58367 The $75 Junkyard Carrera coupe restoration

[merbesfield]

What GT seats will you be running?

[Don C]

Looking GREAT Justin!

[JTR70]

Thanks a lot Don!

Mark, I'll be running this pair of original GT seats I rounded up over these last several years. I'd like to use the original pads though I'm not sure if I can save them just yet.

The shells are in need of repair both to the alloy and the steel bases.
Will be chronicling that restoration here shortly.
Thanks again you guys!
Justin

11/10/15
Also started the process of saving and prepping the original door panels for reupholstery.

These had to have been redone sometime in the mid to late 1960's

The pocket was done closely enough but the staples on the back definitely give it away as a redo.

Once stripped you can see time and moisture have warped them quite badly.

I slowly ironed them back out flat with moisture...

Then an immediate clamping to my table with plates, clamps and whatever else heavy that I had handy. They both required several rounds of: wash, clamp overnight, flip over and repeat before they stopped trying to curl back up. The one in the pic above is on its third go around. Eventually I'll win. Thanks for looking! Justin

[JTR70]

11/27/15
I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving Holiday with family and friends!

Found a Headliner and purchased it a couple of weeks ago. Purchased it through the most obvious of Vendors: Autos International, imagine that?

While over at my buddies a couple of weeks ago he was just finishing up a full interior and headliner install. I spoke to him a day or two before and told him about my hunt for the correct perforated material for my car. He said he just bought one from AI and it seemed pretty close and that I should come by and look at it. I wasn't expecting much but to my great surprise the material was pretty damn close!

Perforations were in the correct diamond pattern and the spacing matched very close the measurement details given by Roy. The material texture was just like Jack described as being a correct pinpoint pattern versus the heavy grain VW style pattern. The only flaw with it was the color. The master Roll that AI is making these from currently is an Almond color rather than an off white like it should be. But like Bruce suggested its no problem to dye it the correct color. I've redyed several interiors in the past all with great results so a color change wasn't a deal breaker.

Detailed shot of the material texture. Aside from the color I think it very much resembles the original material in Roy's photos. (thanks again for that Roy)

I was sold! I got right on the horn that Monday and had it by Wednesday. Also ordered the insulation pad they use. All you see here delivered to my door for just under a 100 bucks; How can I go wrong?

As for the paint/dye I think I found just the right tone with this Off white offered by SEM. It has just a touch of grey to it which I was told by Michael Doyle is the more correct tone of off white for an early A headliner.

Certainly no fan of rattle can paint but the interior paints offered by SEM specifically for interiors is the best by my past experience. This dash photo of my Toyota was painted from grey to blue over 20 years ago. As you can see aside from few scuffs it still lives with no signs of peeling, fading etc. This is after a lifetime of constant desert UV exposure mind you so if it can stand up to life on a dash top I have no worries with coating this headliner in it.

A little test panel to show how drastic the color change will be.

The cardboard background is bright white to give you a better idea of the final hue.

Prepping the pillar wraps with solvent for paint first.

After they were done I began painting the liner itself a section at a time. I thought about Bruce's suggestion about painting after the installation but I decided it best for me since I don't do well painting upside down to do the heavy lifting now with a touch up after install. It will certainly be required as I couldn't get the pleats stretched out enough here.

Initial base color now complete. I'm well into installation as of this entry but will post the rest of the prep work next.
Thanks for looking!
Justin

[roy mawbey]

Justin,

That will be just perfect I think. Great to find it so close to you and the colour will be just fine. So, has your dad seen the car now? I would like to know what he thinks!

Good step forward

Roy

[John Pierce]

Justin,

I totally agree with you about the AI headliner. It's a great product, but the color is off from the originals. It's too dark. I spoke to AI when I bought my headliner and they were willing to take my headliner back, but I decided against it as it is otherwise very well made and the perforations are very close. I also purchased the insulation pad. Thanks for the heads up regarding the SEM paint. I'll have to try it.


JP

[Bill Sampson]

Great work Justin. Want to come out here, hang by the beach for a week or two and get our coupe's seats looking good? Given what you've done with that headliner taking care of some split seams should be child's play for you. A belated Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Since only nine of the scheduled thirteen showed up you could also help me with the turkey leftovers - yum. Rosemary should be recovered from her efforts in another couple of days.

[Impi]

Hi Justin would you mind giving me some dumension on a simple drawing for the headliner please i still need to make one for my replica length breadth distance between pleats.
Thank you

[JTR70]

Thanks for the confirmation Roy! No, he hasn't seen it yet but he's do for a visit before the years out I'm sure. I'll definitely relay what he thought and thanks for asking BTW.

Thanks Bill and thanks for the invite. I'd probably need a good 4 months there on the beach...I mean to work on your seats. So glad to hear you and Rosemary had a nice holiday out there as well!

John, if your headliner is made from the same stock as mine the color isn't going to be the only thing wrong for your specific application. The later T6 headliners do have more of a grain to them and the perforation holes are a bit larger. The car I showed from my friends place is a '63 T6 and I saw its original liner. The owner of that T6 isn't a stickler for originality but if you are then that liner will be a problem. I can ask my friend to save a section of that old original if you would like a sample.

Sure Armand I can get you those measurements.
11/29/15

Prep for liner installation.

The original bows to this car have been stored loose for more than 20 years so needless to say I've lost track of their installment order; there is one BTW. After some careful comparison measurements there are two longs and two shorts with only about a 25mm difference between each pair so they can look deceptively identical. I paint marked the tips to avoid any more confusion. After a few trial fitments to the car with a long and a short bow I determined that the long pair go at each end and the short pair are the two center bows.

