part 3 tips
Door-Hinge Alignment
Aligning doors correctly is often tricky—get the gaps right and then the latch must be positioned correctly, but then the glass must fit correctly, and so on. So, when you finally get it sorted, you don’t want to have to start over, yet most full-on paint projects will require the doors to come back off for spraying. The crew at Two Guys Auto, where our project ’76 Chevy Blazer was built, showed us a technique where they drill tiny alignment holes through each hinge assembly into the pillar, and then use tiny roll pins to lock in the alignment position. When the doors are removed for painting, the pins remain in the pillar and ensure recovery of the previous positioning. After final assembly, the pins are removed.
AdvertisementPaint it Black
One restoration shop technique we’ve seen multiple times is painting all the parts and pieces that will wind up satin black at the same time, using high quality paint in an HVLP spray gun. Not only is this efficient in terms of time and effort, but it also yields a more durable finish, assuming it is done with good products. Many shops we’ve reported on will spray urethane-based paint from the same system used to paint the vehicle’s body, sometimes with a flattened clear coat, which provides the desired “chassis black” look but with increased durability.
AdvertisementRe-Webbing Seatbelts
Often when old-car restoration projects are nearing completion, the realization that the original seat belts are not as good as necessary sets in. Either they suddenly look too old and faded to put in a new interior, or perhaps they have visible damage, or maybe the set being used is simply the wrong color. Dyeing the existing webbing is possible but somewhat frowned upon from an integrity standpoint—some specialists say that aftermarket dyes could weaken the fabric. A better approach may be to have the vintage belts re-webbed with new material. There are services that restore classic car seat belts for classic car enthusiasts, and many of these places also offer restoration services for buckles, date tags, and so on. We found an alternative recently when dealing with a set of seatbelts obtained from a parts vehicle that were the wrong color. We were in a time crunch, so we found a company about an hour away that does seatbelt webbing primarily for the collision industry. They took our vintage belts, re-webbed the set per our requests, even swapping some of the buckles with alternate pieces we provided, and had them back within 48 hours (collision shops expect speedy turnaround). The price was reasonable as well. Scan the internet to see if there are similar operations in your region.
AdvertisementSound Deadening For Doors
Often when old-car restoration projects are nearing completion, the realization that the original seat belts are not as good as necessary sets in. Either they suddenly look too old and faded to put in a new interior, or perhaps they have visible damage, or maybe the set being used is simply the wrong color. Dyeing the existing webbing is possible but somewhat frowned upon from an integrity standpoint—some specialists say that aftermarket dyes could weaken the fabric. A better approach may be to have the vintage belts re-webbed with new material. There are services that restore classic car seat belts for classic car enthusiasts, and many of these places also offer restoration services for buckles, date tags, and so on. We found an alternative recently when dealing with a set of seatbelts obtained from a parts vehicle that were the wrong color. We were in a time crunch, so we found a company about an hour away that does seatbelt webbing primarily for the collision industry. They took our vintage belts, re-webbed the set per our requests, even swapping some of the buckles with alternate pieces we provided, and had them back within 48 hours (collision shops expect speedy turnaround). The price was reasonable as well. Scan the internet to see if there are similar operations in your region.
AdvertisementRepair Panels For Seats
Torn seat upholstery is standard fare when dealing with aged vehicles, but many of us tend to think entirely new seat covers are the only cure. However, if the damage is localized, as it often is to the driver’s seat outer bolsters, you may be able to replace only the damaged sections. We’re often surprised at how quickly many enthusiasts reach for the upholstery catalog upon spotting a single tear. Instead, find a local upholstery specialist—even if the person is more accustomed to covering household furniture, rather than automotive seating. With the seat cover removed, the trimmer can likely remove the torn section, use it as a pattern to create a replacement section (assuming you can source similar fabric), and sew it into place, often for far less than the cost of a new upholstery kit.
AdvertisementDyeing Upholstery
Another auto upholstery issue that often triggers complete replacement is faded or yellowed materials. We’ve seen seats with no damage other than timeworn coloring get replaced with entirely new upholstery, and while that will certainly correct the issue, there are alternatives. In many cases, the old material can likely be re-dyed to restore its vibrance. And while this can be done with aerosol dye, this is another situation where a proper spray gun loaded with professional-grade dye is probably a better approach. We did this with a set of completely discolored Parchment vinyl seats from a ’69 Camaro and were stunned by how well it turned out. The inspiration came from a friend who had spray-gun-dyed the pearl-white buckets in a ’69 Chevelle with excellent results. Your local automotive paint supply house can probably mix vinyl or fabric dye to factory specs.
AdvertisementBand Clamps For Tips
This is a simple one that addresses a pet peeve: How often have you seen muscle cars at shows where the factory exhaust tips are very obviously being held on with U-bolt clamps? It’s effective, but somehow, we find the big clamps to be aesthetically awkward. Evidently, a lot of the automakers did too, because many used band clamps to fasten bright exhaust tips when the profile of the tip and tailpipe were visible beneath the quarter panel. Sure, you could hide a couple welds to fasten the tip, but on many of these cars, the tip’s clamp also holds the pipe to the hanger, as it does on this ’69 Chevelle SS, here using a factory-style band clamp.