1/4 Vent Windows and Door trim

No door handles yet but getting closer. The Quarter vent (or no-draft) windows are fitted and all the doors have the side trim fitted.

We are still messing with the dashpad trying to figure out the best way to fit it (it must go in before the front windscreen). We had it in position but it will have to be secured a different way than the original due to the fibreglass shell making it a bit thicker in places.

Rear Seat back

Here is a first look at the seat design that we have chosen. Unfortunately the light was not very good and I didn't capture the real blue colour but it shows the idea. The vinyl seat back in my previous post has the vulcanised section replaced by the silver with horizontal piecing to kind of emulate the older seat. The sewing machine decided it didn't want to top stitch on the left hand side (yesterday), so it went in today for a quick check-up. It got dropped off this morning and picked up this afternoon so more should happen tomorrow.

I concentrated on fitting the 100 or so pop riveted trim clips today. I'll put up pics when it's finished.

Seat covers begun

We will be re-foaming and recovering all the Vogue seats ourselves. We bought the fabric over a year ago and finally the work has begun. This is the back part of the rear seat. Note the horizontal vulcanising lines.

 

 The rag stealer claimed a new doggy bed.

We intend to follow the general look in that the vulcanised section shown above will be silver fabric, pieced to give the same impression. The surrounding fabric is dark blue.

Here is a test piece that Laurel made up to test here "walking foot".

The rear-most piece has slightly bunched up where Laurel used a standard foot on the sewing machine. The foam backed fabric needs the walking foot to stop from bunching. We lost about 2mm over 200mm due to the bunching. Note the yellow rotary cutter seen earlier in this blog when the roof insulation had to be carved out a little bit.

Nine pieces, each 68mm wide. We cut up two panels like this.
I have also fitted my new 1/4 vent rubbers to the vent windows - I'll take a picture for tomorrow's posts.
More tomorrow.

Fitting the Dashpad

.

We thought is was a bit funny that Laurel and I were sitting in the car on little wooden children's chairs so we asked William (son) to take a photo. Not as funny as we thought (can't see chair) but at least the dashpad is going in. Not fitted yet - even at the end of the day - but nearly.



The determined look on ours faces in the picture below tell it all.

Front 1/4 Light Window Rubbers Arrived

About the only rubber in the Vogue that it was near impossible to get or make are the moulded pieces that seal the front 1/4 vent windows. Fortunately for me a guy in Brisbane that does these rubber seals as almost a hobby has done them for the Vogue. It's been about a year and a half coming but they arrived yesterday.

I now have all the seals for the glass in the Vogue which means I can finally re-assemble the door inners. I should be very busy over the next  week or so.

Minor Pause

There won't be much happening with the car until mid December. We are currently re-decorating William's (13 year old son) room so it's essential we get him back into it ASAP to restore some semblance of order to the EVogue houshold. So far the whole room has been scraped, filled, gap filled, sealed, and the ceiling is painted (first time we haven't done a white ceiling). He has a wooden desk/cupboard structure that came with the house and that's been restored as well.

Since the room tended to be a bit dark we had a skylight/sun-tunnel installed and lashed out and got him a remote controlled aperture thingy for it. It's going to be a great room.

Someone on the AEVA forums pointed out that the kind of person who takes on an EV conversion (much less a restoration) is the kind of person who DIYs everything around the house - busy, busy....

Anyway, just a minor "on-hold". I'm still hoping to be on the road for good just after Christmas - so a lot will happen during the latter part of December - stay tuned!

Should I Blackout behind the grill?

The orginal paintwork has black paint behind the grill.
I have done a quick and dirty Gimp change to the photo.
Which looks better? (Comments welcome)
While I know it's wrong and looks slightly odd, I like the extra "life" that the blue behind the grill causes.

With blacked out behind grill.

Front Chrome Fitted

It may be a small step but the front chromework is finally fitted back on the Vogue.
She has her face back. The headlight "eyebrows" were a real pain to fit and took about two hours alone.

Another view.

This comment added later. I learnt something about getting stuff re-chromed when I had the eyebrows done. Don't assume that the electroplater will clean up the non-visible bits. Take a wire brush to any non-visable parts of your chrome piece(s) before giving it to the electroplater. The insides of the eyebrows were a mess of flaky chrome when they came back. I wire brushed them and waxed them but it would have been better to have a reasonably smooth finish. The outsides look great!

Headlining Finally Glued

I can't believe that it's been over a year since we made the headlining!
The headlining is finally glued into place. This has been a bit of a stalling point in the restoration because until the headlining and dashpad are installed, the windscreens can't go in.
I bought lots and lots (about 200) "butterfly" or fold-back clips at Officeworks to hold the headlining in while the glue was drying. The glue is contact adhesive (bought from the auto-upholstery shop) applied to only the bodywork.

Front windscreen opening.

Rear windscreen opening.

Rear drivers (right hand) side.

Passenger (left) side.

I'll buy a small pair of very sharp scissors to trim it as I have to get very close to the body of the car to make it neat.