Since this is my very first (solo) headliner install my buddy gave me some very good tips since he has done several. The first one was to find and mark the center of the headliner so it can be centered in the car. Very crucial that it is to have any chance of even pleats laterally and a wrinkle free installation by the end of the job. The overall width of this liner (with excess) was 48 inches so 24 is the mark.

Ready to begin feeding the bows through.

Bows in and this little chuck wagon top is ready to go in the car.

But before that I had to get the new insulation pad trimmed and mounted.

Went in very nicely with only minimal trimming required.

AI has the dimension all dialed in so there is minimal excess but enough to do the sail panels from this remnant.

Done. Pad tucked in so nice and tight that glue wasn't needed except on the sail panels. I forgot to take a photo but I also added a second layer of thin foam padding just as an extra sound barrier.

Initial install with the bows set.

Well here's a partial shot of the extra layer of padding I added. I ran screws into the visor and mirror holes so I could find-feel them through the liner and mark their approximate location as gluing progressed.

locating center of the liner with the center of the car.


Slowly pinning it up and getting it taught at the centers all the while getting my head around the next move.BTW: that was my buddies next tip; gluing should begin at the center of both the front and rear windows working outward to the pillars. The sides are done afterwards then finally the corners.

Pleats where beginning to stretch out nice and the center was getting smoother. This being my first try at this I was bit intimidated but like all the rest of this work the more time you spend studying and playing with it the next move eventually becomes clear and then the next move after that and so on.

This car getting its new headliner by my father way back in 1988.

Thought I'd replicate that photo of the very same car some 27 years later... how time flies! More progress details next. Thanks for looking!
Justin

[Jonesy_356]

Justin,

Thanks for sharing this install. I always wondered how it was done. Very exciting part of your project now, I'm jealous!

Jonesy

[neilb]

cracking job Justin, loving it!

[JTR70]

Thanks a lot you guys, its always appreciated!

11/30/15

Front and back center of the head liner now glued and am ready to move onto the sides beginning with the left. After some debate I felt most comfortable starting at about mid rear quarter window just at that last pleat and working my way forward.

Front center glued and set with rear center glued and clamped to dry.

No better time than now to make sure that roll-bar we made was going to clear the liner toward the sides. No issues with plenty of clearance.

Again, started just ahead of that last pleat at mid quarter window and worked forward. The B-pillar proved a little tricky to wrap around all the while keeping the material taught and wrinkle free. I also located the holes for the coat hooks and mounted my blank.

I made these out of alloy a few years back to go in place of the original pot metal coat hooks as I don't feel confident about riding around in this car with a metal hook next to my head.

They are the same foot print as the original hooks and as you can see they put some tension on the liner at the top. I wanted that detail and I think it looks better than just having nothing there.

I eventually worked my way up to the A-pillar which would soon prove to be a very tricky area to cover.

The complicated part is that the material has to seat down flush where my finger is holding so the windshield seal can seat properly. So that final turn must be stretched and worked a good deal before it will cooperate. You can already see the stress in the material right above where I'm holding. Its a catch 22 if I give it the slack it needs to make the turn then I have wrinkles on the outer face.

I mentally wrestled with this one for good little while. My buddy here in town says it takes him a solid 6 hours to fully install one of these but this being my first time I'll be well past that mark.

It eventually dawned on me to set and glue the outer face first so I'm no longer dealing with any wrinkles; then wrap the edges.

The back channel was a piece of cake so I glued that first saving the toughest part for last.

I took it in small bites with the aid of heat gun and slowly made the turn.

The last bit was quite brutal on the material so to help relieve stress I cut short of the flange to help keep it from tearing.

It eventually submitted but you can see how I had to really crank on it to get it to go. A few elongated perforation holes clearly show the stress I had to put it through but no choice this is where it had to be. No wrinkles though. More later... Thanks for looking!
Justin

[John Pierce]

Great job! And thank you for posting your progress, which will prove very helpful if/when I get to this point.


JP

[gkw]

Great job Justin
Brings back memories, when my rear glass rubber went in
it put a wrinkle in rear quarter I was not expecting.
Might save you some grief.
Gordon

[JTR70]

Thanks John, I hope you find it of some use in the near future.

Thank you Gordon and a good warning. Once you begin adding in things they can effect the tension on the liner. That back corner area is really tricky anyway then once you begin adding the rear panel and window that certainly could cause a wrinkle or two.
Thanks again Guys!

12/1/15

Forward section of the liner now set and glued with both A pillars now wrapped.

By coincidence with Gordon's tip I had also test fitted the forward accessories to see if they might affect the final tension fit. I started with the left visor. Once I initially found the hole using the brail method with a screw installed I marked them with this tape. Though it changed a touch through the gluing and adjustment process it still provided a very close approximation of where to probe. Nothing more scary than sticking that poker through the material and praying that you hit the right spot.

Fortunately for me it worked.

The visor mounts did suck the liner up a touch but nothing causing any deformation.

From there I moved onto gluing in the right side run of the liner all the way to this dreaded corner.

Proved to be just as tricky and resistant as the other side. My skill level didn't improve much from the first attempt.

Once that was wrapped I finished up locating the remaining holes for the other visor and the mirror. That part at least went very well with no problems. Making my way to the rear next. Thanks for looking! Justin