Front Seat Stripdown

Laurel has finished sewing the front passenger seat fabric so it was time to totally strip the vinyl and foam off the seat.
Start with this (this is actually the drivers seat but you get the idea).

Remove the vinyl then strip of the foam.

 

Then take a wire wheel to the frame and give it a rust converter treatment. I was surprised how much rust there was in the upper section tubing.

I'll give it a coat of black enamel tonight ready for the foam when we pick it up this week.

We spent a few hours attempting to get the rear seat back foamed up and finished but now realise that we need to put a bit more thought (and foam) into the contouring of the seat. I'll try to get some action shots as we do it.

Gearbox Hump Underlay and Carpet

I cut up the underlay/insulation for the transmission hump and tailshaft tunnel and velcroed it on today. In this picture I have yet to make the little "hat" that fits over the inspection cover.

 I then "fiddled" with the carpet that I bought from England for a couple of hours to make it fit. It still needs a bit of padding but is essentially done.

Traction Battery Pack Schematic

Something I haven't included in the blog to date is the Traction Battery circuit.
The little blue connectors that connect some sub-packs to others are Anderson PP75 connectors. They are heatshrunk so as to provide finger-proof disconnects. When the "Traction Enable" is off, the entire pack is isolated from the Controller, Heater and DC-DC converters.
The term "VFD" refers to the motor controller - known sometimes as a Variable Frequency Drive.

(Later addition. I see that this page gets a lot of views so I should explain that the Vogue battery pack is a 600 VDC system - which is an unusually high voltage for an EV. I have divided this into two 300 VDC "half packs" - a positive and a negative set of packs. Each numbered pack is comprised of 32 x 10AH Headway LiFePO4 cells arranged as 16S2P - essentially 16 x 20AH cells.)
(Updated 08 Jan 2014)

Boot (Trunk) Handle

Now that the paint job on the Vogue is so good it makes me re-think how some things are attached. The boot handle did not have any rubber gasket under it.

My spare boot lid didn't have one either yet the manual clearly shows one.








I asked around and no, none of my normal suppliers had one - not anything close.

I spotted a pair of BMW E30 door handle gaskets on eBay for $5. The one on the top right is the original.
 Just under it is my modified version. The black rectangle is a small piece of teflon so the glue doesn't stick to the newspaper. The Loctite super glue didn't work - later I re-glued it with trim adhensive.

We have been very busy with Vinyl trim and seat cover sewing - I'll have to devote a bit of time to documenting it before it's too late!

Door Locks and Trim

The Vogue ignition switch was so worn that the ignition key fell out in any position. My 'spare' under the house was in good condition and, after a bit of work, has good low-resistance in all switch closed positions. The key also locks in firmly where it should - trouble is I only have one, slightly bent key for it!

This week I have been chasing a couple of new ignition keys and getting the door locks keyed alike. A minor problem that the key codes for the Vogue are just a little early for any locksmith I have found - incdluding a locksmith who advertises that they can cut old English car keys from the key codes. They are getting key blanks in for me and the guy reckons that the original key is in good condition for doing a copy.
I have also been installing exterior trim.

Floor Leveling and Underlay

Back in 1965 it apparently was not very important to have the floor of the car "flat". The Vogue floor has always annoyed Laurel because it has contour lines made by the metal pressing - probably for strength. These lines caused the old carpets to wear out quickly where the floor dipped and rose. So part of Sunday went to making two templates for the underlay so I could level the floor.
The driver and passenger sides are a little different. That's about the point when I realised that I shouldn't finalise the floor underlay until I had done the underlay/insulation for the transmission hump.
My passenger side template. Since taking the photo I extended the template up the firewall further just next to the hump.

Firewall Insulation Installed

I spent a couple of hours Sunday morning making a template then cutting the firewall sound proofing material. I'm not sure why it's needed now considering I haven't got a ticking wheezing Petrol Engine under the bonnet any more. It's got to go in before the heater is installed.

Before. This is looking in the left hand front door toward just under the dash area where the glove box will be installed.

After

I still have a little more to place around the heater inlet area but it's all clipped in and easily removed for engineering checks. I also realised that I can't install the heater until the transmission "hump" insulation is installed - that's next.

Rear Seat Foam Rubber

I dropped into the upholstery supply place Friday morning and ordered the foam for the rear seat. It was ready for pick-up after 1PM that day . Cost AU$52 - many pieces cut to size.
It made the extra can of 3M 76 Hi-Tack spray adhesive look expensive at $27.