We are delighted with the fit of the headlining. The last of the problem areas appeared to resolve itself as we glued it down. I think leaving it to stretch for such a long time before gluing was a good idea :-)

More Chromework

The 3/16" UNF studs that hold the headlight surrounds were rusted to the point that it was silly to try to restore them. Curiously, an M5 bolt has the same thread pitch and so close to the same outer and inner diameters that it is impossible to tell them apart in normal use. So I bought some M5 bolts and turned them into studs.

 Here is the lower, small piece for the front side area with its new stud.











...and here is where it goes.

I don't know why I took this picture - I think it just amused me. Front chromework before installing in the car - laid out on the lounge room floor for the family to admire (they made the right noises).

Still going on Brightwork

I'm still progressing. The front chrome is mostly on the car with the exception of the headlight "eyebrows" which are due for pick-up on Wednesday.
I'll post some pics then.

Brightwork Restoration

"Brightwork" is the name the classic car fraternity give to all the shiny metal on a classic car - chromework, stainless steel trim etc.
I realised that I need to clean up the side trim (stainless on the Vogue) and various other trim pieces. Here are the door sill guards which are made of aluminium so I can't do too much with them. I decided just to polish them up and apply a coat of clear spray enamel. The rust stains are from the self tappers that used to hold them on.

The top one has been polished and clear applied.

The middle one is just cleaned up - you can't tell much from the picture.

The bottom one is as it came off the car.





A close up of the "before".

Headlining ready for Gluing

Now we are back from holidays it's time to get to work on the Vogue again. We finished clipping the headlining into place at the back of the roof and it looks great - way better than we thought it was going to be. The minor wrinkles you can see around the edge will come out when we glue it in.

I'll have a lot of butterfly clips to spare when we have finished.

Gold Coast Holiday stops progress

Progress on the Vogue is on hold this week due to a family holiday in the warmer climate of Australia's Gold Coast. This is the view from our 29th floor balcony.

My Daily Driver next to iMiev

Until the Vogue is on the road I have been, and will be, driving my 1967 Series VA Humber Super Snipe. Here it was today in the company car park next to one of the Victorian EV Trial iMievs. I can't imagine why the iMiev slips through the air more easily - I haven't got a left hand mirror on the Snipe!

Still Looking for Fabric Sealer

The product I mentioned in my previous post may well work  at stopping leaks in tent seams but it doesn't stop fabric from "wicking" - that is sucking up water, so I'm still looking. Someone on one of the camping forums mentioned mixing silicone with white spirits to thin it then spreading it on seams. That should stop wicking - I'll try it.

The re-chroming guy said that my backup boot handle was "too far gone". It's pretty easy to get off so I'll mount the one pictured earlier and keep a look out for a better one.

Sealing Headlining Edges

One of the things that has been delaying gluing the headlining in (other than lack of time) is because of a warning I got from the guy I will probably use to install the front and rear windscreens. When I incidently mentioned that we had made our own velour headlining he indicated that suspended (or bow) headlinings were usually vinyl for a reason. The reason is that where the headlinings wraps around the body seams on the upper edge of the windscreen openings you can easily get water ingress. Thats means if the headlining can soak up water (capilliary action or "wicking") then it will gradually stain inside the car - starting at the edges. In our case the headlining also runs down the inside of the rear pillars so it's a concern.

So I have been looking for a sealing product that would stop this from happening.
I found this on a dog whelping site - I have no idea why they sell it. It's also sold by lots of camping places (not in Australia though) to help seal tent seams. The whelping place was in Australia and shipping was free.

The idea is that, once the headling is glued, I run along the exterior exposed part of the fabric and carefully seal it with this.

My concern, other than it not working at all, is that it may harm the rubber seals so as soon as I get it I'll apply a little bit to a spare piece of the 1/4 light rear window rubber so at least we will get some warning if it's a quick reaction. Some sellers recommend it for rubber shoes so it should be OK.

That's unless someone out there has a better idea.

More Re-chroming

Somehow I didn't blog the fact that we re-chromed the rear bumper bar. Back in this post I indicated that I was cleaning up the bumper bars. The rear one was too far gone - lots of scratches etc. We had it re-chromed about a year ago and it looks great.

With my attention turning to installing door handles etc. back on the car I found that the boot handle is pretty bad. It has a lot of pitting.













 Down the back of our yard, behind the garage, there is another boot lid - with a handle. Unfortunately it was worse but at least I could play with it and see if I could get it apart without destroying it for good. I did and Laurel will drop by the electroplating place this week and see what they think of its condition. I'll keep the one that was on the car for now.

The other chrome that really needs doing are the headlight surrounds or "eyebrows" as the family calls them.

So they have all gone off the the same place for re-chroming. The door handles are kind-of OK so we will leave them for now.

Interior Cleanup prior to Trimming

Since we are nearly ready to start trimming the interior I did a job today that I have been putting off. Cleaning the old adhesive off the interior panels.
Googling around the net I had discovered 3M Citrus Adhesive Remover - I couldn't get that! The man at Bunnings (hardware store) suggested this stuff "oomph". So armed with that, some small wire and fibre brushes and a bag of old socks, I set to work.

