Car Running Countdown

Today's Interior Trim Progress

This is how it looked this morning:

Headliner insulation was reglued a couple weeks ago. I used plain old body sealer:


Tire well was mint before I cleaned and painted it last November (2007):


Fuel inlet is on Passenger side (No rust there either!). Driver's side cargo rear quarter. The washer tank is down below:


Inside of the tailgate gets a small carpet insert between steel trim rails, but most Fairmonts come without the extra trim. Hex bolts on the Left are for the rear wiper:


The doors were finished with 4 coats of Rustoleum/Tremclad sprayed on, and the black you see inside is two coats of undercoat sprayed on.


As you can see, I painted the floor and any solid sound-deadening panels (brown) then on the bare painted steel, I used Evercoat Q-pad sound deadener panels (expensive little puppies - $7 CDN$ per 12" X 12" sheet). You have to do this when it's really warm or use a heat gun, to get it into the floor dips.


That's the passenger side view of the wiring harness and some of the AC ductwork:


This is the Driver's side view. That cruise control came from the donor. So did the tailgate de-icer wiring, so I merged the harnesses with stock wires from the donor's controls, fitted the de-icer control into my AC switch panel, and avoided soldering joints. PITA, but the high 20 Amp load needed good wiring from the stock system:


This is all the Trim I refinished in early 2007.

This is the Mexican Hooped Fairmont Wagon Headliner. US and Canada use the cardboard backed vinyl system. The little carpet insert on top is the tailgate trim panel. I laid it in the sun to flatten it out. I used the same SEMS Camel vinyl dye, but the carpet absorbed more. That's why its darker.


More door and window trim parts:


The old door panel on the right wasn't padded like the ones from the 1982 panel on the left, but the vinyl on the 1982 was shot, so I used my velours fabric from the bench seats to reupholster them. I still have to trim the knob/handle locations.

The vanity visor below the left panel is also from the 1982 junker, so I dyed them to match:


That is a stock Ford leather steering steering wheel that came from the donor car (1978 Fairmont 2-door). Feels good too.


These were in the shade so they don't look the same color. Rear cargo side panels. I made the speaker holes larger for 6" X 9" units with tweeters. The stock size were 4" X 6". The original grilles would be servicable, and I did restore them and repair the speakers (finger nail polish works great!), but they've had better days. I kept them in case we wanted music on a nude beach somewhere (fat chance of that in the prairies! ). If somebody wants them FREE, minus the freight, PM me.:



What's not here are the Front glove box, rear cargo storage box (over the washer tank) and door sill trim, the dash, reclining seat swivel covers, armrests and seatbelt covers, but they're all done too. Only allowed 20 pics in a post.

I finished up, locked up all the parts in the car and came in at 11:00 PM.

Here's what I got done inside, after bringing all the parts out from the top floor and basement.

The headliner was the slow part: Once you wrestle the hoops into the side holes, center the fabric on the hoops and check to see if anything is not located properly (sun visor holes, dome and cargo lamps, you have to use contact cement to glue the edges starting from the front, going down each side (glue the frame, glue the headliner, wait until the glue 'flashes', gets tacky, and press and stretch to smooth it out. You can only do about 10 inches at a time. It's a Long Roof alright!!! :banghead3:

Passenger side:




I should wrap up this interior gig tomorrow.

 

Looking Great Norman

 

Hiccups in the process!

I used the stock Ford rear speaker harness with the two-wire rubber connectors. I thought I had a pair reserved to hook onto the speakers. So I had to make new connectors. Then I noticed the sheetmetal was in the way. yuk! So I hauled out the new grilles and checked if I could lower them and found out I could. Then the rain sprinkled for 30 seconds. double yuk! And then the evening forecast said there were Severe Thunderstorm, Tornado, high winds (up to 60 MPH or more) and Hail tonite and all day tomorrow. Triple YUK!!! :banghead3:

Well, I can do my rainy day jobs tomorrow (seat assembly, leaf trap grilles, etc.)

Friday night to early Saturday morning will also have showers, but the Afternoon looks Ok and then for the rest of next week. I'm thinking I may haul out my construction halogen 1000 watt lights and work through Sunday to catch up.

 

I'm happy with the colors and the SEMS vinyl dye. It's a tough finish. I think the hoop-type headliner shrunk a wee bit, the rear cargo light doesn't line up. I'll try to find out why Mexico used that instead of the US/Canadian system, after I take another look at the 1978 donor roof chunks to see what the difference is. It had the cardboard-backed vinyl type. I'll live with it for now. It looks good and I can patch it and dye it anyway.

 

Here's a good hoop-type headliner installation DIY article from HotRod Magazine (lots of pics):

http://www.hotrod.com/howto/76318_headliner_installation/index.html

 

Got more trim in at the front, after installing the front outer seatbelts.

