Restoration of our 62 4 speed Jetfire

[jensenracing77]

Restored the heater box today. The fan motor is a satin gloss and the boxes are gloss. Most of the screws are phosphate but 4 are zinc plated. Installed an NOS heater control valve and re-cored heater core.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to access attached files.

[jensenracing77]

It has felt good to work on this car again. It has been a while since I could devote very much time on it at one time. This morning I decided to try and attempt to clean the sun visors and headliner. I started out with goop hand cleaner like I did on the vinyl seats and other interior parts. That did not go at all well on the sun visor so decided on Bleachwhite. That worked great! Sadly, the goop had set some of the stains into the one sun visor so it is not as clean as the other one is. I don’t think it is going to be noticeable in the car. I forgot to take a before picture of the headliner but it was almost as bad at the sun visors. It also cleaned up very well. It is not perfect but will have to do. I am not replacing it if it will survive being installed again. My interior friend said it will never make it through cleaning let alone installation and that I was wasting my time. I told him I was going to at least attempt it. I felt like it was still very strong. He had not looked at it in person and just going by what he usually sees. So far so good.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to access attached files.

[macf85]

You might want to consider restitching it. I reused my headliner because the pattern on the replacement material that SMS and others have doesn’t match the original pattern. My stitching showed signs of deterioration. I left it in place and hand restitched at all the bows using 10 lb. monofilament fishing line. I had to do a lot of stretching to get mine to fit again. It was difficult even when using a hair dryer to warm up the material. With all of the tugging I had to do I think the original stitches would have torn. Mine had some rust stains that I couldn’t remove so I ended up spraying it with just enough coats of vinyl dye (paint) to have even color but not too many coats so that the pattern showed through well. The coating I used was made by SEM, Super White #15103 and it matched very closely to the cleaned up original. I did this in 2009 and it still looks good today.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to access attached files.

[jensenracing77]

I had wondered about maybe needing to do new stitching but was hopping I didn’t need to. Maybe I had better be safe and do it. I never took the bows out of the headliner because I was worried I would harm it. The bows look good and not rusty so I would rather leave them in. I have not looked but is it possible to stitch it with the bows still in?

[jensenracing77]

Just got another picture. I will likely go out there tomorrow. The front fenders are just sitting on it and the doors will need aligned after it is on the ground. Now is when it gets really fun for me. I hope to make good progress for the next two months but after that I will slow down again. 

Attachments:

You must be logged in to access attached files.

[jensenracing77]

Stopped in with the body guy. He has most of it all done. Still has to paint the wheels and some small interior parts. He was buffing the hood when I got there. He starts installing pools really soon and don’t need the space so I am leaving the body there till sometime in May. I have to gut my garage and get it cleaned up before I bring it home. I had that garage spotless when I built the W-30 but not sure I will have it as nice this time. I still have lots of stuff to restore and likely will still be doing that with the car in there. I will just have to get a good cover for it while I am building other stuff.

I knew it was not realistic to get this all done for $10K and suspected it would be closer to $13K and maybe a little more. Turns out that it is just shy of $15K for body, paint and supplies. The over budget here has already been saved in other things that were under budget. As long as the engine don’t go over I will be good for the overall budget.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to access attached files.

[macf85]

High quality paint and body work is not cheap. My car was completed in 2009 and my body guy was a good friend that said it was worth about $10K at the time. I got off for significantly less since he was a friend. With inflation your cost is probably not too bad. Alas, my friend passed away around 6 years ago from a rare kidney disease.

I can’t remember if I restitched the headliner with the bows in or not. It’s been more than 10 years ago and my memory is getting worse every day. I did take the bows out to remove rust from them and repaint. The headliner and bows had been sitting in the basement for a few years before I was able to restore it. You are moving much more quickly with your resto. I spread mine out over 17 years while trying to raise a family and get funding. I can’t wait to see yours finished. Will you be putting similar wide whitewall tires on it like the 1962 picture of it on the Facebook page?

[jensenracing77]

It will be white wall radials with a thinner white wall than the originals. I can’t find a radial with the original style 15 inch white wall. I may have the original wheels repainted and use the old bias ply tires with the correct white walls for shows and then the radials for driving. Sounds good but in reality, I will not likely do the work and just leave the radials on it.

[graytoad]

Have you checked with Diamond Back Classic Radials Eric? We use them on all our old cars where we want something special!
https://dbtires.com/

[jensenracing77]

Very cool! I had not heard of them before. The white walls they offer for my size is to wide at 2.5 inches but looks like they offer a custom whitewall. Not sure how much that would cost but I will at least check and see.
Here are pictures of my original spare 15 inch tire.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to access attached files.

[Author]

Posts