Backdating the Interior

[964RS]

fantastic interior Mike

looking very

[ibmiked]

Well, my new seats arrived care of Stefan at GTS Classics and they look fantastic (at least I think they do). They were a bit tricky to install due to the mounting positions of the later body style, but perseverance paid off. I haven't wired the seat heaters yet, but they are very well hidden between the seats by the e-brake handle.

Also, as per Bootsy's suggestion I was able to purchase the 917 shift knob from TRE in California.

Seats:



Also, thanks to the help of Jeff Stein from On The Dash, I was able to purchase a set of vintage Heuer Auto Rallyes in beautiful condition. Although these were not sold as sets, these two were likely sold at the same time to the same owner, since I also received the matching boxes they came in. Jeff set me up with the dual plate.







Next up I'm going to be backdating the gauges and updating them to LED lighting.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
-Mike

[Bootsy]

Loving your work!

[ibmiked]

I know it's been a while, but I've been enjoying driving the car every day, and now that the winter weather has settled back in, I've relaunched my campaign to create the most authentic backdate interior I can. To that end, I recently tackled the big 'dashboard' issue.

In previous posts I tried to show how I was able to make the lower dash closer to an actual '71 dash. I removed the vents from this level, along with plenty of other things already enumerated. So what to do about the upper dash? As many of you know, the Carreras of '84-'89 have two large vents centrally located on the face of the dash. My options as I saw them were thus:

1. Remove the dash entirely and install a factory replacement: Big bucks
2. Have my existing dash recovered by an interior company to cover the vents: Fairly expensive and downtime (requires windshield removal)
3.Purchase a 3rd party 'cover' for the dash: Inexpensive but cheesy.

Since option 3 is least expensive, I decided to try going that route before spending more money than I should. I found a brand new, never installed Coverlay on eBay that was correct for 1971 (cost= $50USD). The big problem with these is that they are hard plastic and fairly shiny. Also, they emulate the later Porsche replacement dashboard, without the removable speaker cut out.

First order of business was to test fit the Coverlay. It was a REALLY nice fit. No sloppiness here. Duly impressed, I embarked on a mission to try and match the finish to my existing interior. Countless different cans of paint later, I'm fairly happy having used Rust-Oleum 'textured' black paint. It's not 100%, but it's very close and I'm content that I can live with it.

Next, I decided that if they don't make the right speaker cutout then dammit I'll do my own. I took some liberties with the size and placement, since the later 911 has a much larger opening for the window defroster, and I had to trim the Coverlay to accomodate this opening, leaving less area for a correct size speaker cut-out.

Here are some pictures, sorry about the quality, I used my camera phone:



Painted in a matte texturized finished to simulate the factory vinyl.







Outside to avoid overspray!









Thoughts?
-Mike

[58A - 71E]

Thoughts?

Option 3 was the way to go! You're in to this $50, a tin of paint and your time -

[ibmiked]

Option 3 was the way to go! You're in to this $50, a tin of paint and your time - Cool

Thanks, I agree. I'm sure that either of the other two methods would not have gotten me closer to the look I wanted, and would have obviously been more of a let down because of the cost. I am planning to re-do the speaker gille though, it did not come out as well as I had hoped. In the meantime, my DDK membership arrived this week, and thought I'd provide a gratuitous photo of an American members' proud placement of the sticker. Thanks Bootsy!

[ibmiked]

I re-did the center speaker cover because I didn't like it. Even with the ability to make it completely from scratch, I can say that making it fit perfectly is a pain. Here are a couple of shots taken this morning:





Next step: Backdated gauges!

-M

[ibmiked]

Gauges have arrived!



And some inexpensive reproduction racing harnesses:

http://www.early911sregistry.org/forum/ ... hp?t=32915



And a thread I wrote on a customized Luggage Deposit:

http://www.early911sregistry.org/forum/ ... ht=luggage





-Mike[/url]

[sladey]

Very impressive job - looks very cool