I'm at work today attempting to recover from a relaxing 4-day weekend which I
spent trying to get the GT6+ as ready as possible for this Sunday's British
car show at the Museum of Transportation.
Even though I didn't get everything done I had intended to do (oops, another
case of ridiculous optimism - but would we keep doing this if we *weren't*
optimistic?) I am quite please with my progress.
I got the GT6+ back from the paint shop a couple of weeks ago. Since then it
has sat up on ramps waiting to get the interior reworked. I got so far as to
get the interior pretty much gutted, with the exception of the shoulder
harnesses, which were bolted in with nice movable nuts way up there under the
car.
I got the seats out by first removing them from the rails, then removing the
rails. Needless to say, the seats did NOT slide easily - it will now be much
easier to take them out.
Friday I reinstalled the transmission cover, using silicone sealer. I realize
that this effectively glues the cover on, but I'm sure it will come off fairly
easily when the need arises. In fact, I figure I can slice the silicone with
the sharp knife and have a nice custom seal when I bolt it back on. I then
plugged all the holes in the body - I found almost 30! Since I removed the
roll bar (I want this to be a more stock version of a GT6) I had to plug about
16 3/8" holes for it, plus about 6 or 7 1-inch drain holes, plus a plethora of
other 3/8" holes. I wanted to make the car as air and water tight as possible.
I also cleaned the inside with Simple Green. It worked well, but there are no
miracles...
Anyway, I bought 10 feet of 4-foot wide mylarized bubble insulation, as
recommended by cak, and it was great stuff. Very thin, but very effective. By
the way, this stuff is called Insolite in some places, but at my friendly HWI
hardware store it was Astro-Foil. Corny! This stuff was easy to work with, and
what a difference! I covered the transmission/driveline tunnel and the
bulkhead and floors with this stuff.
Then came the job of installing the carpet. The PO had given me the carpet
along with the car. It was a mish-mash of different pieces from different
sets, but I managed to pretty much put a coherent set together. My wife helped
a lot here. The rear deck carpet was too long - must be for another model GT6,
I guess. She cut it and bound the front edge. She also re-bound some pieces.
Anyway, it all went together pretty well. I installed a new boot for the
shifter. I had purchased a new shift knob, since the one on the car was
missing the medallion. With the seats out, I found a really beautiful GT6
medallion that went onto that knob! So I fixed it and put it on, and put the
new one on the TR250 (the only nice thing on it, now).
With the carpeting in, I began to realize that the missing side panels, that
run from the back of the car to just behind the doors, were REAL important to
it looking nice. VB wants $80 for those things. I decided to make my own. I
bought about $6 worth of black vinyl, and used the old panels as a pattern. I
cut the basic piece out of 1/8" masonite, then glued on thin foam rubber, then
covered it with the vinyl. I figured that even without the piping, it was OK.
But when I looked closely at the old panels (they were broken) I saw that the
piping was just a bit of vinyl around a cord that was stapled on. I carefully
removed the piping from the old panels and stapled them onto the new ones
Voila! Really nice panels complete with piping!
What a difference that made! Oops, I didn't have a rear deck, either. But I
did have some 1/4" Lauan plywood, so I used the carpet as a pattern and made
one. I painted it flat black, cut it into the appropriate pieces, and
installed it. Works great!
So by 5 pm yesterday I had the interior all together and in, except for the
dash. That's my next project, but I probably won't have it done by the show
Sunday. But what a difference!
I drove it in this morning. The major difference in driving is how much quiter
and cooler it is! Before, I heard every sound, every rattle, every noise. Now
it's much quieter. Also, the heat level is down tremendously. Many thanks to
Chris K for the suggestion. I am now an Astro-Foil (Insolite?) fan!
I'm going to hunt for crash pads, and would like to get them on before Sunday,
even with my ratty dash and dash top. But someday soon, those, too, will be
renewed.
This Saturday I'm going to paint my wheels. Nothing spectacular, just need to
make them look less ratty, until I can afford $500 for alloys.
Whew! I'd better get back to work and rest up some more...
Larry
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