trimming and gluing!

Thanks to Ted Taylor for the spare rubbing strip that I was missing. I cleaned it, shortened it and popped it in to complete the back cover for the rear seat. Interestingly, when I was trying to work out the best way to shorten the strip, I looked at the originals and they all seem to have a "hand finished" look at the end, much like a whittled down pencil. I concluded this was probably how they did it at Carbodies, so I took my stanley knife and whittled away! It looks just as good (or as bad!) as the originals now.
 Next piece of trim, one of the sections of the boot floor. Same as all the others, dull aluminium strips, dirty rubber infills, awful carpet.

 Remove the strips, drill out the pop rivets and pull of the manky old carpet.
 It was fairly easy to measure, centre and glue the new carpet into place. The corners are more of a challenge and this piece has a strip of vinyl to tuck under for the spare wheel section.
 Whilst it was drying I polished up the aluminum strips, cleaned the rubber infills and then reassembled the whole thing. It does take time to do this right, this piece took about 2 hours from start to finish, but I think the end results are worth the time.

 Next was to fit the trim board to the back of the rear seat. It slots into place and is held in place by 6 screws. These are right at the edges, hence before I couldn't glue the whole things down. With the screws refitted I could then finally glue down all the edges.

 Put that piece to one side to dry and I started on the tank cover. Same as usual, horrible original faded carpet.

 I did the tank filler neck cover first, this was probably the easiest bit I have done so far!

 This bit was interesting. This piece has a metal ledge pop riveted on to support the next trim piece which is the spare wheel cover. The vinyl wraparound has to be sandwiched between the board and the metal plate, whilst keeping it in the right place. Tricky, but I think I got it.

 I could then glue and pull the cover over onto the front, and then trim the corners. Glue EVERYWHERE!
 This piece will take some drying so I put it away to dry overnight. Light was fading at this point so I deiced to fit the rear seat and the trim panel behind it to get them out of the way and somewhere safe. I decided the car was probably the safest place for them. I am so pleased how this looks. Its been alot of work to get to this point and I think it looks superb. I'm sure a professional trimmer could have done a better job much quicker, but the satisfaction of doing it all myself was worth it.