Time to dig in...softie conversion

[speedo]

I think this is the hardest part of the interior. The crescent needed so much rehab, and the shelf needed to be recreated. I rehabed the crescent back to where it could be used.

The reinstalled vinyl that trims out the rear shelf

Worked out well...now the attention goes to the shelf itself.

I need two hinged areas, the first is from the shelf to the seat back, and the second is from the seatback to the attach points at the seat back base
So I decided to create a flexible hinge and use remnants from old bike inner tubes
I will score the cardboard with a razor to facilitate the hinge, then add a rubber backing to allow the hinge to move


Ok, that worked well...now I just need to get the shelf to flex to prepare the shelf for recovering...so far so good


Closer to installing the softie....

[merbesfield]

Looking good. Very creative.

[speedo]

I need to get the vinyl on the shelf but first the attachment of the crescent to the shelf is critical. There is no room for modification or adjustment once installed. Lots of assembly to fit , disassembly and trim ...and repeat, and repeat.
These are the pins that puncture and are secured to the shelf and then go through the crescent and are secured to the crescent with speednuts. They look like short roofing nails. In fact I needed to replace a couple and had to clip a few roofing nails.

Everyting has to line up perfectly and the pins are attached before the shelf get it's foam

Lining things up...first set of speednuts securing the pins to the shelf

This tab secures the bottom of the center of the shelf/seat back to the center hoop... shown next at the bottom of the horizontal


And I cannot forget to glue the foam seat buckets in ...before I go any further

They look like they are covered in rust, but the color is just the old factory glue that pulled up with the seats.

[speedo]

All sewed up, but not trimmed

Foam trimmed and glued


Size, trim, stretch and glue


And voila...new shelf with crescent attached

I am pleased...but it was a lot of work. Upholstery shops...the good ones are worth every penny. You just don't realize how much prep goes into the work before the install. Truly an art, learned through experience...not a science

And temporarily installed for fitment.

So from this

To this


Then it comes back out for carpet installation. After the carpet, the shelf goes in for good, the softie gets installed, then the headliner, then side covers and side trim. Finally the targa cover, rear and front targa seals and then door seals. Yeah...this stuff just goes together by itself.

[vintagecarlover]

Do u sleep? Lars, u are amazing...omg

[lateapex911]

Glad I have a coupe!
Great work!

[67targa]

Lars that shelf looks very professional! Clever use of a bicycle tube. I used the same size tube for the portion of the wiring harness from the firewall to the engine bay, it looks like the original.
Can you tell me where you got the card board material for the shelf?

Great work!

[bigel]

Wow...

[speedo]

I am dealing with carpet issues...more on that later. This long weekend needs to be productive. I am going to go ahead and mount the front fenders and lights etc. Fortunately I set aside the front wiring harnesses...and remembered where I set them.

Kind of a bugger to get them installed correctly, but when they are seated, they aren't going anywhere

And it is way easier to do this without the fenders being installed (or I should say almost impossible to do it after the fenders are installed)

Fender sealing tape in place

A lack of the correct washers delays the fender install for a day...but I dreaded replacing the old heater ducting that exit the longitudinals and passes up through the firewall to the heater blower . New ducting...and wasn't as bad as I thought


My carpet set was worn in the rear seat area, and the replacement set I bought a year ago was in good condition...but when I did a thorough itemization of the parts...realized that it was missing some of the same rear parts that were bad on my original set.

Too late to go back to the seller and complain. My fault on this one. I'll add the original carpet to this replacement set and sell them as-is.
I can however work on the rear seat backs while waiting for the new carpet set to arrive.
These are in decent shape...vinyl is good (could be refreshed), but there is some corrosion on the attachment brackets.
I will recarpet the seat backs with fresh carpet, but these come off first

The leather straps with snaps were so brittle they just crumbled in my hands...so I guess I will get to replace those while I am at it...grunt.

[merbesfield]

Looking good Lars. I was going to work on my 66 this we, but got lazy and decided to skip town and head to the lake instead.