 This is one of the pictures I took with the old carpets in the car so we knew what the layout was. Note the old adhesive on the panel under the door.






 
 
 
Half cleaned. It took a LOT of rubbing.

  

 Drivers side done. I haven't decided whether to clean the doors or not - I won't be using glue so I don't need them clean (unless I glue the waterproof plastic sheeting on which this Vogue was curiously missing) - we'll see how I go.







I finished around 5:30PM - it took the whole day. I did remove, clean, and reinstall the headlight dip switch and cleaned adhesive from inside the boot too. I got through about half the socks.

Getting Ready for Door/Window Rubber Installation

A few years ago we replaced all the pinchweld (the stuff that goes around the doorway of your car so you don't scratch yourself on the body seams) and all the door rubber in our 1967 Humber Super Snipe. In preparing to do the Vogue I wanted to have better tools as cutting the rubber on strange angles was very difficult - involving experience I did not have. The Vogue will be even more difficult as I have to make the rubber seals for the rear 1/4 light windows which involve angles other than 90 degrees.

In a brief visit to one of the auto rubber places last week I was impressed with the hand shears the guy used to cut a sample piece of rubber moulding for me. He indicated that they were quite difficult to find and his were nearly shot - so I went looking.
I bought this on eBay last night.

PVC CUTTER SET - PLASTIC CONDUCT - TILE TRIMS - RUBBER

NS-190-608 Trim Cutter Set 5 Piece Tradies 

Multi application cutter with 5 interchangeable anvils.
Cuts flat, round, 90 degrees and multiple angles.

Charger Sequencer Installed and Rear Pillars Painted

The Charger Sequencer is installed. I haven't quite finished wiring (note floating earth wire) as I can not finalise the inlet wiring until the three pin plug is mounted in the fuel cap - but the eBay 16A RCD/MCB handled the load fine. I can't say the same for the temporary 0.75mm cord I used for a few minutes until it nearly cooked. The 1mm inlet lead I have put aside with exactly the correct size plug to fit in the fuel filler was fine.

Finishing the headlining was delayed when we realised that black paint on the two pillars just behind the rear doors was pretty bad. Spraying them was too difficult at this stage so Laurel thought that vinyl covering was the go (I had just enough left over from the front). I was reluctant to put vinyl on them because I thought it would complicate the 1/4 light window installation (the triangluar window just behind the pillar). 

We finally decided to give brushing them a go and if it didn't work then use the vinyl.
I sanded them back with 800 wet and dry and put a generous single coat of Black Gloss Enamel on them. The camera can't show it but it looks like they are plastic coated - no brush marks.

Headlining Fiddling

The headlining is taking a bit of time and "fiddling" to get right. It's working out well but minor things like realising that the rear pillars just behind the rear door were not painted have slowed things down.
Here is a picture of how we plan to finish the headling at the top of the front windscreen pillars. It's the same way that the vinyl headlining was finished.

We have also run some fabric along below the rear windscreen and glued it in ready for the headlining to be glued down.

Windscreen Pillar Vinyl

(This post restrospectively added on 29th Aug.)

The vinyl covering the front windscreen pillars was in pretty bad condition so we took the opportunity to replace it.
The dashpad restoration guy sent me down some spare vinyl (the same as the stuff covering the new dashpad) for exactly this purpose.

Plus a couple of boxes of foldover clips from the local office supplies.

The old piece and a new piece of vinyl cut roughly to shape 

I didn't actually use the heat gun while the clips were on but you get the idea. Heat gun on low and just enough heat to form the vinyl.










All glued and clipped up.

"Can I help? I won't steal any vinyl!". Yeah right.

Headlining Back In

One of the problems when we fitted the new headlining (see this post, and this post) was that the 15mm acoustic foam that I glued to the inside of the roof was just a bit thick. We were unable to properly get the bows into position and have the fabric (listings) drape over them without pulling to one side or the other.
So I did a bit of work this weekend with Laurel's fabric cutter and a scalpel.
First I draw chalk lines on the insulation from left to right across the roof where the bows sit.
Then the fabric cutter was used to slice about halfway through the foam.

Next some careful scalpel work...

The result is these channels.
During this time, Laurel was inside repairing the ends of the listings where we had cut them back too far the first time we installed it almost a year ago. If we ever do another suspended headlining, it will be a lot easier (if we remember what we did wrong that is).

The bows were heaps easier to get in and the listings could now be positioned to let the headlining drop correctly.
It's currently being held in by lots of these clips.

A bit grainy because the flash washed out the fabric (if I used it) but you get the idea. It needs just a tiny bit more work to get the wrinkles totally out.

I have to glue the vinyl onto the front pillars before the headling goes in. I also have to cut a piece of this same fabric for across the back between the rear windscreen and the rear parcel shelf, then the headlining can be glued in for good. The front pillar vinyl is currently on my workbench being "flattened" after being rolled up for about a year.