This has been a project a couple weeks in the making, but I haven't really had the time to post it all on here yet. I've been taking pictures and such, so I wanted to share with everyone the fun.
I'll stay my interior is not very 'bad' at all - so it actually isn't really a restoration. More or less a sprucing up, but it is involving replacing worn out / dirty things.
The low-down on the car:
Seats - perfect. Two small stains on the rear backrest, should wash out, some small strands of loose fibers in the weave, should cut off. Plan is to cover the front seat with a seat cover from JCWhitney ($129). Rear seat may eventually get a cover, but not right now, unless I can't match the colors well.
Door Panels - Good shape, all there. Some darker stains on the carpet part of the driver door, but I'm hoping I can scrub them out. No loose panels on the door, trim and such looks good still.
Headliner - perfect shape. I replaced the visors with units sent to me by Tallen ($10). They matched good.
Dashboard and Dash Trim - The dash cover was trashed, I threw it away when I bought the car, it was that ugly. I have a nice non-cracked blue dashboard in a box waiting to go on ($75).
The woodgrain / trim porition of the dash is in good shape as well.
Carpet - Dirty / trashed. Carpet will be replaced with a set of the aftermarket molded carpet ($150). I have color samples from two companies, but I will probably keep it the original color, as it looks really nice in the areas it did not fade / wear / get dirty. I found the original color under the rear seat. Floormats will be color matched to the new carpet ($70)
The other challenge in this will be controlling my ability to strip screws and break things when trying to take them apart. It's pure talent, I swear.
Headliner and new visors installed:
Rear seat in great shape:
The interior tear down started with a planned heater core swap. Eric S. came up for the 4th of July weekend and gave me a hand. I purchased a CarQuest premium heater core and it came with a restictor already installed.
Dash pulled off the firewall, steering column dropped:
Heater core restrictor:
Note, I did not hook the lines up yet, because I don't like the look of them. When it starts to cool off, I'll connect it, but I usually don't drive the car much in the winter to keep it away from road salt and such.
With the dash mounted back up, I can go on and install the non-cracked dash cover I have! Ah...but not yet. I need to wire in a tachometer and an air-fuel meter. I traded a friend of mine a laptop computer for his tach and air-fuel meter. I hate wiring things, so I may recruit some help for that one.
Onto the rest of the interior!
Stereo...yeaaaaah! No plans to reuse the original stereo...yuck! I have a Kenwood CD/MP3 player I purchased from a CVN member for $50 ready to go in. I had to buy a new wire-harness adapater because the car does not have premium sound and uses a square, not rectangular plug.
Speakers...fronts, piece of cake right? 4" adapter from Crutchfield, Ford wiring harness adapater (no splicing...yay) and in it goes. Ah...but the screws are too long, so it won't sit flush. Dremel tool to shorten each screw, took a while, but it worked.
Blaupunkt 4" 2-way speakers ($29) for the front dash.
Rear speakers are 6x9" Pioneer 4-way's that I bought from a co-worker for $50. They're new, in the box still.
Now on my '87, I remember getting to the rear speakers was easy. Pull the seat back up a bit and loosen the screws on the rear brake light. The deck came right out...
On my '85...it's all freaking different. It's a cardboard deck cover, not a piece of carpeted cardboard like they use on later model cars (or perhaps because this was a base-model?). There are two pieces of trim on the sides that hold the cover in place, picture two letter C's and the panel sits between the C's. Sure enough, you can't get the darn thing out with the seat in the way or you'll break the trim piece!
Deck cover:
Rear lower seat out (for those that haven't done it before (thanks Epi) you push back on the seat (towards the rear of the car) and it releases):
Seat is out. Notice the original carpet color? Looks pretty nice!
To remove the back part of the rear seat, you need a Torx 55 and remove the two bolts that hold the seatbelts at the very side. The seat pulls right out then.
Rear seat out:
Now with the rear seat out, i could slide out the rear deck. At the least, it needs repainting, but I may choose to carpet it.
And with the rear deck out, I got the new speakers installed:
Wife helped me put them in. I forgot how suckass that job is, because you have to hold the speaker up and bolt it from the bottom side. Ford uses a rubber band thing to hold the original speakers in, but it's not big enough for aftermarket stuff. Plan to get some help when you install speakers in the rear...if you don't set them up on your rear deck. I chose to hide mine below...
Soooooo...that's where I'm at today. I'm working on the wiring harness for the CD Player now. Once I'm done soldering that up and get the CD player installed, I'm going to start removing the front seats.
I also went ahead and changed the ignition switch, since I had to drop the column and the one in there was acting up sometimes. It fell apart when I took it out, so it def. was bad.
I'll be ordering carpet sometime this week and updating it as I go along. Stay tuned!
