Author: James

I'm just this guy, you know? Musician, Software Engineer, Loner-Dottie-Rebel in Asheville, NC

Moving on to the back seat

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I’m still waiting for the roll of high density foam (Amazon link) to arrive for the back seats, but it’s a beautiful day, so I decided to get some prep work done.

As you can see, the back seat covers have similar issues to the front. At one point in the past, I leaned in through the driver’s door and put my weight against the seat back. The seat cover ripped through, along one of the molded in, fake seams.

Disassembly

After removing the seat base, it’s easy to see from underneath that it appears to be in similar condition to the front seats.

Removing two bolts from the sides, the seat back was easily removed.

The seat back is closed in with a trim panel, so I won’t know the internal condition until I get that disassembled. I’m expecting more mouse house, based on what I saw in both front seats.

Cleaning up

The black paint was mostly flaked off of the bolts, so I took care of that while they were out.

With the seats removed, there’s clearly a mess that needs attention.

After removing the rear trim pieces in the foot well, I brought out the little shop vac and let it eat.

The plastic heater pipe grommet on the passenger’s side is always falling apart. I will need to take a look at that to see if the two halves need to be glued together or something. Otherwise, the panels are in good shape.

I noticed some surface rust on the “new” floor pan under the driver’s seat, which is concerning.

Also, in the driver’s side front foot well, there is a mat glued down, covering the floor board. Peeling back the corner of that, it’s clear why the rear half of the pans were replaced.

That mat felt to me like something that could be asbestos based and I wasn’t too keen on trying to get the rest of that peeled up, as crumbly as that first corner was. So that’s a job for another day.

I vacuumed out the now empty interior and sprayed some rust inhibitor (Amazon link) and DE1634 (Amazon link) on the driver’s side floor board.

The rear floor mats are the only thing hiding the floor boards in the back. I’m surprised the carpet kit that was previously installed didn’t cover those areas. The floor mats are in OK condition, but were either not black to start with or are very sun faded.

The passenger side floor board didn’t have nearly as much surface rust as the driver’s side, but I went ahead and sprayed rust inhibitor and black paint on it as well.

The nozzle of this new can of DE1634 started spitting out chunks, like silly string. You can see bits of it in the picture above. Thinking I must not have shaken the can well enough, which hasn’t ever been an issue with this paint in the past, I shook and shook and shook it some more.

I pulled the rear seat clips off of the pillars to paint them, as the black paint was very thin and chipping on them as well.

More cheese curds from the spray can. It’s actually getting worse over time. I flipped the can and cleared the nozzle multiple times, shook it some more, but it continued to make silly string.

Reassembly

I couldn’t find any real issue with that plastic heater pipe grommet on the passenger side foot well trim piece, so I snapped it back together and reinstalled them both.

I soldiered on, spraying more rust inhibitor and low gloss black cottage cheese around the exposed interior.

While I was at it, I sprayed the negative battery cable black, since they were both red before. It was always easy to tell which was which. The negative cable goes directly to a body ground and the positive cable has another red wire joined in at the connector.

After removing the rear seats, I needed to make some room for them in the house, while I wait for the upholstery foam to arrive. So I went ahead and reinstalled the front seats.

As expected, I’m now sitting a couple of inches higher, but still have plenty of head room. Also, in the driver’s seat, I’ve no longer got to fight an outside lean toward the window.

Mission Front Seats were a success!

Passenger Seat

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After last weekend’s front seat refinishing progress in Inside the Driver’s Seat and Driver’s Seat Part 2, I had been looking forward to the weekend, to be able to dig back in to refinishing the seats. Saturday was a rain out, but Sunday was a sunny treat. I pulled the front passenger seat out and started disassembling it on the front porch.

Deconstruction

I saw some green bubble wrap showing through from the underside of the seat. There also appeared to be some mechanic’s wire of a decent thickness twisted up, tying the seat cover on. That would require some more investigation.

As I started unfolding the little prongs to release the seat cover, one on the back side of the seat base popped off.

I pulled the metal trim piece off the side of the seat. It was missing the rotating metal bracket that holds the back half in place. It looks like someone had previously tried to put a plastic GM push button trim thing in there, but it was broken off.

