New Zealand T34 Ghia project

[F.BOUTIER]

Great job John !!!

[F.BOUTIER]

John ,

when you talk about P profile welt , is it something like this ?

http://sellerie-guibert.com/115-jonc--passepoil---galon-passepoil.html

Franck.

[racoguy]

That is the commonly available welting but T34's use a different profile on the door cards which looks like a letter P end on.
Rather than the attachment welt strip being in the center of the O section it is off to one side.
Suppose you could use the normal one which is commonly used on seats but it isn't quite right.

[racoguy]

[kiwighia68]

[racoguy]

They were done by Ian Goodwin car upholstery which is just down the road from me, last few pieces being bound this week.

[kiwighia68]

[racoguy]

[W1K1]

[racoguy]

Picked up the last few pieces of carpet from the trimmer completing all of the binding, didn't manage to get out during the week to source any underlay so yet again can't fully complete the carpeting.
Getting a little tired of working on the same thing over and over but it has to be done how I want it so it takes as long as it takes.
When I replaced the floors I added a lower seatbelt mount as I wanted modern retractable seatbelts from the start so now that it's all together I find out I screwed up the placement of the mount D'OH!
The mount is too far back on the pan leaving too little room to mount the roller which really pissed me off, not cutting it off now so figure out something else.
In the end I made a nice bracket which turns the roller 90 deg mounting it against the back kick plate instead of in line with the heater channel.
Looking at it now it's way better and works way better as well compared to how I had first intended it.
The upper mount is an M24 thread so had to make an adaptor to take that down to a modern M11 bolt, seatbelts done!
Next on the list will be to make new interior quarter and door top pads so that should be quite interesting I think, got a plan in my head so we'll see how that works out.

[vlad01]

I wonder if you can get retractable with a cover on the mechanism?

I got belts like that one mine but looks a little naked as you can see the working of the retracter.
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71 Aussie notchback, the money pit
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[reay]

I'm sorry about skipping back this far, but I'm right at the point on installing my headliner (and dreading it!) and have a question..
Where do you spray the fast-tack and when. I assume you use as little as possible in the "field" and only at the edges. Also, did you use the trim that goes around the side window to pull it tight?

PS-Thanks sooo much for documenting everything!
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Tom Reay

Da weiss man, was man hat!

68 Karmann Ghia Sunroof / auto T345
66 Standard Microbus T221
66 1200a Standard 115 with factory ragtop

[racoguy]

[reay]

I did grab the wrong quote (a bit a computer spaz)

But, you answer my question! My wife a me started at it tonight. I am worried that pilars are going to come out clean. Did you use any heat? And is brushing the glue on OK to do? (I have both).
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Tom Reay

Da weiss man, was man hat!

68 Karmann Ghia Sunroof / auto T345
66 Standard Microbus T221
66 1200a Standard 115 with factory ragtop

[racoguy]

Didn't use any heat, just got the headliner tight and then did the front pillars first followed by the rears. Trim off excess material a little then do a test pulling it in a way where there's no creases then adjust as needed.
Must say too, cover pillars first then headliner! Where the headliner goes over the pillar try to double the headliner over creating a nice finishing edge.

Once you finish around the pillars this is where it is handy to install the side roof moldings to keep things in place.
Brushing the glue is slow but 100% gets the glue where you want it and can do a few inches at a time if needed.
You have a sunroof? if you do then trace around the opening with a pencil because when you cut the hole the headliner will become slack again and you can use the pencil line to judge where you need to pull the material to in order to fold the material over the opening.
In all I really enjoyed doing mine and if I were to do it again I'm sure I could do a better job.[/list][/u]

[racoguy]

Been thinking about the next step for a while now and keep changing my mind about how to do it as well as collecting materials for the job.
I found grained dashboard vinyl quite some time ago but in order to do this properly like the factory did it I would need a vacuum table to be able to vacuum form the vinyl over the parts.

Vacuum table is the easy part which I started last weekend, MDF being cheap and easy to cut became the material of choice.
Made a table big enough to also make and cover a dash when I get that far, just have vacuum attachments to install and seal the thing up.
Will then have to make a frame to hold the vinyl sheet and some sort of heating system to heat / melt the vinyl.
Not much information out there (probably no one dumb enough to have a go) on what glue to use, seems to be heat activated which so far I have not found here.

Didn't really feel like more wood work this morning so I moved on with getting more parts ready instead, I did make one of the metal rear 1/4 pad backers some time ago and since all 4 are rusted it seemed like a good thing to carry on with.
Making the other rear one was pretty simple and easy but the door ones are a little more complicated if you want them to look right.
To separate them from the covering was harder than I thought, a combination of rust and old garbage left behind...........why is everything on this car trash........?

The front ones are also a different shape so none of my templates were any good, after what seemed like an age to finally get the correct curve I could work on the ends and try it on the door.
More trial and error later I had something which actually fits pretty well, drilled the holes for the trim also at that stage.
The original ones had 3 tabs which attach to the door under the door card which were easy to make and weld on, was pretty late in the day by now and time to call it quits while still ahead.
Have material cut for the other side which will be a lot quicker now that I know what to do!

3 done, 1 to go.

[MonT3]

Your fab skills continue to impress and am totally looking forward to seeing your vacuum-form those pieces to life.
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MonT3
67 Squareback
64 Squareback
63 Squareback
Engine rebuild
Trailer rebuild

[racoguy]

Thanks man, the running joke around here is "how hard could it be, all you have to do is sucky some stuff over it"

[Bobnotch]

[t3kg]

Looking great. I've never seen a set of these that wasn't completely rusted out.
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