Got the leaf traps in under the cowl grille. A tip from RK, gluing made it simple and neat. I used automotive contact cement from Pro-Form. UV rays dry out the common stuff, and this one is anti-freeze (as in windshield washer fluid), gas and oil resistant.

Here's that thread with RK.
http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2525


Lots of fiddly testing, trimming, etc.

Rain tomorrow, but lots of interior work to do and get my reno materials listed for the grant.

 

any more updates?

 

Cutting new door liners and the 150 clip holes (the plastic air/water barrier sheets). No glamorous stuff today. It was raining on/off all day. But tomorrow looks like a go-getter day.

 

Besides the respect for your stamina during all this detailing and the whole project for that matter, I realy like to thank you for your detailed discription of the work you do including all the links you find when searching for info on the net!
I have set my heart to a Fairmont and this will certainly come in handy. I saw one live for the first time on a car show here this weekend:

 

Senri, That sure may be a Fairmont there but it is a copy of my Mercury Cougar. Ford has for years renamed many vehicles for overseas markets. So that car sure could be a Fairmont there. Ford has done many strange things over the years. In Canada Ford trucks used to be called Mercury. The Mustang was almost named Cougar but Ford settled on Mustang instead and the rest is history.

Here's the front of my Cougar:

 

You are absolutely right. I actually had seen it already, it is called a Mercury here as well. What are the biggest differences; badges, grill maybe options? I understood that Mercury was the luxery version of the Ford, but what does that actually mean in the Fairmont/Cougar?

 

You have it right. Grills, badges and trim items. No leather option back in the 70s or 80s. It all started with the Fairmont in 1978 then it grew to with Ford Granada, LTD and Fairmont and on the Mercury side Zephyr, Cougar, Marquis. It was pretty crazy but in the end there were and still are many parts still available. The same chassis in different lengths were used for Mustang and Thunderbird as well. No station wagons for those. This chassis is called Fox and Ford built pretty close to 1 million each year until 1988. The Mustang continued on that chassis until I think 1994 then the chassis was redesigned but still the basis was the Fox chassis.

An interesting fact is that even all the different dash boards are interchangable physically but electrical harnesses do differ.

 

Thanks for the kudos, Senri. You'll find with your own multi-lingual knowledge that you can search out links that would otherwise be almost impossible to find.

The Fox-bodied wagons are ideal for long-distance driving. Especially if we find a way to make them even more fuel efficient than they are.

TBird, that's the best F/Z/M summary I've ever read on the Fox cars. Well done!

 

Just finished outside at about 11:30 PM. Bright, warm, humid, breezy, moonlit evening. All the upper interior mouldings are now in. For those who've wondered if those coat hooks above the rear doors have screws, they do. Ford puts a rubberised sleeve over a nylon, barbed spacer, through which the 2.25" countersink head screw goes through. They are the longest sheetmetal screws on the whole car.

I know, cause I broke them off the donor thinking they were rivetted.

I got rear seat belts installed from the 1982 junkyard parts car. The seat belt bolts are self-tapping (I didn't know until I read the Ford Manual). My 1979 had the weld nut blanks filled with rubber plugs, since Mexico didn't require rear seatbelts. In they went! Like they were made for each other.

And I got the dash in place. Ran out of decent light, BUT, I noticed that the cowl tabs were bent sideways, probably with all the work I did when I painted it, so I have to nudge (love taps with a hammer, or a tweak with some big pliers) them. Only one crack under the dashpad.

The rear speakers were the big bear. Since mine has the rear storage 'glove box' on the driver's side, and since it had Factory 4 X 6 speakers and grilles, there is no way to get them fitted the normal way.

As the Rev says, I'm weird, not NORMal.

The normal way would be to use the grille bolts and wham bam, Bob's your uncle! The way I had to do it, was mount them to the recessed edges of the rear cargo quarter window frame in two of the four speaker holes, and up close enough to get the third one into the wheel well seam. I could have put a fourth with a bracket to the floor, but they're mounted with strong 3/16" bolts and self-locking nuts. I mounted the speaker grilles with shorter bolts and lock washers on the top edge or they would have blocked the rear panel from being mounted.

I went through 3 scenarios to figure this out.
1. Mount on plastic side panel like the stock installation - FAILED.

2. Mount with galvanized strap to the same window frame. Too wobbly. It would've sounded like crap, and needed a triangular bracing setup. Too messy. - FAILED.

3. Cut the window frame and jam the speaker into the new indentation. It's a unibody car, and that frame does a lot of torsion work, especially after 30 years. FAILED.

4. That's what I described above, before these ideas. Solid, good resonance, easy to replace new speakers when needed. DONE! Happy jazz fan in a few days.

Up and at it tomorrow. Rain in the afternoon.

Tomorrow: Dash, carpet, front seats, at least. That's the plan anyway.

 

you know what we need.