The Crusty Cuda: Whole lotta Shakin' (N96) Goin' on!

[njsteve]

They are just regular, modern bolts from what I can tell - not original ones. Got a photo of what the markings should be? I can start digging through my bucket of bolts for similar ones.

[njsteve]

More random parts getting refurbished. The ash tray insert for the E-bodies is nicely reproduced and it comes with the three tiny rivets that need to be drilled out and then hammered back into place once you repaint the ash tray door. The ash tray door, upper housing, glove box door and hinge, all get painted in a special suede black paint ($25 a can). Once I get the dash frame out that will be painted in the same paint as will the steering column parts, too. But that's for another episode. I am still waiting on the dash pad to be available again. They are currently on backorder.

[njsteve]

I've been working on the headliner this weekend. Slowly making progress and getting the wrinkles out...I've also been painting all the headliner and interior window trim, white.

I found another NOS piece in my closet - an original "SHAKER" decal. Date May 1969. Remarkably, it stuck on there just fine with its half century old adhesive.

Also also found another original, yellow, antifreeze decal that I had signed by Larry Ehnat, the Suburban Dodge mechanic who originally dealer-prepped my old 1970 Hemi Charger R/T-SE in 1970. I had him do two of them around 17 years ago, just in case I needed another. The first one went on the Charger and I held on to the second one til today. I installed that one on the purple car's radiator support this morning. Can't get any more vintage than that!

[RS_COPO_Canuck]

Originally Posted by njsteve

They are just regular, modern bolts from what I can tell - not original ones. Got a photo of what the markings should be? I can start digging through my bucket of bolts for similar ones.

I'll look for a picture - but they are "Highland" bolts with an H on the head.
Zinc phosphate, no washers.

[njsteve]

thanks. I'll start looking in the bucket of bolts.

[njsteve]

Working towards finishing the week-long headliner project, today but ran in to problems with the crappy reproduction sail panels. The original pressboard sail panels have several compound curves to go around the interior of the C pillar. And it has a bracket for a door panel style clip in the center to hold it against the interior C pillar frame. Of course the repro panels are a flat piece of cardboard with a two-sided taped square to hold the door panel clip in. The fabric is glued onto the cardboard. And as expected, about two seconds after you engage the clip into the C pillar frame, it rips right out of the cardboard, which does not conform to the contours of the C pillar area.

So that was $60 down the drain. I tried peeling off the fabric from the repro panels and then gluing it onto the original pressboard sail panels after removing the original black fabric. But the cardboard delaminated and half of it separated with the fabric and wouldn't peel away cleanly. I tried anyway. No luck - it was a wrinkle-fest and even with steam and an iron I could not get the twists and wrinkles out.

So I contacted the manufacturer of the sail panels and bought two yards of the white headliner material to attempt to recover the original panels myself.

So here is the progress and the current semi-finished result.

Lucky I had the Lincoln's hood to spread the headliner out on. Whole lotta wrinkles in that folded up fabric.