[speedo]

Bummer...Mcguckins Hardware (best hardware store in the world) is closed today and I need some metric bits. I guess I will shuffle over to HD and see if they can help me out. I want to get this guy attached today


Back to the seat(s) backs. Clean them up and repaint the brackets


Much cleaner

I need to dress the vinyl

Came out nice. Not new...but definitely newer, or more newish, at least better

This is all I can do till I get my new carpet set...and finish these up by attaching the rear carpet backs.
Fenders Ho!

[merbesfield]

HD sucks. I don't even waste time looking there anymore. Hope you got luckey. Might find some sheet metal screws at NAPA.

[speedo]

And the fenders will do. First things first. I had a rusted out bolt on the right top door hinge that needed to be drilled out and re-tapped. Once that was done, I needed to install the strikers. I had to source later/newer strikers as mine were a bit worn

I am always hesitant installing strikers when the lockpost has been replaced. A lot can go wrong and although you have "several degrees of adjustment" things can get ugly real quick. Fortunately my original measurements were decent and the strikers needed little adjustment to be dead on.

Once both strikers were adjusted to get the rear of the door gaps correct, time to move to the fenders...left side

And right side ...hey it was raining when I brought the fender down from above. We are experiencing a pleasurable but rare afternoon monsoon season in the front range of Colorado...a bit of artistic license

As the song says ..."both sides now"

Need to install the snakes...front hood gaskets

So I can install the hood...damn, this has been a long haul to make the front of the car look like the front of a car.


I need to deal with hooking up the various wiring before getting to excited about installing headlights and turn signals...and then the front bumper. Hey, it's the first day of a four day weekend...whoohoo


Speedo

[jakz]

Looking good congrats!

[merbesfield]

I admire your energy level and continued commitment.

Edit, as I sit on my ass doing nothing......

[DGriz]

Nice work. I'm just down the way in Denver, so I hope to see the car in person one day.

[lateapex911]

Originally Posted by merbesfield

I admire your energy level and continued commitment.

Edit, as I sit on my ass doing nothing......

Ha! Good point. Ok, going to go work on the yard. Yea, it's not the 911, but it moves the 911 up the list a teeny bit if i get other things done.

[speedo]

Ashes to ashes...these turned to dust

I guess it makes sense as the rear shelf is typically an oven in a coupe. In a targa , we have more glass...ie the oven is bigger. Probably why my rear shelf and crescent were trash. Nothing left to this leather strap. I was thinking when I felt the leather initially that some oil might save it. It shattered before I had a chance. Forensic study...like piecing back together dinosaur bones

Two cobblers nails secure the straps on each seat back

I have some scraps of thick leather that should work

I had the tool that allows me to set the two halves of the snap

Test fit on the other side

I may need to move these when I adhesive the new seat backs with carpet, but overall that was easy...at least with the seats on a work bench, not in the back of the car.
So I was asked for the choke size for some webers that I sold recently and I couldn't tell if the close-up picture was going to be in focus...guess this is what you see right after you get sucked into the air horn of a weber at 7000 rpm

BTW...the chokes are 32s.

[speedo]

Also received the parts I needed to install the fuel filler neck. May as well knock that out and finish up the fuel filler "apartment".

Of course when you are "in the moment" things go together as planned. Get out of the moment and you do the same thing three times to get it right. I installed the rubber cuff, and the filler neck with the hard wire strip that holds the cuff in place. Whoops, forgot the foam donut that seats the steel filler neck against the inner fender wall. Ok, remove, slide the donut over the filler neck and re-install. Crap, the support that holds the gas pump nozzle firmly in the filler neck was cracked on one side. Hmmm, blow it off or fix it. Fix it...so I dis-assembled everything again and welded both sides of the support. This is before using the Dremel to treat the welds.

Re-install a third time (remember the in the moment vs out of the moment thing...) and tighten everything back up.


Much better. Now I don't need to worry about the gas pump support breaking loose and sliding down into the gas tank...that would suck. Freshly plated tank cap with a new cork gasket is happy.

[speedo]

But it has seen better days.

Time for a swim, I can't install it looking like this. In you go...

After some elbow grease, the road crap came loose

Restored strap

Installed and plumbed with fresh tubing and clamps

Filler drain tube gets cleaned up and installed in the new rubber filler cuff.

I think I am done with the fuel system at least on the front of the car for now.
I deserve some bling...so bling is next