This passenger side seat cover also had the tie down strings in the front, though they were tied differently than those on the driver’s side. When I tried to untie the knots, they quickly fell to pieces, just like the ones on the driver’s seat.

When I had everything disconnected and started peeling back the vinyl seat cover, I found another hat on a hat type situation.

I got the seat base all stripped down and brushed it clean. I used all my brake parts cleaner spray last weekend and hadn’t been back to the parts store to pick up some more. I’m sure it will be fine.

Friends, let me just say that most of the DE1634 paint (Amazon link) I sprayed never actually set. My experience on the driver’s side was after emptying a can of brake parts cleaner into/onto the seat frame, the paint stuck like glue. Also, I have sprayed that engine enamel on the oily, dirty underside of the car many times with no issues.

Here on the passenger side, five hours after spraying the paint, it was still gelatinous and quickly became a mess I had to deal with.

Moving on to the seat back, I stripped it all down and there was only a trace of the two tone tan seat back cover like the driver’s side seat back had. It appears the prior seat back cover was just quickly cut off at some point.

It did have the same traces of mouse house, with chewed up acorn shells or whatever, as the driver’s side, as seen here, after sweeping up.

The seat back had the same broken braces as the driver’s side, though these didn’t have the additional broken welds. I zip-tied them together.

It also had the same surprisingly high quality foam headrest in surprisingly good condition that the driver’s side side had.

Rebuilding

I performed the act of tying twine into a grid on both the seat base and back.

I then hog-ringed some jute webbing across the seat base and back, but apparently forgot to take a picture of the seat back. Still wet/forever wet paint is visible in this picture.

Next up, I cut another panel off of that dishwasher box to flatten the back of the seat and zip-tied it on.

Last time, I had cut a piece of high density foam for the seat back, but decided to use some softer foam I had purchased a year ago for this purpose. I cut that seat back piece into a seat base shape using the craft paper pattern from the driver’s side.

Now onto patching the vinyl seat covers. On the outside, the passenger side was in worse condition than the driver’s side, but from the inside, was not as worn. There was only light showing through in a couple of little places. Using a combination of the self adhesive vinyl patch (Amazon link) and Gorilla Clear Grip (Amazon link), I got them sealed up as best I could. I have been really impressed with that roll of vinyl patch! The texture is great and the adhesive back sticks well.

I wiped the seat covers down with Mothers VLR (Amazon link) spray – it Cleans, Conditions, & Protects!

I got the seat back cover slipped on with relative ease. The passenger side was missing the plastic rail guards, which made it a much looser fit. All three snaps on the seat back cover were holding firm, but I went ahead and added a couple of zip-ties as well, just to be safe.

The cover on the seat base also went on without issue.

I mounted the metal trim piece on the side of the seat with another zip-tie.

I had just enough of everything to finish the passenger side seat. Another Amazon order was required to get enough jute webbing (Amazon link) and high density foam (Amazon link) to start on the back seat.

I’m again waiting for the upholstery foam to be delivered. That’s my only complaint with any of this lot is that the roll of seat foam isn’t sold by Amazon directly and takes a week or more to receive once the order has been processed, shipped, and delivered. Let’s just hope next weekend’s weather is cooperative. It tends to rain for a couple of months here once the weather starts to change into Spring.

Driver’s Seat Part 2

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It’s day 2 of the driver’s side front seat rebuild.

Patching the vinyl seat covers

Once the roll of vinyl repair stuff (Amazon link) arrived, I got started patching up the seat covers. I picked up some Gorilla Clear Grip (Amazon link). The package says to use it like E6000, so I did.

In places where there were gaping holes in the seat cover, I used the vinyl patch as a backing and glued it with the glue. Where that didn’t look great from the outside, I just slapped a patch on the outside and used the adhesive backing on the vinyl repair roll.

Replacing the seat foam

I had previously picked up some low density green upholstery foam pads (Wal-Mart link) and decided to use those in the seat backs. After cutting a seat pad and seat back out of the high density foam roll I bought, I realized there wasn’t going to be enough for both front seats.

It was a really tight fit in the seat back and needed to be massaged into place. The seat back cover started off being 2-3 inches away from being able to snap closed.

