The Interior
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SHORT VIDEO ! Passenger's perspective. Just "because" ! ! ! Listen closely, the clock WORKS too !!!
This is what I started with.....................I have been looking for a front and rear seat frames/springs for the last three years. I finally found them in good shape in Geneseo, Kansas. Roger, the old timer hot rodder/junk yard owner, has EIGHT shoebox Fords, and one of them, which was closed off from the weather, had these seat frames. The back seat is unique to the Coupe. I met him in Decatur where he went last weekend for a swap meet. 150 bucks total which included a pair of '51 trunk lid hinges (see the gallery on that part of the work). Looks pretty crappy, and they STINK, but ... just wait.....2/24/2015
Phase one of (bottom) front seat reconstruction... over 400 tie-wraps/zip-ties to hold the springs together since all that burlap is gone. Springs were actually falling out of the frame, as the burlap was all that was holding them in place. Next is sand blasting then paint and take to Tico, of Tico's "Leather Replacement"-Austin Google him... GREAT quality of work!
The back seat bottom curvature for the drive shaft tunnel was too low and too wide because I had to make a new driveshaft tunnel that was taller than the stock tunnel. Cut out the upper part for added clearance and made an "attachment" to raise the tunnel height and pull in the sides so that all fits.
It appears the back seat that I bought from the guy in Kansas was for a Sedan, as the rear corners of the seat were offset at the back edges. The Coupe seats (probably) don't have these offsets. Not only that, but these corners are pretty rusty/pitted and they needed some reinforcement . Bolts, hog rings, or tie-wraps will go through some holes and over the wire extensions.
All springs were cleaned, sandblasted, and painted. Even though I had the springs stacked on top of each other to save paint, it still took NINE cans of truck bed liner paint to get them all done. Notice the fit of the front of the bottom seat frame over the modified drive shaft tunnel.
LESSON ! : Get all your parts together before you build things. The drive shaft tunnel was WAY too high for the connector rod between the seat mounts. It moves with the seat when it is moved back and forth. Clearance of the drive shaft is now 1/2" from what remains of the tunnel. But the driveshaft doesn't move relative to the tunnel due to the Jag IRS. I will add about 1/2" of washers to the seat mount to raise it for good clearance here.
Fabricated the door panels from Luann 1/4" wood paneling. Lots of cut-and-fit to get all the holes and edges to line up. Then painted with exterior paint and marked for interior "deco" pattern. After fabrication, and before painting, I sprayed the panels with water and laid flat with a 5 gallon bucket of "mud" with 2 by 4's on the edges for a couple of days to give the panels a permanent slight curve for better fit.
Both of the front window frames had three holes in them. Two of them are for a stock Ford plastic emblem with a goofy looking "modern car" depiction, the other hole was driven through the frame by some previous owner who used a screw that was too long, and penetrated the surface from the back. To fix the holes, I slightly hammered the holes down, ground off the tip of a screw, drove the screw through the hole (very tight), and ground off the front surface. the back/bottom end of the screw was ground with an "x" in the tip of the screw, then applied epoxy putty on both sides, with the back side application to keep the screw from ever moving.
Screw then was cut off and ground down to just below the surface before epoxy coating, then body putty, then sanded down. Boy this Samsung 5S Sport phone take good pictures..this is taken from about 2 inches from the screw. Even the flash is self adjusting, and you can pick where you want the focus to be anywhere in the viewfinder/screen.
Back window frame turned out pretty nice...with a couple of coats of Dupli Color Ford Toreador Red Metal Flake (BFM0344) and two coats of clear coat...I think I'm in love...............The new hole below the interior light fixture is for the upper mount of driver's side seat belt swivel...(See picture #15)
Ash tray, glove box cover, and speaker grille.... it's so dang hot (100 f'ing degrees) that the paint is drying instantly when spraying... on the other hand, maybe a super glossy dash isn't the right thing to do....ahahah but may sand with 2000 grit and another layer or two of clear coat....and some polishing and these turned out perfect !
Guess what? I bought these two dash trim pieces (on the right) on Ebay for $0.99 the other day. They mount one on each side of the instrument cluster. They aren't perfect, but surely a lot better than the ones that came with the car....May resurface them and have them rechromed anyway...
The hole where the radio is supposed to be mounted had a goofy "proprietary" shape, and the only late model radio made that is an exact fit costs 550 bucks. Well, that is simply too much for a radio. So I bought a regular radio with the correct spacing for the knobs and a rectangular face that was supposed to "fit". It came with a cheap plastic plate to cover the side ovals of the mounting area. Rather than use the plate, I decided to weld up the holes and use the thin rubber "grommet" that also came with the radio to take up the 1/4" space between the radio and the mounting hole. A little epoxy putty and it should all fit just fine.
A little time with 3000 grit sanding pad and some Meguiar's ......mmmm..However, I'm very disappointed that the glove box, painted a few weeks ago, and the dash paint color don't match. Going to have to take the glove box back down and repaint. I can only guess that the Dupli-color paint was from another batch/another source...
Just painted the A/C - Heating grilles that will mount under the dash. The one on the right mounts on the passenger side kick panel. The double grille outlet will have only one grille active, as there are only four supply ducts/connections. I glued a plate onto the back of the double grille to block the flow, and another plate inside the assembly so that most of the air will exit the grille on the right side. This double grille also has two adjustable "down flow" outlets so that on heat (or any other time), air can be diverted toward the floor/feet area. The left grille is a fake. But it will look better when it's mounted, and it has adjustable "down diverters" to keep my feet warm.. haha
