Daniel Strohl - Muscle Car Interior Restoration Guide

CarTech, Inc.

39966 Grand Avenue

North Branch, MN 55056

Phone: 651-277-1200 or 800-551-4754

Fax: 651-277-1203

www.cartechbooks.com

2009 by Daniel Strohl

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the Author. All text, photographs, and artwork are the property of the Author unless otherwise noted or credited.

The information in this work is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. However, all information is presented without any guarantee on the part of the Author or Publisher, who also disclaim any liability incurred in connection with the use of the information.

All trademarks, trade names, model names and numbers, and other product designations referred to herein are the property of their respective owners and are used solely for identification purposes. This work is a publication of CarTech, Inc., and has not been licensed, approved, sponsored, or endorsed by any other person or entity.

Edit by Paul Johnson

Layout by Monica Bahr

ISBN 978-1-932494-98-3

Item No. SA167

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Strohl, Daniel.

Muscle car interior restoration guide / by Daniel Strohl.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-932494-98-3

1. Muscle carsInteriorsConservation and restoration. I. Title.

TL152.2.S75 2009

629.26dc22

2009006442

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Title Page:

An accurate, original restoration will provide enormous pride and years of faithful service on the road. This 1964 GTO convertible has been restored to pristine condition.

Back Cover Photos

Top Left:

When the headliner is fastened to the top, it is stretched and smoothed. A razor blade is used to trim the excess headliner material from the edges.

Top Right:

The door panels in our 1968 Camaro had a long service life and now its time for replacement. Removal starts by unscrewing the armrest. New panels will soon replace the old ones.

Middle Left:

The Camaro bucket seat is being disassembled because it needs a full restoration, which includes new foam, hog rings, and vinyl covers.

Middle Right:

A restored set of gauges provides a striking upgrade in appearance. Refacing the speedometer requires removing and reinstalling the needle, which needs to be done carefully to avoid damaging the speedometers internals.

Bottom Left:

The entire dash lifts off the interior with the removal of a few screws. The wires for climate control and the other gauges need to be carefully detached before you proceed.

Bottom Right:

The rear window is inserted at the right height for this convertible top. A chalk mark was made at the bow to indicate that height, then just the center of the rear window piece was stapled to the rail, avoiding sending a staple through the bolt holes in the rail.

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I knew this would be a tough book to write from the get-go, if only because of my location (Bennington, Vermont) and the lack of interior and upholstery shops in my area that focus on older cars, let alone muscle cars specifically. And I didnt want the entire book to have photos of just one hand holding a part and the other hand holding the shutter release button on my camera, so I needed to step out of my garage.

Fortunately, Ive made plenty of friends and contacts while working at Hemmings Motor News, and I was able to call on several of them for assistance. While most people in the hobby wont recognize the name, Jeff Reeves, the technical editor for the American Motors Owners Association, provided the most valuable assistance for this book, opening my eyes to less expensive, alternative methods of doing things and providing instructions for some of the techniques with which I was less familiar. Even though we share the AMC sickness, he knows just as much about the Big Three products as well.

Some of the hands youll see in this book that arent mine belong to a few upholstery shop guys and specialists who, again, arent necessarily widely known on the national scene, but do great work and deserve a nod. Among them are Jerry Ambrosi of Master Upholstery in Newton, New Jersey; Kurt Reiche and Gil Monge of Gillin Custom Design in Middletown, New York; John Yannone of Newburgh Auto Glass in Walden, New York; and Conrad Zukowski of Conrads Radio Service in Worcester, Massachusetts. Melvin Benzaquen of Classic Restoration Enterprises in Pine Island, New York, also assisted on that front. To the owners of the various cars and parts under restoration at each of those shops, I thank you as well.

For some of the projects that I did myself for this book, Id like to thank John Sloane of the Eastwood Company, and Scott Whitaker from Dynamic Controls, for the materials and supplies. Youd be surprised how many companies refuse to help out an author working on a book like this, but John and Scott answered my calls and my questions.

My fellow editors at Hemmings Motor News have been good for suggestions and advice throughout the process of putting this book together. Ive never before worked with a more professional and talented group of guys. In particular, my editor-inchief, Richard Lentinello, has been a constant source of inspiration and motivation since he hired me at Hemmings.

And, of course, I cant leave out my wife, Heather, who provided the support I needed while working on this book. We both knew this book would require an insane amount of time and energy, and so I only agreed to write it when she gave the project her blessing. I promise Ill finish that bathroom renovation now, dear.

Most guys dread it. They do anything to avoid it. They put it off as long as possible. They pay specialists big money to take care of it for them.

While these guys have absolutely no problem plunging elbow deep in grease to solve a transmission problem, gleefully spending hours preparing their cars bodywork for a perfect paint job, or eking another tenth on the quarter-mile from their traction setup, they tend to view interior work with apprehension. Its just not my thing, they say, trying to rationalize that sizeable check to the interior and upholstery shop. Or worse, they ignore their interior completely, figuring that nobody will notice a few rips in the seat, a few cracks in the dash, or the headliner tacked up with pushpins nabbed from the office supply room.

But interior restoration shouldnt cause grown men to run and hide and act as if theyre about to break out in hives. Nor should it remain a mystery to those who havent attempted it. Considering the interior represents about 95 percent of what you see and 100 percent of what you touch when driving your muscle car (and what fun is a muscle car if you cant drive it?), youll probably want to make sure you enjoy and appreciate that aspect of your muscle car. And with the prices of muscle cars now fluctuating between Wall Street investment and auction fodder, a quality restored interior, or one tastefully modified, will mean the difference of thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars when it comes time to put the car up for sale. Sure, handing your muscle cars interior over to a shop accomplishes that, and plenty of quality interior shops make a robust living nowadays off muscle car guys who view themselves as too manly to tackle their own interiors. But by doing it yourself, you not only could save a good chunk of money, but you also have the satisfaction of knowing just what level of effort went into your muscle cars interior, you can customize it as you see fit, and you earn bragging rights over your buddies who simply signed a check for their interiors.