Rootes Group didn't even bother to prime the raw steel sheet in the seat frame. Didn't they realise that the car would have to last more than 47 years? The seat foam we have removed was still in good enough condition to re-use (if you were that way inclined). Good quality stuff.


On Saturday I de-rusted the seat frame in preparation for putting the foam and fabric on.

We didn't get the foam on the seat as we had an outing on Sunday but I got some other stuff done.

New Windscreen Seal Ordered

I have just ordered a new windscreen seal from the same place I am getting the 1/4 light seals from - hopefully delivered by the end of next week.

Rear Seat fabric almost finished

All we need to sew on now is the fabric section that goes around the front of the seat and the fabric part is finished.
I have dismantled the back section but we need to pull the lower section (of the original vinyl seat) apart , get new foam, and re-assemble. Sounds simple doesn't it?
I'll post better photos (not done with my phone like this one) when it's on the seat frame.

Windscreen plans foiled

With the dashpad in, I carted the front windscreen into our lounge room last night with the intention of installing the stainless steel trim on the outside of the screen seal. (See the rear window a couple of posts back to see the trim.) Imagine my surprise when I realised that the rubber screen seal did not have the channel for the metal trim. Now the race is on to try to get the correct seal. We want to have the car freeway drivable by end of January.
On a good note, I ordered the rear 1/4 light seals yesterday and they should be here by the weekend.
I had previously bought 3 meters of a rubber profile that I thought would be OK but realised when we were installing the rear windscreen that it was missing the external sealing lip.

The "old" Vogue rear 1/4 light.

The Dashpad in In!

It's finally in.
It took me all day Saturday and Sunday - well a few breaks but that was my weekend - why?

The Vogue dashpad was not based on any kind of solid liner. It consists of foam and vinyl. For that reason it cost a lot to have this one made with a fibreglass base that fits the dash top.
Unfortunately the person who made it wasn't a clairvoyant or have magical abilities so it didn't fit quite right. The problem is that the demister trim and side wooden trim didn't fit.

I secured the wooden trim and drew a blue line on both sides to indicate how much room I had.

Now with dashpad installed. The circled bit is fibreglass and foam and will have to come off.

So I spent a long time hacksawing, snipping and filing VERY carefully to make evereything fit.
Here is the final result.

The little buckle is a trick of the light. It's there but very slight. I can take it out with the heatgun or just leave it to the windscreen rubber and sunlight.

One more Electric Car in the family

I wasn't at work on the last day before we broke for Christmas so didn't get my Kris Kringle until last week. Since it's anonymous, I figured the person who gave it to me just might read this blog.
So far we (William and I) have built the going-around-in-circles couinterbalanced aeroplane, and this car.
They go amazingly well - they need full sunlight to work properly.

It's quite surprising how much power that little solar cell provides.

The full kit.

Lots of fun - thanks!

Seat Foam Woes

I thought it wa going to be a simple matter to get the new foam rubber for the seats - not so.
A trip to Clark Rubber revealed that anything that would last longer than 10 years was a "special order". So we are waiting for the auto upholstery shop that we bought the fabric from to open on Jan 9th. The rear seat fabric will be ready to go by early next week. Meanwhile we are.hoping to get the dashpad in tomorrow. Pics tomorrow.

The Rear Windscreen is In!

We have been putting off installing the front and rear windscreens for various reasons and I kind of had someone in mind to do it. I rang him a couple of days ago to find out that he was on holiday and would not be back until February. So we figured that we would give it a go. I installed the metal trim on the seal and trimmed up the headlining bits around the rear windscreen opening last light and this morning ducked out to Bunnings (hardware store) and bought some venetion blind cord. Amazingly it only took about an hour to get the rear windscreen in. My apologies for the lack of pictures but it was very hot in the garage due to a run of hot days so we just wanted to get it done. Thanks to Matt Lambert and Kristi from the Rootes Group Car Club for advice and encouraging us to do it ourselves.

Some final fiddling.

The purple hand tool in Laurel's hand in this picture is a device called "That Purple Thang". Bought when she was buying other sewing stuff (not car) and advertised as something useful - well it was! It was very useful for prising the rubber over tricky bits withourt scratching anything. Yes you really can see a child's wooden chair inside the car-  that's how you get to sit in the driver's seat at the moment (for installing dashpad).

We also used a plastic knitting needle to tease the rubber lip out...

We installed the boot lid yesterday morning - I forgot to post about it. That took a lot of fiddling too.