I apologize for the gratuitous crotch shot, but luckily, I’m still a baggy pants 90s kid, so it could have been worse.

We don’t need no rusty snaps

I pulled the plastic side bar supports out to free up some space and was finally able to get the ends to meet up, but the snap was failing. After bending the female side of the snap into a little oblong, it finally held.

I did the same with the other side and got it snapped as well.

The middle snap had been previously pulled through the vinyl, so I cinched it all together with zip-ties.

I then got the side of the seat back wrestled into place to be able to put the plastic trim piece and knob for the seat back release lever in place.

Once the seat back was fitted, I wriggled those plastic side bar supports back into place. The fit is now very revealing. As you can see in the picture above, much like Robert Plant’s hip-huggers, you can see the hog rings that are holding the jute webbing in place.

Moving on to the seat base, it was a much better fit than the seat back, initially at least. With all the stretching and pulling, the strings sewn into the front edge of the seat cover snapped off. They were very crispy. A zip-tie helped cinch it down.

One edge at a time, I stretched the cover down over the bottom of the seat base and stabbed the little prongs through. The last edge was the toughest, as you might imagine, but smooshing the seat springs down with one hand while pulling with the other was enough to bring it home.

Buttoning it up

I flattened the prongs down all around, only stabbing myself several times, and it was a nice, secure fit with no need for more zip-ties.

The foam pads are too much for the seat back and you can see the square edges, but other than that, it is very firm and comfortable! The high density foam would have looked even worse. I’m glad that I remembered I had those low density green pads laying around for the last year.

Pardon the mess! The housekeeping staff is on a gap year.

Inside the Driver’s Seat

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The weather app said it was 54 degrees today and the sun was blazing. Beautiful!

I watched a couple of videos about how to remove the front seats and it’s really quite easy. Simply lift the lever and slide it all the way forward. There are many references I found to a locking tab on the side of the rail that needed to be depressed (I think I’ve got enough of that already, thanks), but it slid all the way out with no bother.

The floorboards have been full of coconut hair since I bought it, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned previously.

Underneath, it was clear that there were multiple layers of old “fixes” in place.

Deconstructing the seat base

I flatted the box my dishwasher came in and set up shop on the front porch. A couple of acorn nuts and washers to remove and then the seat back and base were separated.

It looks like there is a broken lever or catch on the inside seat back hinge. Missing springs as well.

After bending back the little prongs/spikes that hold the seat cover on and removing the seat cover, it was time to start peeling back the layers.

There was a very chintzy packing foam, almost like bubble wrap on the bottom, then there was the factory coconut hair pad with furniture padding edges. Above that, I think to try and soften the edges of the springs that had sprung up through the now nonexistent coconut pad, there was some white fluffy batting, like upholstery lining, and finally a couple of layers of much more modern packing foam. All of that, aside from that last layer of packing foam, went straight into a trash bag.

Rebuilding the seat base

The rebuilding process can now begin. I started with a ball of twine, wrapping and looping a grid across the top of each row and column of springs.

Then I hosed the whole thing down with a couple of layers of Dupli-Color Low Gloss Black black engine enamel DE1634 (Amazon link).

I bought a roll of jute upholstery webbing (Amazon link) and a set of hog ring pliers (Amazon link) for this project.

The hog ring pliers kit randomly came with a mustache sticker in the box, which was quickly applied to the nearest flat surface.

I attached a few rows of jute webbing across the seat base and decided to reuse some of that packing foam.

I used some craft paper to make a seat base template, then laid it out on a roll of two inch high density upholstery foam (Amazon link).

I have tried various methods of cutting upholstery foam in the past and have always made a mess of it. This time, I had some old kitchen scissors in my tool bag and decided to give those a try. Other than my lack of scissor skills, it was really easy and came out great.

It’s a tight fit and I’ll likely have to trim some around the edges.

There was a metal trim piece along the outside edge of the seat base, which had previously been repainted and was tired looking. I hosed it down with brake parts cleaner, wiped it down, and made it look a little blacker. It needed to be cleaned a little deeper, apparently, as it went very heavily orange peeled immediately.

The vinyl seat covers looked like brand new in the pictures when I bought the car, but there are cracks and breaks all through them. I wiped them down with some Mothers VLR (Amazon link) vinyl cleaner and conditioner.

