Stripping the Wagon’s Interior Out

Posted on by

Now that my drivetrain is right, I’m focusing my attention this winter on rewiring the car, rebuilding the brakes, cleaning and painting the underside, repainting the bumpers, bracing the hood to bow less at top of track, gear and tire change, swap out converter with new ATC, redo the Driveshaft loop, and completely redoing the interior. This report focuses on stripping out the old interior.

The above and below is how my interior looked on Monday Morning before tear down

I first removed the seats, carpet and side and back Lexan. The side and rear Lexan will also be replaced. I then removed all of the interior trim, door panels, rear bulkhead and headliner. I finally I removed everything attached to the cage.

The deteriorating headliner made a huge mess.

The seats were washed and then wiped down with grease/wax remover before I dyed Satin Black.

I really don’t like the Satin look. Despite five coats of dye, it is still a little blotchy (nowhere as bad as the photos make it look) and I just think I rather gloss – so I ordered black gloss dye. I’ll scuff and redye.

Today, the glued foam on the inside of roof gets scraped out. The car gets vacuumed. About a dozen holes in floor from various seats over the last 63 years get welded up. I’ll be moving the driver’s seat up a little. The cage will get lightly sanded, wiped down and painted hammered Black.

Then I’ll do the following:

  • Scrape/sand and paint with POR15 the inside of passenger door
  • Replace the headliner
  • Paint and replace the trim that holds the headliner in place
  • Position the driver’s seat and drill the new holes
  • Pull all old wiring out of the car and Rewire with K&R wiring kit
  • Pull off pot metal dash trim and cover in the same Croc skin vinyl as I’ll do door panels
  • Install new front and rear seat carpet.
  • Make a new rear compartment bulkhead, and recarpet rear off car with light Speaker carpet.
  • Install threadserts for side Lexan, so its no longer a two-man (one inside with wrench fir nuts and one outside with a T-handle hex wrench pulling out the screws} pulling Lexan out to clean the inside of it.
  • Install new Lexan
  • Recover and install door and rear side panels.
  • New numbers and stickers

The carpet has arrived, and I have it unfolded to relax out the fold marks. A 12′ roll of black padded headliner has arrived. Waiting on the spray adhesive. Waiting on the Croc pattern black vinyl to recover the door panels.

Spread the love