~Adam
I'll stay my interior is not very 'bad' at all - so it actually isn't really a restoration. More or less a sprucing up, but it is involving replacing worn out / dirty things.
The low-down on the car:
Seats - perfect. Two small stains on the rear backrest, should wash out, some small strands of loose fibers in the weave, should cut off. Plan is to cover the front seat with a seat cover from JCWhitney ($129). Rear seat may eventually get a cover, but not right now, unless I can't match the colors well.
Door Panels - Good shape, all there. Some darker stains on the carpet part of the driver door, but I'm hoping I can scrub them out. No loose panels on the door, trim and such looks good still.
Headliner - perfect shape. I replaced the visors with units sent to me by Tallen ($10). They matched good.
Dashboard and Dash Trim - The dash cover was trashed, I threw it away when I bought the car, it was that ugly. I have a nice non-cracked blue dashboard in a box waiting to go on ($75).
The woodgrain / trim porition of the dash is in good shape as well.Carpet - Dirty / trashed. Carpet will be replaced with a set of the aftermarket molded carpet ($150). I have color samples from two companies, but I will probably keep it the original color, as it looks really nice in the areas it did not fade / wear / get dirty. I found the original color under the rear seat. Floormats will be color matched to the new carpet ($70)
The other challenge in this will be controlling my ability to strip screws and break things when trying to take them apart. It's pure talent, I swear.
Headliner and new visors installed:
Rear seat in great shape:
The interior tear down started with a planned heater core swap. Eric S. came up for the 4th of July weekend and gave me a hand. I purchased a CarQuest premium heater core and it came with a restictor already installed.
Dash pulled off the firewall, steering column dropped:
Heater core restrictor:
Note, I did not hook the lines up yet, because I don't like the look of them. When it starts to cool off, I'll connect it, but I usually don't drive the car much in the winter to keep it away from road salt and such.
With the dash mounted back up, I can go on and install the non-cracked dash cover I have! Ah...but not yet. I need to wire in a tachometer and an air-fuel meter. I traded a friend of mine a laptop computer for his tach and air-fuel meter. I hate wiring things, so I may recruit some help for that one.
Onto the rest of the interior!
Stereo...yeaaaaah! No plans to reuse the original stereo...yuck! I have a Kenwood CD/MP3 player I purchased from a CVN member for $50 ready to go in. I had to buy a new wire-harness adapater because the car does not have premium sound and uses a square, not rectangular plug.
Speakers...fronts, piece of cake right? 4" adapter from Crutchfield, Ford wiring harness adapater (no splicing...yay) and in it goes. Ah...but the screws are too long, so it won't sit flush. Dremel tool to shorten each screw, took a while, but it worked.
Blaupunkt 4" 2-way speakers ($29) for the front dash.
Rear speakers are 6x9" Pioneer 4-way's that I bought from a co-worker for $50. They're new, in the box still.
Now on my '87, I remember getting to the rear speakers was easy. Pull the seat back up a bit and loosen the screws on the rear brake light. The deck came right out...
On my '85...it's all freaking different. It's a cardboard deck cover, not a piece of carpeted cardboard like they use on later model cars (or perhaps because this was a base-model?). There are two pieces of trim on the sides that hold the cover in place, picture two letter C's and the panel sits between the C's. Sure enough, you can't get the darn thing out with the seat in the way or you'll break the trim piece!
Deck cover:
Rear lower seat out (for those that haven't done it before (thanks Epi) you push back on the seat (towards the rear of the car) and it releases):
Seat is out. Notice the original carpet color? Looks pretty nice!
To remove the back part of the rear seat, you need a Torx 55 and remove the two bolts that hold the seatbelts at the very side. The seat pulls right out then.
Rear seat out:
Now with the rear seat out, i could slide out the rear deck. At the least, it needs repainting, but I may choose to carpet it.
And with the rear deck out, I got the new speakers installed:
Wife helped me put them in. I forgot how suckass that job is, because you have to hold the speaker up and bolt it from the bottom side. Ford uses a rubber band thing to hold the original speakers in, but it's not big enough for aftermarket stuff. Plan to get some help when you install speakers in the rear...if you don't set them up on your rear deck. I chose to hide mine below...
Soooooo...that's where I'm at today. I'm working on the wiring harness for the CD Player now. Once I'm done soldering that up and get the CD player installed, I'm going to start removing the front seats.
I also went ahead and changed the ignition switch, since I had to drop the column and the one in there was acting up sometimes. It fell apart when I took it out, so it def. was bad.
I'll be ordering carpet sometime this week and updating it as I go along. Stay tuned!
~Adam
where did you get the new dash pad? i have been trying to find one for months and they are all cracked in the same 3 places as mine.
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