I got my 73's interior stripped to the metal. Pulled out all the under dash stuff to get at the disintegrating dash and firewall insulation. Used the remnents of the old dash insulation to make a new insulation pad out of the Home Depot bubble insulation stuff. Got a newfirewall pad already to go too.

On some advice from this forum, I decided to use Fat Mat under the firewall pad. I started installing the Fat Mat yesterday. All was going well till I got the the steering wheel seal plate.

I debated whether to cover the plate, or go around it. I decided, to my sadness to go over it.

I had the upper part of the firewall Fat Mat piece cut out to match the firewall pad, but the lower area where the seal is located had to be cut in the car. As I cut closely around the steering wheel, I realized that I was cutting more than the Fat Mat. I was cutting the rubber seal. In fact I cut right through it. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

So, I recut the mat to go around the plate. But, now I have to replace the seal.

Is this difficult to do, any suggestions?

My shop manual says, remove the transmission lock rod, remove the brake support bolts, remove the seal plate, remove column. Sounds ok, what are the pitfalls? CanI easily damage the steering column?

Thanks,

John

 

You might want to unscrew the turn signal indicator just to keep it from gettin snapped off by accident
Jeff