I am waiting for a delivery of a roll of self adhesive black upholstery patch material (Amazon link). I’m going to try using that as a reinforcement behind the cracked and broken areas.

Deconstructing the seat back

Moving onto the seat back, as I had previously mentioned in The Next Saturday Updates, I found a nice surprise inside. This was a much higher quality seat cover, being two tone vinyl with buttons connecting the front and back side of the headrest. It appears to be a factory model, though I wouldn’t expect it to have originally come from this car.

When I started digging into the second seat cover, I found the first signs of mouse house. There wasn’t any smell to it, just some little acorns or whatever.

This seat cover arrangement didn’t have as many layers as the base.

I got it all stripped clean and sprayed it down with some brake parts cleaner.

Rebuilding the seat back

I tied the spring tops together in a grid, as I did with the seat base. I also found a couple of broken supports on the back side that were previously welded and re-broken. I zip-tied them back together. If that lasts as long as the broken welds, I will be happy. If not, it’s fine.

I sprayed the whole thing down with a couple of coats of DE1634.

There was a cardboard back, to separate the springs from the seat cover, but it crumbled away when trying to pull the seat cover off. I cut a panel out of the dishwasher box and bent it to fit. Initially, I tried to attach it with hog rings, but that tore through the cardboard, so back to the zip-ties.

Then I added some jut webbing on the front side.

And did the same process of tracing out the seat back shape on some craft paper and cut it out of the upholstery foam.

The shadows were getting long and as mentioned previously, I’m still waiting on the vinyl patch material, so I packed it all back in the car, anxiously awaiting the next sunny day to dig back in.

SteelStiks Part 2

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I had such good luck with the patches in the fenders last time, I decided to see how it would work on the outside. I couldn’t get it as thin as I would have liked, but I knew I would be filing and sanding it down anyway.

Since a little goes a long way with this stuff, I rolled some up and reinforced inside the rolled lip of both fenders behind the cracks. I also filled the underside of that smoosh on the rear to try and reshape the bottom edge of the lip.

Letting those sit overnight, I went back with the highest grit sandpaper I had and it barely left a mark on that epoxy putty. It really is hard stuff once it has set. So, I after them with a coarse metal file.

They are still wayyyy too thick, especially on the passenger’s side rear. I will have to eventually go back with an electric sander to get that the rest of the way down. For the time being, it’s better than it was, being untreated rusty metal exposed.

Shot a quick coat of matte vintage blue and called it a day.

Bean Dips and SteelStiks

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Both rear fenders have cracks from old damage.

I bought a tube of JB Weld SteelStik (Amazon link), which is steel reinforced epoxy putty. When dried, it is hard enough to drill and tap, so I figured it would work well to reinforce the back side of the fenders, behind the cracks.

I had a can of bean dip from the previous Sunday’s football watching festivities. I cut patches out of the ribbed aluminum can with tin snips, covered them with epoxy putty, and sandwiched them on the back side of the fenders.

The picture on the left is the driver’s side fender. The crack there is very thin, a clean break, but wraps all the way around the lip. The one on the right is the passenger’s side. The crack there is much worse – not even really a crack. It’s very old damage, below the bumper, with flaps of deeply rusted metal. I bent everything back in shape as well as I could, to get a flat surface for the patch.

After the epoxy set up, the fenders are now solid and the cracks don’t flex. So, that was a success. At least in the short term. We’ll see after some weather cycles if that epoxy holds up.

On that driver’s side fender there were old, bad repairs and it looked nasty. I sanded around the area, then rust treated, primed, and painted.

Raising the Roof (again)

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The vinyl headliner and trim sheets are curled around the edges and peeled back. When left alone for a couple of months, it hangs down a few inches below the edges of the rear side windows and looks really nasty from the outside.

I bought some rubber cement a few months back and went around the perimeter, following the directions on the can. The end result didn’t look great, but the headliner was at least back in place with only the crispy, curly edges hanging down. As per usual, the “fix” lasted a month or two and was back to hanging around.

Using the same contact cement as before, I slathered both surfaces and waited for it to start to set up. I had also picked up some industrial strength adhesive in a little tube, like a super glue tube, but not. I dabbed some of that on the crispiest, curliest edges as well.

