Restoration news and interior tips and tricks

In this Newsletter:-

Table of Contents

(1) Mustang Rear seats (2) Mark 3 Zephyr Rebuild (3) Trimming tricks and Tips (4) Rocky Swap

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(Mustang Rear Seats)

Recently we were entrusted with the job of specially padding some Mustang rear seats in black vinyl.

Most Mustang people (if not all) probably know that pre-made covers can be imported from the US. These types of covers are good in one way as they are ready for someone to fit straight on to their seats. The only problem with this is that they will not look as good as those which are professionally fitted. Like the photos which you will see below.

The art of re-upholstering/retrimming auto seats is not to just simply pull on a new cover. Firstly, in some cases the seats springing mechanism is faulty and needs to be braced. Then sometimes the original foam base is either damaged or squashed so flat that it simply is not now doing the job it was originally made for (40 odd years ago).

Also it is a common problem with seat bases that the springs have started to wear through the original backing material. All that can happen from here is for the springs to eventually pop through the seat and start annoying passengers or the driver.

So, as a matter of safety the driver’s seat must definitely be properly rebuilt. It’s like bogging over rust and repainting, it looks good for now but the problem is still there and one day it will come out and bite.

Anyhow, back to the Mustang rear seat rebuild.

The pleats were very deep and ran from left to right, while the centre of the seats were padded up by about 25 to 30 ml and the outside edges were only padded by about 20 ml. After the black covers were made and pulled down really tight the seat looked very sporty.

Some lubrication soon had the black vinyl looking sharp and shiny.

These seats were constructed the same way as all others, with home made piping, twelve (12) mil green foam under all vinyl including the side edges around to the back of the seat. All vinyl pieces are glued to the foam for an overall smooth look.

Here's a sneak preview for you

Photos and story will be added to the main website shortly. These seats were highly padded out to make the pleated inserts look as deep as possible.

You can see from the base photos that a lot of foam rebuilding has taken place.

This can take a considerable amount of time to cut, shape, glue and fit.

There are no photos of the Mustang at present, but it is possible to obtain some and post to the website later. Yes, I have asked the owner and some photos will be presented to me shortly. You will see them later, probably either on the website or in another newsletter.

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Mark 3 Zephyr Rebuild

The Zephyr before the new paint job.

The old Zephyr was last painted in May 1986 in Dulux Dulon acrylic laquer and was certainly starting to show off it’s age of 20 years.

Of course, it was shedded and covered with flannelette sheets for many years after the first paint job.

But of course as time wore on and a little mark appeared here and another stone chip showed up there, we started to use it more regularly.

Here we are at 2005 and the original painter, Steve, indicated that we might be able to slip in another (Quick) job before he shoots off to the Northern Territory in April 2006.

It ended up being a full strip as the paint on the sides of the car flew off in clouds as the stripping blade was pushed across.

The sides looked so good that we were almost going to leave them, but the paint was obviously very dry and hard.

Starting on the strip down job.

The car in the background is a 1933 Dodge six cylinder sedan with suicide doors, leather interior, and a soft insert in the steel roof. Wheels are wire spoke. An article can be written later on about this car.

Other photos will also be provided, either on the main website or here in a newsletter.

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The Zephyr is all painted now, in Two Pack Diamond flake metallic and was baked for 30 minutes at 60 degrees centigrade. The baking has given it a very nice gloss which a lot of people have commented on.

Will add a photo later with the new paint job. The poor old girl has only one door handle, no rear side mirrors, no windscreen wiper cowl, and various other things which have not yet been refitted. One Day!

The interior will be restored as well and details of the rebuild will also be added to the website.

At the moment it has been decided to retrim it in black with blue inserts and blue piping. That’s a dark blue of course to match in with the Galaxy Blue car colour.

Trimming tricks and tips

When starting off on an interior rebuild it is always best to select some quality materials as the same amount of work (if not more on lower class products) goes in to the job anyway.

This statement applies to very thin materials with no backing. They crease up and will not lie flat, and make it very hard to get absolute edges and a smooth top finish. Whereas in contrast a nice thick quality material will lie nice and flat, and will allow the almost exact outside finish to be achieved.

Why do all of the work with inferior materials for the job, and have it fall to pieces in a few years. It will also not look quite as sharp as a high quality job. If you look after your high quality interior it should last for many years.

High quality half inch (12ml) green backing foam is used on all seats recovered here and the vinyl is always totally glued (with spray contact) to the foam. This gives the top a nice smooth padded finish.

You will find that run of the mill jobs, (where you walk in off the street) and ask someone to recover a seat, that the foam used is only 10ml. Also the vinyl may or may not be glued to the foam. This is the norm in most cases.

When the vinyl is simply laid across the foam, it is a quicker job, but will give the top vinyl a loose look. This is why some jobs are cheaper, because you are not getting the right quality. To give the quality look of course it takes more time.

Also with the piping, strips 35ml wide are cut from the side of the vinyl being used to cover your seats and wrapped around the piping cord and sewn up with a piping foot.

These can be up to 3 metres long and you may need 8 or so for front and back seats. That’s 280ml straight off your material before you start. The vinyl roll is only about 1.375 wide anyway, so we have just over a metre wide piece left here. By doing this you get your piping in (exactly) the same colour as the rest of the seat.

Once the piping is made it can be stretched so that it will lay flat and sharp rather than be curling up.

Rocky Swap

Short for Rockhampton, Central Queensland, Australia. When searching the net there are a lot of similar references, and their locations are everywhere.

The Rotary Club of Rockhampton North and the All Classic Motor Club present the “Rocky Swap” at the Rockhampton showgrounds on Saturday the 5th August 2006.

There is “Terrific Family Value”, so if you are in the area please come and enjoy yourself. You may find that elusive part!

Business Week - Classic Car Information

You can read about, Porsche, Bentley, Ferrari and Jaguar here at business week classic cars.

Your own car stories

Do you have an interesting story about one of your classics. It does not matter if the story is 30 years or more old. They all make very interesting reading and generally have the reader chuckling.

Please send your stories in to me, and I can add them to the classic car articles page for you.

Suggestions

Do you have any suggestions about what you would like to see in this newsletter.

Please let me know and if possible details will be included as soon as.

The Next Newsletter

(1) Rebuilding bucket seat bases with foam (2) How to make the new cover patterns after the foam rebuild (3) Adding the piping to seat pieces (4) FC Holden Sedan rebuild details Plus other bits and pieces as they come to hand.

Future jobs and Newsletters

I have been commissioned to refit an XYGT Phase 3 interior also. This restoration must be done with materials that fit exactly with the original. So we will be doing a bit of searching for a while.

You may not see much of this job for a couple of months.

A ski boat interior has just been finished also, in seal rock grey, midnight black and volcano red. Looks very sharp and striking especially as we have used “volcano red” piping and red stitching. Photos will be available later.

By the way the boat is called “red back”, after the infamous Aussie red back spider.

Please contact us anytime at all.

Yours in classy classics,

Bob Welcome 98 Livingstone St North Rockhampton 4701 Queensland Australia

Outside Australia +61 7 49265721 (SHED) Rings in Shed and House

Within Australia 07 49265721

Some interesting links for you:-

Classic cars - Detailing - Electric Supercharger - Magazines