I'm slowing putting my interior in. It's a royal pain in the ass fitting
each piece, but it's coming out real well.
Only one mistake so far: the real thin (1/16") foam backing for the wheel
wells I botched. Glued them on with 3M but only used a real light coat
cause it was such wimpy thin stuff. Wrong! It needs to be glued down real
well since the vinyl topcover needs to be streched to shape over it and
glued down onto it. The foam has to support the stretched vinyl without
pulling off the metal.
Oh well. Pulled the foam back off (came off easy) and got some closed-cell
stuff from Dave's Upholstery in Capitola, glued that on yesterday. The 3M
works a lot better if you glue both sides and wait a while to let them tack
up. I seem to have a real strong bond now. Will find out later today when
I put the covers on.
Dave was a real nice guy and is a car fancier himself of course. In fact,
he'd had a '69 TR6 himself in his youth! He told me something verrrry
interesting: He says the late ('75, '76) TR6 rear axles were stronger
than the early ones, that they had beefed up the yokes and perhaps other
parts. Can anyone confirm or deny this? If it's true then I'll definitely
be shopping for the later stronger versions when rebuild time comes.
Now a question:
Where do the carpeting pieces covering the tranny and axle covers
snap down? Onto the floor? Onto the covers themselves? And what
do people use around the read brake cables to give some shape and
substance to get a nice smooth curvy fit for the carpet?
And another:
Why is the parcel shelf carpet supposed to be glued down? To hell
with that. Went to all the trouble to strip it down to metal and
repaint and all, I'm gonna glue down as little as possible. Why not
snap down this section like the rest of the big pieces? Can anyone
think of a good reason why not?
So far the carpet pieces I have had to trim to fit, but the panel set was
really nice and fit perfectly. The doors look excellent, and work very
well with the new remote door latch remote controls. Solid, not iffy.
It's staring to look like a car and not a project!
--ian
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