Trunk restoration (part 3)

I ordered plenty of extra trunk liner material along with the trunk kit from Leather Restorations in order to sew together pieces for the LPG covers. I used cardboard to make templates, transferred those to the trunk liner material and had lots of help sewing it all together. A common sewing machine can just handle the material.  

The job´s nearly finished (still need to attach the spare tire cover flap). It came out pretty well although the two black LPG vent hoses look rather stupid. There's little more I can do about that than place a large, old leather travel suitcase or trunk in there. That'll hide those hoses a bit and provide space for the emergency crap I carry.

The covers are stiff enough to hold themselves in place. The trunk liner material added to the stiffness once it was glued in place (I used 3M) but I also added a second sheet of hardboard on the inside of the covers to stiffen them up so they would hold their shape and not sag.

From start to finish:

(Artificial light)

(Daylight)

Trunk restoration (part 2)

Picking up where I left off with the trunk,

I used a vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dust and sand that was in the wheel wells and behind the rear quarters. Reason for doing this was the rust prevention product I was going to spray with an air gun next. It's important that the spray reaches (or seeps into) all nooks and crannies. Dust and sand get in the way and soak up the product. 

The product I used is Caprotech RX5, "a transparent product with a strong penetrating formula, penetrates through existing rust and bonds to the metal, completely isolating existing rust". The air gun is intended to be used with undercoating and rust prevention products (not with paint). It came with two nylon hoses about 2.5 feet long; one has a tip that sprays 360 degrees, the other one has a grip and nozzle that's at an 90 degrees angle. The two 55 litre LPG made it a bit difficult to see if I had reached everywhere so I simply sprayed until drips were forming at the lowest points on the outside of the car (doglegs, rear wheel arch etc.) 

 

 

Next I doubled-up on the sticky-back asphaltic sound deadening material where the factory placed it but I also stuck it on the trunk floor and the flat pieces that go over the 'frame' rails. If you knock in different areas you get a very good idea where you do and don't need to put this stuff. I'm not going to place additional sound deadening material because that was already done in the passenger compartment when a PO had the interior redone. 

So far I was only able to fit the first five pieces of the trunk kit from Leather Restorations/Jim Wallace. They cover the upright area in front of the rear bumper and tail lights. It took a bit of trying because I had to take into account the hoses, lines and cables from the LPG installation. It covered up 90% of that mess, which is better than I had expected. In a normal trunk the kit would fit no problem. Good stuff. Though it a good idea to test fit everything before you start spraying glue. 

At first I thought to cover-up the two LPG tanks with old leather travelling bags or suitcases. But this called for using parts of the trunk kit that just don't fit right or look presentable. Instead I opted to build covers for both tanks that - as luck would have it - fit very nicely with the trunk kit pieces I still can use. They line-up with the largest piece in the trunk kit - the one that covers the floor and gas tank.

I used hard-board, duct tape, bendy plastic and PVC pipe (for the rounded edges). It's a cheap and effective solution but it takes a few hours of cutting and fitting and cutting and fitting and cutting and fitting etc. It doesn't look like much now but wait until they're covered with the extra trunk liner material I ordered with the trunk kit.

Trunk restoration (part 1)

August 13th 2009

A previous owner removed the original grey trunk liner material and installed a home-made kit that's the same colour as the interior. I didn't like it... it fit poorly and there were a lot of rusty stains. There were also three types of sound proofing material glued everywhere. This looked even worse and I suspected it of trapping moisture. Knowing that sixties trunk spaces in general aren't ventilated - and that sixties Continentals trunk spaces and lids are known for rust issues in particular - I decided to pull everything and see what I find....

With the pieces of carpet removed it looked like this. The only rust was surface rust on the bottom piece of sheet. Hooray for me! I've seen photos of cars that were much worse off. I felt a bit guilty while removing the strips of tar that I suppose were factory original, but I wanted to know in what condition the steel was and all but one tar strip pulled off with no effort. By the way, the yellow stuff is dried up glue. Then the putty knives and hand-held sander came out. I did not remove the seam filler. About a pound of Californian dust and sand came out.

After everything was clean and degreased, I used a rust converter on the bottom halve of the trunk space. It's called Brunox and has a very, very nasty smell. But it's a good product. After it has dried it doubles a primer for paint. I'm going to cover this area with paint from a spray can. I'm also going to spray Caprotech RX5 and RX7 into the hollow spaces above the wheel well and into that space below the rear wind shield.

When I bought my '64 in early 2006 the jack assembly was missing from the trunk. Last year I bought one from a forum member. As I am incapable of putting rusty parts in or on my car I repainted the jack assembly this weekend. 

 

I bought a 'trunk kit from Jim Wallace/Leather Restoration. The kit looks good. It is nicely finished. You need to reuse your spare tire flap.