Unrelated, I finally bought one of those magnetized parts bowls that I had been eyeballing for years at Harbor Freight. While working on the brakes, I felt how strong the magnet was and went sopping for a set of various sized ones on Amazon (Amazon link). They worked really well to hold the edges in place as the contact cement dried.

Key and Rekey

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One of the first projects I took on was to buy new door handles (Amazon link). Neither door lock worked when I got the car. The key would fit in the driver’s door, but wasn’t keyed the same. The passenger side was frozen solid and wouldn’t even allow the key to be inserted.

When I tried to mount the new handles, they were shaped a little different than the originals – more square edges – and just not as comfortable in hand. So, I swapped the new lock cylinders into the old handles. I didn’t realize at the time, the new keys don’t match the old keys. They are a standard double sided key, likely the same kind that you get with universal ignition switches at the parts store.

A few months ago, I sat down with the old cylinders and disassembled them, soaking them down in PB Blaster. I had read online that it is really easy to re-key them. There are nine tumblers and springs in each cylinder. Four on the front and five on the back.

I re-keyed them, arranging the tumblers to fit the old school VW door key that came with the car. Two tumblers in each cylinder were too long and were easily ground down to work.

Finally, today, I got back to it and swapped the re-keyed cylinder back into the driver’s door.

It’s a little notchy, but it works!

I wasn’t able to replace the one on the passenger side. I forgot that there weren’t any springs in the original cylinder on that side. Just the tumblers. Taking apart one of the cylinders from Amazon, it was a similar design, but the springs were twice as long and wouldn’t work. Another thing to add to the list.

At least I was able to delete another black plastic key head from my key chain. It’s nice having two VW keys. I would like to have them all keyed the same, but the ignition key is a different cut, obviously having been replaced at some point. The car has a locking glove box and none of the above keys will even fit into it.

Junk.

More Junk…

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I was able to get the brake torn back apart and replaced the wheel cylinder again.

That’s the remnants of the bleeder screw in the bottom.

I bled the brakes all around and then adjusted them. It now has a great pedal, about 2/3 of a pedal, which is as good as it has ever been. It still doesn’t actually stop very well, but there is enough pedal to stand on if need be. It used to just clack against the floor board.

After adjusting the shoes at each wheel, I decided to check on the parking brake situation. Obviously, it wasn’t working too well. The wheel was turning when I was torquing on that rear axle nut with the parking brake on (and car in gear and wheel chocked).

I peeled back the tatty dust cover on the e-brake handle to get to the cable adjusters.

The one on the right was tightened down about half way, but with a broken screw head. The one on the left was tightened all the way down and the cable was slack.

So apparently, the parking brake hasn’t been applying on the driver’s side. That mystery is solved. And another TO DO item added to the list.

In an attempt to clean out my kitchen, which has turned into a tool shed and car parts storage, I bought a garden cart (Amazon link) to help shuttle my gear up and around from the basement.

That load would have normally taken five trips carrying everything by hand.

The End of the Rear Brake Saga Begins

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Foreshadowing in the title, there…

Now that the rear brake had been gushing fluid for nearly a month, inside of that brake drum was a mess. I didn’t snap a picture before hosing it down with brake cleaner. It was awful in there. A thick black, sludgy, fuzzy (?) mess. This pic is after a can of brake clean.

That’s a little more apparent on the back of this brake shoe.

I fought with that spring clip for a long time, which is probably why I took a picture of it. Take a break from swearing at it. Eventually, I got it off.

Everything went back together with the new hardware without any further issues. This was after work one evening and I only had an hour or so of daylight left to work with.

As I was buttoning everything up, checking that everything on the new wheel cylinder was tight…

The bleeder screw broke off in the cylinder. It probably cracked when tightening it, but it actually fell off while I was tightening the hard line below it. I whacked it with the wrench a couple of times and it fell apart.

I considered trying to use an easy out bolt extractor, but it would be $15 to buy one of those to try or $20 to replace the wheel cylinder (again).

So, off to O’Reilly I went. Luckily (and surprisingly) it’s a part they keep in stock (O’Reilly link).