Mesh Grey Seats Part #1

A couple of weeks ago I was in Sydney and boozing with Boris at Vintage Vee-Dub supplies (http://www.vintageveedub.com.au/) when I remembered he had high quality reproduction mesh-grey vinyl available. So off we went to the workshop and after some head scratching, cut off 3 or 4 meters (what ever it was, it wasn't quite enough as it turns out...) and with that sorted, back to Adelaide I went with it on the airplane.

I then took my original front and rear seats off to Jeff's Trim shop where Jeff got out his machete and reduced the trim to it's basic vinyl pieces ready for me to go and sort out the next step.

Next for me was a visit to a local shop I have used in the past to recover my original rear arm rests in the notchback, Dash-Original (http://www.dashoriginal.com.au/). I handed them the original sections of mesh grey vinyl as well as the new roll of Boris supplied (TMI) mesh grey vinyl. The fine folk there said to leave it with them for a few days and the results would be epic!

So what did they do? Well, using this fabulous old Japanese machine:

Which heats up or does something magic to the aluminum strip, it creates the original style heat seamed lines in the vinyl exactly as VW did it back in 1964 (but on a much smaller scale now).

The end result was perfect and I can not thank Vintage Vee-Dub Supplies, Jeff's Trim Shop or Dash Original enough.

I will be getting the last few things in order soon before it all goes back to Jeff to sew it all up into something resembling a set of front and rear seats (the original rear has an arm rest too which is way rare here in Australia).

 

 

TIG Time

You could be forgiven for thinking I haven't done anything for a while. Not exactly the case.

So after chasing some dead ends with respect to getting people to do some minor welding to the car, I finally asked a mate Ben (well known Formula-Vee chap here in Adelaide) if he was up for it and he agreed to do the work if I did all the nasty grinding and cleaning of the metal. Easy!

I started him off on some simple stuff that was out of sight so he could dial in his machine. A couple of holes here and there such as the 2 x holes as shown above which someone had drilled back in the day for a starter relay. I can easily address any imperfections with high fill primer but he knows what he is doing so it's all good.

As you can see from above, some of the nasty mud flap holes are now gone. Excellent. I think I will not be installing mud flaps in the future anyway as they weren't installed originally to my car (photo evidence suggests they were installed later in the 1960's or perhaps early 1970's).

And here are with some tacking in of the replacement metal around the driver's side rear bumper area that was holey. I cut the replacement metal from another 1964 1500 'S' notchback so the curves etc are spot on.

This should be completed this week if we get the time.

Pretty close fit. It's my fault it isn't as tight as it should be but hey.

And this is just a tidy up of an area that the factory left in a bit of a crap state. I smoothed the area down and primed it up again. All good now. These cars were not perfect from the factory that is for sure.

I hope this is the beginning of the momentum to get the car in high build primer and ultimately paint within the next year.

Thanks are also due to Greg Skinner http://the-nautilus.blogspot.com.au/ for arranging the new Koni shock absorbers for this car. Appreciate the collaboration.

The 1500 'S' in etch primer

The notchback is now in etch primer having been completely dipped in the big tanks this month then painted.

Next step is some lead work under the rear fenders beside where the back seat is, straighten the rear apron and fill some odd holes from relays etc added over the years. Nothing major.

 

If anyone out there has a pair of front fenders (NOS) available, please get in contact with me.