Interior

 

The Labor intensive part of the transformation!

Believe it or not this was probably the hardest part of the whole job. It all started when I decided that I wanted the headliner out when it went to the body shop so I could make sure the holes were welded in the roof before they were smoothed and I didn't want it to get burned. As I began taking it apart, it began snowballing. Before I knew it the whole interior was out of the car and piled in my garage on and around my '66 Nova. I spent several nights scrubbing, shampooing and painting until everything was in our dining room waiting to go back in. I'll just highlight what I learned and what I did.

I discovered that another bonus to the CHP cars is that most of them have factory carpet and matching fabric back seat instead of vinyl. Most of them have the tan interior instead of blue which I happy about. They also don't usually alter the dash in any way. The only holes in the interior were from the spotlights and the cage seperating the front and back seats. Also there was a eye bolt on the floor. The only thing missing was the dome light which is a large round unit replacing the stock dome light. My interior was pretty dirty, but everything was intact. The front door panels had a couple of cracks that I had seen on other cars also. The carpet was thrashed but at least all the insulation was intact for sound deadening.

Seats

The seats were in pretty good shape other than being dirty. There is a couple of tiny cig burns in the driver's seat and a big one in the rear seat that must have blown in from the front and burned for quite a while. I scrubbed down the vinyl backs of the seats and then shampooed them and the headliner, visors and package tray thoroughly.

I was able to really soak and scrub them since they had plenty of time to dry. The sheen came back and I got all the stains out. There is only one wear spot on the ribbing of the driver's door. Everything else is like new. The 9C1 passenger seats have brackets on the bottom to relocate them closer to the door to allow for more room between the seats. I removed them because it was almost impossible to get to the passenger seat belt with the door closed.

Door panels

The door panels needed cleaning and some repair work. Where the cracks were in the panels, I used a old soldering iron and welded the plastic back together from the back. It has held up quite well, The driver's door has cracked again but the cracks are not visible so I'll probably have to just find a replacement some day but it still works. I used simple green on them and shampooed the carpet at the bottom. They turned out good too. I also took a tooth brush and windex to all the power window and door lock switches.

Plastic trim

The parts that wouldn't clean up were the plastic trim pieces that went around the door jambs and the top of the dash. For some reason the scuff marks were permanent. I decided to paint them with vinyl paint. Unfortunately, I could not find a perfect match so I ended up painting all the plastic except for the door panels. They get too much wear and therefore I didn't want the paint to start coming off and really look tacky. I also did the bottom half of the dash. I painted the top half of the dash with black vinyl paint so that it would blend with the exterior paint. I added a black dash cover also. I was able to clean all the bezels and knobs too.

Steering wheel

The steering wheels on these cars take a beating! I didn't see one car that had a good steering wheel. I took it apart and painted everything. Then I covered the wheel with a genuine leather cover. It was a real task and my fingers were sore for a few days because it is stretched tight around the wheel by brute force to the point you'd think it would tear. The result is much nicer than any of those vinyl covers and it feels great too. The color matched the carpet better than the vinyl but it has faded some since so it blends in much better than when these pictures were taken.

Dash bulbs

This also gave me a chance to replace all the burned out dash light bulbs. When I got the car, NONE of the dash lights worked except the instrument cluster itself. The only tough one was the headlight switch bulb. It is a tiny little thing that looks similar to the mini christmas lights with the two wires off the back of them but way smaller! You can't get them from the dealer either, they only sell the whole switch. I got mine from a auto electric shop that repairs instrument clusters and factory radios and stuff like that. They found a bulb in a old radio and gave it to me. I've found out since that radio shack carries a bulb that will work too.

Carpet

What was left of the carpet went in the trash and I ordered a one piece kit from JC Whitney. It was too dark and they couldn't get any closer so I returned it and ordered it from Summit Racing. It came the same color and had the exact same instructions included. I had the car back and the lack of carpet was holding up everything so I went ahead and used it. It was a pretty good fit. I found floor mats that matched the seats and doors so it ties it all together again.

Window tint

I also decided to get the windows tinted while the interior was out. It saved me $40.00 and It came out a lot better since the package tray butts up to the back window and the door panels have a rubber lip that the tint now goes down below. I used the medium tint in back and light tint on all the side windows. I still had the rear quarter windows out too so that made it a little easier on the tint guy. He painted the top 4 or 5 inches of the back window from inside where those little stripes are on the window. If you tint over them, you can see where the tint can't lay down perfectly tight along the stripes and shows a light reflection from the outside. The paint matches perfectly from the outside so you don't see the stripes at all, just a thicker black edge along the top of the window.

Re-installation

When removing the interior, I broke most of the fasteners off so I had to order new ones. I found a kit in JC Whitneys that had several sizes and shapes. It had enough to replace all my broken ones. If you get the door panel removal tool before you begin, you can probably reuse several of them, but don't count on it. I replaced all the speakers while it was apart also.

There were so many parts, it took some major memory recall to get it all back together again. And only a few left over parts :) It was really exciting though watching it all come together. I had been driving it around to run errands with no interior and one seat, so to drive it again with everything back together was a real luxury. I only have one rattle in the dash that I haven't been able to pinpoint yet and a rattle in the passenger door when the stereo is loud. With all of the shampooing, new carpet and vinyl paint the interior smelled almost new again which was a huge improvement.

 

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