fastbackford351

What started out as a quickie insulation job certainly snowballed a lot more than I had planned but after 4 months (+-) I got her buttoned back up today.

When I first pulled the interior, I planned on just putting a little bit of insulation and sound deadener down but quickly found out that my front pans resembled Swiss cheese and there was no way I was papering over that. Turns out that sometime in the past, somebody had welded in replacement pans over the originals. I went ahead and cut them both out.




I found this stuff under the carpet in the rear foot well. I had no idea it was there. You think I would have noticed the lumps sometime during the last 20+ years. But, on the upside, I scored a decent tape measurer, a couple of drill bits and a paint pen that actually still works.




Once I had everything cleaned out I commenced with the original task of insulating.




On top of the sound deadener that I covered everything in sight with, (I used GT Mat, which is a half-notch down from Dynamat, or so I'm told), I laid down some Dynamat 1/4" foam insulation on the firewall and foot wells and under the back seat. Why under the back seat, you ask? Well, because my exhaust system is crap and is run so close to the floor pans that it actually melted almost all of the foam under the driver side rear seat and turned the burlap to cinder. When I went to flip the seatbelt out of the way, if ripped in half. Why it didn't catch on fire, I don't know. I didn't replace the foam or seat covers. Nobody rides back there anyhow so that's another project for another day. The insanity had to stop somewhere.




While I had everything out, I figured it was a good time dive under the dash and tighten up the factory duct work on my new AC system. That only took a couple hours so then I decided to tackle the problem of my non-working factory AM radio. This turned into quite a dick dance as some of you may recall. After a lot of scratching my *** and blinking, I finally got it figured out.






I also took advantage of the situation and made some repairs to the console where it had cracked from not having the radio properly mounted. Some JB Weld and popsicle sticks and she's almost as good as new. The plastic repop rod that connects the shifter to the selector light broke so I couldn't reuse that which turned out to be for the best. It never did show the correct gear because it contorted and bent so I fabbed one up using the handle off of an old freezer basket, some electrical tap and zip ties and now it is dead nuts on. Also, I pulled out the old AutoMeter and generic gauges and installed a set of Stewart Warners then I shot the works and even got the glove box light working again.

I planned to reuse my original carpet because it didn't look too bad. A little dye and I'll be back in business, right? Wrong. Once I pulled it out I knew that was not an option. How'd all of those holes get there without me noticing? So I ponied up and bought a nice carpet with the correct factory loop and the rubber backing.





Now that I had a brand new carpet, I couldn't very well stick my tired *** seats back in now could I? I dyed them black from red shortly after I got the car and they actually held up pretty well but the dye was wearing off and were butt sprung with piping showing through. So I ponied up, yet again, and bought new seat foam and covers.


Then I met Rusty Wallace at the Daytona Beach airport in the Hertz Rentacar line.





Now that I had all the pieces and parts I needed to do the seats, I set about the task not having a clue what the hell I was doing beyond some very basic internet instruction. I ordered a TMI set and am very happy with the quality and fit. If I knew what I was doing I'm sure I could have done a better job but for the first time out of the gate, I'm tickled schitless. The passenger seat frame had been pretty seriously cracked and "repaired" in the past with some really crappy welds so as a result, that seat didn't come out as nice as the drivers side. Yep. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. It has actually smoothed out quite a bit and this picture makes it look a lot worse than what it is.






The only thing left to do is to install the seats and call it done. I installed the back seat and went to fold it down but for some ungodly reason the fold down portion was hitting the interior trim. WTH? It was working just fine before I started dicking with everything and didn't even touch that part? No matter how much I whined, pissed and moaned, it still hit, so I had to disassemble that this afternoon and get that reset right. It still isn't 100% but like I said, nobody rides back there so it stays down anyhow. I'll pay it more mind when I redo the back seat. Since I had it out I went ahead and put sound deadener under there too, just because.

So with the back seat finally in place and folded down, I returned my attention to installing the fronts.




Good God Almighty, what an improvement. No longer butt sprung with pancaked foam, it now feels like a whole new car.

She won't be crossing the lawn at Pebble Beach, but the old gal is looking better than she has in years.





Next on the short list is replace the exhaust & the windshield and then I'll be ready for some road trippin' with my brother.

racer_dave

nice job. wanna come over and do mine too? I have beer.

fastbackford351

Thanks man.

I'm gonna have to beg off of doing any more upholstery jobs for a while. My fingers are so stoved up right now I can barely move them. Hog rings and upholstery = on helluva digital workout.

Gun Jam

looks good!

68SCode4speed

Nice updates - looks great. Good for a while now.

Chromeshadow

Awesome! !

bop11

Don't you just love it when those guys on TV make it look like this kind of work only takes a day or two? Pop off the body, repair the frame, paint the car overnight, and tell a few jokes while they never get dirty!
I know that took a lot of sweat and busted knuckles. Congratulations and good luck.

After reworking one grandson's 67 Mustang, we are now doing the others 88 Firebird GTA. I wish I was back on the Mustang, where systems are simple and uncorrupted by pollution controls and fuel injection computers.

movielover40

Looks great congratulations.

fastbackford351

Thanks for the compliments. One more thing that just came in today.

Now that I have my nice new interior, I put the original floor mats back in and well...




That ain't cuttin' it. So, in the never ending pursuit of greatness I bought a new set from Virginia Mustang.




They are an exact reproduction except that they are lighter. Definitely lighter. And instead of having FoMoCo & Made in Canada embossed on the back it reads Scott Drake but they fit like a glove and add another little piece to the puzzle.

SSRFUZZY

Nice job tackling the rusty floor pans and adding sound deadener. She'll ride much quieter.

Now that you've got that done.......Be careful driving ... you may hear other noises you never knew where there.