Interior Fun

[andrewlandon67]

So a few months ago I decided to redo the interior of my '67 in an effort to make it a little more civilized and less tiresome to drive long distances. The initial plan was just seat covers, door cards, window scrapers, and rear carpeting along with some more insulation in a few areas, plus a few little things on the outside but this last Saturday I convinced myself to replace my scrappy looking original headliner and window seals as well. That afternoon I spent reacquainting myself with the pain of pulling doors apart and installing window scrapers, which I had finally done on the passenger door when I realized that the felt channels I'd replaced when I got the car running 6 years ago didn't come out in the best condition and the only local source of them was closed for the day so I decided to leave it for the time being and start pulling the headliner out. This was uncharted territory, and cutting the original window seals out hurt a bit, but everything went well and I finally got everything torn out in a few hours.





This is about how I left it, although I also started working on getting the driver's door apart while waiting for the paint to dry on my VDM Coach wheel this morning. While this may be a sentiment more at home on The Samba or another vintage forum, it's always cool getting to see and touch stuff that hasn't been seen or touched since October of 1966. I also realized the passenger door still has some of the factory crayon markings, which is cool.



Anyways, I figured I'd start an In Da Werks thread in here rather than blow up the thread I started for ideas. While I know all of this will have to be redone when I actually pull my car apart for paint/bodywork, I'm really excited to get some of this done and have a fast car that's also a pleasant place to sit.

[Bryan67]

Now you can lay on the sound deadener since the headliner is out.

[andrewlandon67]

Now you can lay on the sound deadener since the headliner is out.

Exactly! I'm gonna try and keep as much of the original stuff as I can, but there are definitely some areas I can add something to insulate it just a bit.

[andrewlandon67]

Finally got down to my mom's this past weekend to work on the upholstery project, and found the garage looking more or less like a greasy woodshop as my mom and her boyfriend had cleaned off the back patio for the summer, and moved everything into the garage! I also stopped on the way down to pick up the rest of the stuff I need to finish this mess, like the felt window channels, seat covers, and window seals. Unfortunately, the only thing that had made it to the shop by then were the seat covers, so I was a bit limited in stuff that I could work on.



While I was definitely irritated, I really wanted to get stuff done on my car, so I decided to at least get to work on putting my steering wheel back together. While it's not the kind of job I'd be willing to pay someone for, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and once I do some hand-painting on some of the trickier spots and clean up the chrome, it'll look presentable for now.



Later that night I also decided to just go for it and start getting the seats recovered, starting with the rear.



I gave up around 1:30 in the morning, but the upper half actually turned out alright for a first try, but the bottom is definitely going to need another shot, as well as a foam pad. Then yesterday, my brother and a couple of our good friends came over to help work on getting the seats finished up, but as we couldn't find foam anywhere we were at a bit of an impasse. It was then that we decided to take a brave pill and go for it on the headliner, which is something that none of us has any real experience with. But, after 5 hours of grunting, stretching, and gluing, we finally got the big piece in place, and looking considerably better than any of us had expected!



The B pillars will definitely need some smoothing out, but thanks to my brother's experience working with leather, and my friend Logan's almost unnatural ability to immediately be good at things he's never done, my bug has a headliner without any rips or missing chunks! It might not be a totally professional job, but we're extremely proud of the result and we're excited to finish this stuff up soon! Next is the doors and finding a way to insulate the wheel wells a little better. Hope you're all enjoying reading this stuff! Oh yeah, and thanks to Zach Gomulka for the initial push to finish my Coach wheel in black, I'm really happy with the overall effect!

[Neil Davies]

Its looking good so far! And with Zach on board itll soon look even better - he's a pretty talented fella!

[andrewlandon67]

Its looking good so far! And with Zach on board itll soon look even better - he's a pretty talented fella!

Zach's not actually helping, he just gave me the idea a few years ago when I first posted that I'd gotten the wheel. Although it would be nice to have someone that skilled, it's kinda fun to learn this stuff alongside my friends.

[andrewlandon67]

Got a bit more done this weekend, not as much as I had hoped, but it's better than nothing at all!



Here's the driver's door going back together, with a huge dent in the outside popped out. Supposedly the dent had been left by the foot of a jilted lover of the man my dad bought the car from almost 30 years ago!



Passenger door all finished up.

I was able to get both doors finished on Saturday and I had hoped to get the headliner finished and all the glass installed on Sunday, but the seals were fighting me and the glue I'd used for the edges of the headliner was letting go, so instead of losing my temper, I decided to call it a weekend. My brother said he and our other good friend might give it another try one night this week, so it may yet get done! I'm hoping to have the headliner/windows done and the rear cargo area recarpeted by the end of the upcoming holiday weekend, but I'll have to wait and see.

[andrewlandon67]

Since the U.S. Independence Day was last Thursday, I wound up with a 4 day weekend to finally try and make good progress on the interior!

I spent most of Friday down sitting on a couch cushion on the floor of my mom's basement, cutting seat foam and recovering the front seats as well as redoing the padding in the rear seat bottom. For some of the foam padding, I had to get creative with my use of zip ties and baling wire to get the foam to tuck in properly, but it actually worked out pretty well!



Luckily, the top of the front seatbacks could be attached with hog-rings, as shown here.



Both of the front seatbacks got another layer of foam down low for some lumbar support, and the bottoms used the old shaped foam pads, but I cut some new foam strips about 4 inches wide and ran them along the leading and side edges in between the old foam and the springs, for a little more "cupping" action. After about 8 hours, I finally got done with all the seats, including the carpeting on the rear seatback, and it was time to call it a day.
 


Saturday was a bit of a dud, I got the front seats in, but I was still having trouble getting the headliner to stay put, and the windows absolutely wouldn't go in. I did get some cleaning done, and removed the tach from the center defrost vent, but I was pretty tired of interior stuff so I put the car up in the air and got started on the conversion to an electric fuel pump.



Sunday, as it happened, would be the day everything came together. I spent a few hours that morning cleaning stuff up and getting ready for my (much more experienced) friend Sam to come by and help with the window seals. He came by around noon, and within fifteen minutes we had the three windows in and I finally could see the end of this mess! My brother and a couple of our other friends came by to help/hang out while I finished up the rear door cards and mounted the tach in its new location, along with laying down the new carpeting in the rear cargo area and mounting my new 3 point seatbelts. Finally, after a very long few weekends, the vast bulk of an interior project was done, and I could sit and just enjoy the look/feeling of new upholstery.







While it's far from a professional job, I'm really happy with the overall result, especially on the headliner, and I'm really looking forward to getting to drive around in relative comfort this fall!

[brewsy]

Looking good Andrew.

Maybe I should do something with my 67's interior...

[andrewlandon67]

Looking good Andrew.

Maybe I should do something with my 67's interior...

I gotta say, it's been worth the effort. One big thing that had been bothering me about my car for the last two years is how ragged the headliner had gotten over 50 years or so, and while the new one is just a simple 5 piece, it's a really nice place to sit and look around. Just be careful, my initial plan was just to redo the seats and door cards and it kinda snowballed from there  and as long as you keep a little bit of horsehair, it'll still smell like a bug when you're done!

[andrewlandon67]

So finally having gotten all this done, I can say with even more confidence, that all the effort was worth it. There's less rattling all around, and considerably less noise from the gearbox. The windows go up and down more smoothly, and the seats are miles better after the new padding in key places. I gotta say, it's pretty weird having a bug that's nice inside after years of driving it with worn seats and a headliner that ripped when you looked at it wrong.