Passenger Seat and Center Pad

Having learned the lessons on mounting the driver's side seat belts and having bolts that work, the belt went in on the passenger side without a problem.  I then mounted the sliders to the bottom of the passenger seat, setting the bolts finger-tight and slid it into place.  I gently slid it out again and tightened up the bolts.  I slid it back in, and it works like hot butter!

I then cleaned the center console bottom pan and the upper pad.  I screwed in the pan and popped the pad into place.  It's held in quite nicely by the two inside seat belt units.

It now looks almost like a car again!  I gave my wife a ride around the house a few times.

Rear Window and Driver's Seat Go In

I'm at the point where I can start reinstalling a lot of the interior parts.  In order to install the seats, you have to work backwards, installing the rear window, rear pad and seatbelts.

I was concerned about putting the rear window back in, as I discovered it's held in place only by a strip of butyl adhesive.  I found this very helpful article and followed the steps closely.  I got the article's recommended part from NAPA.  It looks like a long strip of Darrell Lea black licorice.I was worried about the stickiness of the adhesive, but it's not as bad as I thought.  In fact I wish it was more pliable and stickier, as I had to go all the way around the outside edge and push on it hard with my fingertips to get it to make contact with the glass and form a seal.  I was able to take small pieces of the remaining butyl strip and roll it between my hands to narrow it down and stick it into some small gaps, especially at the bottom corners.  This worked well as it sticks to itself nicely and forms a continuous waterproof bead.

Here is the opening, prepped and ready.

Here is the window in place.  I must have thrown away the small 1/8" bottom spacers when I pulled the window over a year ago, so I fashioned two 3" long pieces from fine-layered plywood.  The spacers are designed to hold the glass at the right height while you seat it in the adhesive and also support it over time so I'm not worried about the wood vs. plastic issue.

Here's a closeup of the driver's side lower corner after I did a water intrusion test.  I packed butyl into both corners to make sure water wouldn't sit in the corner and eventually leak inside.

With the window in place, I installed the behind-the-seats pad.  My pad was in sad shape - some of the fiber backboard was disintegrating so I firmed the bad parts up with JB Weld.  I re-stretched and glued the loose vinyl back into place with contact cement.  The worst part was a badly cracked vinyl area over the driver's left shoulder.  I think this was caused by repeated banging by the seatbelt buckle.  I glued a spare piece of vinyl into place under the cracked area, then used a vinyl repair kit to glue the edges down and fill and texture the area with gel black vinyl and the small supplied heating wand.  It's not perfect but it will do.

I then installed the driver's seatbelt, which was a giant pain in the ass.  I bought 3-point retracting belts from Kiff Enterprises/California Pacific/J Bugs via Amazon.com.  The belts are manufactured by Seatbelt Solutions and are good quality. The problems are mainly due to the "bottoming out" of the bolts I tried to use to mount the belt points.  The nuts welded into the car only allow about 1/2" of depth, then they stop.  My car came with 5-point racing harnesses and hardware which I removed, so the original bolts are long gone.  I had to make a couple of visits to my local Blake's Hardware with its extensive hardware selection to find the right ones.  The other problem was due to the belt design - the belt anchor has to be mounted on the same bolt as the retractor mechanism but it comes bent at an angle.  This anchor with its bend, plus the retractor, plus a bolt short enough to firmly mount in the hole doesn't have any chance at success.  I bent the anchor's bend as flat as I could in my big-ass vise, then bolted it into place.  I had to give up on the metal cover over the emergency brake cable, as it was blocking access to the bolt head.  The carpet piece does just barely fit, so it looks OK and should be fine over time.  After a frustrating couple of hours, I got the belt installed, including the vinyl pad that where the shoulder point bolts in, then slid the re-assembled seat onto the greased runners and it slides and tilts nicely.

After all of this work, I'm now able to sit in the driver's seat and drive the car around my yard and down my dirt road a little bit!  Here it is.  It got too dark to see, so next up is the passenger seatbelt and seat.

Seat Restoration

When I got the car, the seats were in pretty bad shape.  Both seat pads had cracks at the stitching lines, and the driver's seat had cracks in the vinyl on the seat's side.

After a quick, disheartening thought of gluing the seams on the seat pads, I ordered two vinyl pads and a vinyl seat back from Autos International.  They came in very quickly and I started working on the repairs.  I used copious amounts of contact cement that I originally bought to restore the dashboard, but the seat restoration needs a *lot* of contact cement, so be prepared!  Don't use the spray stuff out of the can, use the stuff you get from a specialty fabric store that's specifically for gluing vinyl.

First I pulled the bad vinyl off both seat pads, and replaced it.  Luckily I had a pneumatic stapler in my woodworking toolbox, because each pad takes about 50 staples to hold it in place.  My friend Gary at G Rides took some time out of his work on Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches to re-rivet the seat-holder-clips into place.

Then I went to work on the driver's seat.  I stripped it apart and found some problems with the foam, so I repaired the issues before starting to put the new vinyl on.

The new seat cover was sized perfectly, and the result is great.  Here are the completely new driver's seat, and the original passenger seat with new pad vinyl.  The driver's seat is on the left, with a matte finish from the new factory vinyl, and the passenger seat on the right with a bit of shiny patina...

I also restored the seat slider mechanisms, cleaning them, grinding off rust and oxidation, repainting and clearcoating.  Nobody will see these without sticking their head under the seats, but I know they're there and they look great!