More interior work done

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Good news!!! Three months after starting the installation the headliner is finished! Larry came over Friday and installed the b-pillar cardboard and glued and stapled the headliner down. He installed the dome lights too. It took him about 3 hours so as far as I can tell he's spent about 22 hours the past 14 months on my car including my estimate of the time he's spending on it outside my shop.

We had some discussions about him getting things done so I can get things done and keep the project moving, and what needs to be done next. He admitted that the carpet shouldn't go in yet and he was just trying to get something done for me. He's said he's working on trying to get the dash sewn up to install it when I get back from Montana in about 3 weeks. I need him to get a stitch sample for me to approve with larger thread before the top-stitching is done by Ron.

I installed all the interior pieces that I have finished so far and we talked about some details I need to do to get ready for putting foam on the rear seats. He didn't like the gaps in a couple of places so I have to work on them, and we have to shape the front of the seat bottom and top of the seat back before he installs the foam. Then Ron can cover both the front and rear seats and we can focus on the rest.

I've been working on tying up loose ends so I spent the past couple of days machining some bushings for the seat belt bolts and clearancing the rear armrests and side panels since I installed the sound deadener on the wheel tubs. I checked to make sure the dome lights worked and installed the lenses which for some reason were a pain in the ass. They were original bezels and NOS GM lenses so I don't know why I had to modify them a little to get them in. I'm also installing the upper chrome interior moldings permanently, and the lower ones temporarily to make sure they fit. They will still need paint later. I'm running into some issues with the passenger side where I shimmed up the slider window channel to match the outside stainless....now it's too high for the interior trim so I have to figure out what to do about that.

I need to get Larry over again soon to discuss some details like foam thicknesses on side panels, console, and armrests and the design of the cargo area.

I hope he follows through and gets this dash pad in soon. It will enable me to do a whole bunch more work.

I found this car and I really like the interior, aside from the lights. It even has the same Cadillac seats I have. I think the dash stitching is a little too big for my taste which is why I want a sample to look at.

[Belair-o]

Nice that Larry is making some progress - hope he continues. Those dash pad stitches are pretty prominent!

[567chevys]

That 55 looks really good I think the stitching is to coarse for the dash , seats look really good .

Thanks Sid

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Today I enlisted my neighbor who has a nice woodworking shop to help me add some wood to the side of my plywood seat backs to close the gaps a little. We glued some strips of pine to the plywood on both inboard sides. Next I have to trim them back a little to make them fit like Larry wants them. The fronts of the seat bottoms needed to curve outward to follow the armrests, so we added some wood there too. Tomorrow I will trim them back to fit the armrests, then get Larry over to do the final gapping and shaping of the seats so he can glue the foam onto them.

I spent quite a bit of time installing the quarter window chrome trim today. I'm fighting the upper curved piece by the liftgate on the driver's side and just can't seem to get it to fit. And the screw holes seem to be in the wrong place. This part came off of my car so I can't figure out what's going on and I may have to drill a new screw hole. The passenger side went in fine. Once I get that piece installed all I have left for the quarter window chrome moldings is the liftgate hinge cover which should be easy to install.

I have the stainless pieces over the doors straightened and polished so they can be installed, but I will probably have to remove them or at least loosen them to install the windshield moldings when the windshield is installed.

I got all the wires hooked up to my stereo amp under the driver's side rear seat. I realized I still have to run the wires to the rear speakers which I'll do when I remove the console again.

I've been working several hours a day to keep things moving and check things off my list. Larry is holding up a lot of them. Trying to figure out how to finish off my cargo area so I can start fabricating parts for it.

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[WagonCrazy]

You're making great progress. I see a finished Nomad coming up soon.

But using wood?

[chevynut]

But using wood?

Plywood for the seat bottom and back. What would you use? Most interior guys build the entire console, armrests and everything out of wood or MDF.

[chevynut]

After fighting the corner piece of chrome I finally got it installed. Turns out my screw wasn't long enough to reach the hole way back up in the corner. I went to put the liftgate hinge cover on and ran into another problem. I put the weatherstrip stainless retainer on with pop rivets that extend downward through the body sheetmetal. These were spot welded from the factory, but I could find no evidence of mine ever having one. Anyhow, the pop rivets now interfere with the chrome cover. Not sure what to do there yet since I don't want the stainless retainer to come off. I may grind them down a bit and cover them with some foam to hide them under the cover.

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I trimmed the wood down that we added to my plywood bases so now they're net fit to the sheetmetal. I sent Larry the pics of them and he's coming over in the morning tomorrow to discuss clearances, height, length, etc. I'm going to give him a pass on getting the foam on them right away because I really need the dash done first. I marked the location of the seat framework so we can discuss how high the seat back should be and how far the bottom should extend forward of the seat valence.

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I think I'll go ahead and install the stainless molding over the doors even though I'll probably have to remove it to get the a-pillar molding on. Maybe I can just loosen it partway.

[chevynut]

I ran into something today that I didn't know. As you can see the front of my rear seats are pretty close to the door opening. The front of the plywood is about 5" back from the b-pillar/door jamb. I don't remember how I arrived at that dimension and how I designed my seat frame, but I started getting a little concerned about rear leg room since Larry mentioned it. He wanted to cut the seat base to about 1" forward of the frame, but I want rounded corners on them and I think that's too far back.

I asked a friend to measure his Nomad with the original rear seat from the door jamb back to the front of the seat. He said it was 12", which is 7" further back than mine. So I dug up some GM specs on this and it gets interesting.

Using the GM drawings, I scaled that measurement on a Nomad at about 8.4" (not sure how he got 12"). On a sedan it's about 5.4" and on a hardtop it's just under 2". So the front of the rear seat on a hardtop is almost even with the door opening.

The drawings show that the front seats are in the identical positions on all models. So since I have about 5" with a 3" overhang on the seat base, I should be fine no matter how much I cut off.

Also, here's another interesting tidbit. On a Nomad the rear seat bottom is 17.2" front to back, it's 18.2" on a sedan, and 18.5" on a hardtop. My seat base is 22" long so we can put 4-5" of foam on the seat back and still have 17"-18" to sit on. The rear seats are about 21" wide which is about the same as the front Cadillac buckets. The rear seat back is 24 1/2" tall but we'll be cutting around 2" off of it and the base will cover part of it. I think it turned out pretty good even if I didn't know what I was doing. LOL!

[chevynut]

Larry came over today and we had a great chat. We looked over the rear seat area and discussed the nitty gritty details. I explained to him that I saw no problem with the seat bottom position and showed him the GM drawings I looked over. We decided on the gaps and as I expected, almost all the wood I glued on will be taken back off. We also established the height of the seat back, and discussed the carpet in the cargo area. I will have to remove part of my framework and cut it and re-weld it to address the increase in thickness of the carpet and pad. I told him my priority is to get the dash in and he agreed, and said he will work on it. He agreed that the stitch on the dash picture I posted is way too big, so we're going to try to settle on the correct stitches.

Here's the clearancing I did, before and after trimming the seat bottom. I didn't have time today to do the backs. I was surprised he wanted this much clearance...3/8" at the console and 1/2" at the armrests.

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[chevynut]

Finished with the seats. Also connected and ran the rear speaker wires from the amp.

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