I’ve been working on several things
lately, but I haven’t finished anything, so this is to catch you up.
Prop Shaft Shop – aka Drive Shaft
I finally dragged my “self” to the off-road shop in town to
get Alphie’s prop shaft rebalanced. (It’s
about a 40-minute one-way drive, “wah,” I know, but I put it off forever). I figured it would shake like a withdrawing
addict since the original balance weights had mostly rusted off.
It’s installed, done, box checked.
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| Cleaned and spiffy unbalanced prop shaft (This is an over-drive shaft; it's shorter) |
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| The balanced shaft - the arrows point to the nifty new weights |
Hard Top Shop
Alabama summers are too hot and humid to paint in a garage,
so I set myself to other tasks. I bought
all the accoutrements for the hard top, the weather seals, window glass, head
liner, the whole kit.
The weather seals, although a bit fiddly, went on relatively
easily. The new side glass gave me some
resistance, but the frames cleaned up and along with the weatherstripping, they’re
fitted.
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| New top-to-body and window weatherstripping, new Lexan glass and cleaned latch, spanking! |
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| New windscreen weatherstrip and some sound insulation |
Head liner: I glued
in some sound matting to the underside of the top but decided to wait until I
have the interior completed before installing the head liner. Any hint of dirt will smudge it, and I want more
of the dirt making processes finished before taking on the head liner.
The hard top is patiently waiting on its stand for the moment.
The Bonehead Upholstery Shop
I bought a complete interior from Sunbeam Specialties, and
it is FANTASTIC! It’s a light blue, “Clipper
Blue” to be exact, with dark blue piping.
It looks awesome against Alphie’s dark blue paint!
Black carpeting, Alpine script floor mats
The seats are the first on the list. I’m including instructions on restoring Alpine
seats in the “More Stuff” column on the right of the blog. If you want the original write up, it’s on
the Tigers East/Alpines East (TEAE) site at teae.org. The article is called “N-38 How to Restore
Your Seats” by Joe Parlanti and was posted March 27, 2009.
I have edited and reformatted it to shorten it and make it a
bit easier to follow, so my apologies to Mr. Parlanti.
I’ll let Mr. Parlanti’s instructions do the heavy lifting,
and I’ll explain how and why I diverged from the instructions in a few places.
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| Bottom frame cleaned, painted with replacement bungees ready to install |
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| Back frame cleaned, painted with foam installed (I forgot to take a pic before gluing on the foam.) |
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| Mr. Parlanti talks of gluing vs sewing the top canvas corner. I sewed them because I don't think a glued connection will last. |
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| Speaking of sewing, I sewed the center section of the upholstery to the foam/canvas. Much tighter, and I didn't trust gluing it. |
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| Mr. Parlanti's seat kits didn't include this flap (arrows). They pull the canvas and rubber straps a bit tighter. (Place them under the metal rail so that you can glue down the vinyl and attach the spring bracket.) |
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| I wanted to tighten my rubber straps, so I bent them a bit to shorten them. |
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| Glued and clamped! |
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| Finished! I used some #6 stainless screws because they are very secure and I didn't have enough of the little clips you see in the pic. Many had rusted to dust, go figure. |
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| Damned brilliant, I must say! Sewing the center section pulled it in place much better than gluing it would |
I'm working on the seat backs and will add some more pics when I'm finished. I'm waiting on some ABS plastic sheets for the back of the seat backs, for one thing.
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| I got the later model seat kits with a center flap with a sleeve for the second foam piece. Mr. Parlanti's use a single foam piece. |
2 comments:
Awesome seat base work, it looks better than one done by a pro trimmer that I looked at recently, the seats are another job on my list, very brave of you to venture the 40 mins to get the shaft balanced it will definately be worth it, I've been able to splash on some paint lately so the minor disasters are happening 😀 😢 but at least it feels like progress.
Here's the deal with toy cars, no one needs them to go to work. Don't worry about making mistakes. Nothing I have screwed up (so far) was beyond fixing. It cost money to screw up, but it's fixable.
Compared to other upholstery I have done (American cars), the Sunbeam stuff is weird. For example, I now see how the cardboard that wraps the frame determines the the foam fills the vinyl. I have noticed how old Alpine seats seemed to have deflated; it's because the cardboard under the foam collapsed. That's why I'm using ABS plastic sheets instead, won't absorb water and won't collapse. I'll have pic soon.
Press on!
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