1984 Pininfarina restoration

[Twister]

I've finally started on my speaker boxes for the front of the car. I got tired of road water entering from the holes cut into the wheel wells for the original speakers. I also wanted to move the speakers down from behind the A/C unit and lose the next-to-useless map pockets. Best of all I can easily return the interior to stock. The holes cut in the wheel well seem to be die cut probably at the factory (you can see the body was painted over some type of cover).

The original kick panels with the speaker cut-outs and map pockets:


A shot of the hole that was cut into the wheel well:


For now the hole is covered with some heavy aluminum tape. I am debating whether or not to weld patches over them of simply cover them with an acoustical mat.

Two photos of my prototype enclosures. The speakers sit about 6.5" lower than before. The final version will be wrapped in a vinyl that comes close to the factory interior color. The final versions will be held in place with some heavy duty velcro so that I don't have to drill any more holes in the body. So far the one I've got this far sounds fantastic. The speakers are 5 1/4 2-way Polk Audio MM series, which are marine rated. There's so much bass from the composite cones that I don't think I'll miss not having a sub-woofer.


Best of all now the sound is better inside the car than outside...

[Twister]

The rear enclosure, the vinyl is nowhere near the right color, but it works for now (proof of concept) it will be reupholstered when the rest of the interior is done next winter. For now it sounds pretty darn good, which is the important part.


The front boxes are coming along, I'm on my second prototype and playing with fine tweaks to them. The A/C unit on the right side really affects the available space/size.

[Twister]

Other than another shot at buffing out the faded paint, I have not done much lately other than drive the car (a lot). A new problem has arisen where occasionally when restarted with a warm engine the car does not want to idle. I suspect that once I explore the board some more I'll find the answer (and have to donate more $$). I am still tinkering with the speaker enclosures and I installed a 95 amp alternator the other day. The alternator swap helped immensely with the lights and the window motors. I am still not impressed with the wiper motors and the window motors still have issues, which may have more to do with alignment. I also took the taillights apart and cleaned the contacts on the circuit boards and bulb sockets, which fixed my intermittent turn indicator problem. I've ordered some carpet, not the correct carpet, but better than the worn out black stuff that's in it now. I'm hoping to get the driver's door off before long and look at repairing the crack behind the top hinge, it's in an unusual location (vertical crack, just where the hinge and door meet) so I'm not sure yet what the best approach will be. I'd like to reinforce it, but until I get it apart, I don't know if it's possible, so it may just get welded (then open-door leaners beware). Time to get more gas for the welder...

[Twister]

Just a quick update. I pulled the ratty old black aftermarket carpet out over the weekend and started on cleaning the daylights out of the floorboards and interior panels, console etc... in preparation to replace the carpet. It's not the correct carpet, it's a medium saddle color that is close to the darker of the original 2-tone carpet's colors. It will work until I can find the correct carpet.

[Twister]

I've hit a snag, a PO had installed some cheap black carpet at some point in time. I figured out that they managed to install it wrong, so it's useless as a guide for installing the new carpet. I'm wondering which pieces go on the door sills and which is which for the rear (long edge on the outside or inside). I'll post pictures of the pieces in question tomorrow, to tired to think just now.

[Twister]

The rear package tray was cracked in several places and warped from water damage. To hold it flat while I reinforced it I screwed it to a piece of scrap board using doweling as stand-offs so I could remover the screws later.


After the fiberglass cured, I ground off the dowels I used as stand-offs.

Rear package tray after being reinforced. A previous owner had installed some cheap black carpet using about 10 lbs of hot glue. I finished cleaning the hot glue residue off before gluing the new carpet down with a good spray adhesive.


The rear tray installed. I had not yet fastened the rear flap of carpet over the drive-line hump.

[Twister]

I chose to use Heat Wave Pro to replace the mostly missing factory insulation. It's a very nice product that is made from recycled denim and is foil faced and backed. Also missing were several pieces of molded styrofoam that used to fill some of the floors depressions. The only original jute that was left was the bits over and around the transmission hump, which I used as a template for cutting the new insulation. There was a large piece of 1/2" black foam covering the floor on the passenger side that was partially melted from the exhaust. There was no insulation on the drivers side, other than the original tar based vibration mat.



For now I've chosen to leave most of the original vibration dampening material in place. I did remove the pieces that wrapped the transmission hump and recovered it with Damplifier Pro. I also lined areas of the foot-wells that were not covered and what parts of the door skins I could reach as well as large sections of the panel in front of the trunk and the entire back of the plastic fascia that covers it and the seat-belt mechanisms. Once the body of the car is media blasted in a year or so; I will do a more thorough job.


After driving the car a few days I can say first hand that I can no longer feel ANY heat from the transmission. Driving is much more enjoyable.

[Twister]

Time to tackle the cracks in the upper door hinge on the drivers door:


They were much worse than I expected; overall I think I counted eight distinct cracks and one missing chunk I filled with my MIG.


After grinding down the welds...

While downloading the photos I noticed I missed a couple of small cracks, so I will be revisiting this in a month or so. I blame this oversight to the bright sunlight and nervousness generated by my neighbor wetting the area down while washing his bimmer while I was welding.

[Twister]

For a while now I have been frustrated by a persistent rattle in the exhaust. I checked the pipe several times and it was not coming into contact with anything. I found the bracket the muffler hangs from was coming loose from the bottom of the trunk. I'd previously noticed this crack and figured I'd get around to fixing it once the weather got better, so I decided to tackle it today and see if it could be the cause of the rattle. As it turned out the crack had gotten quite a bit larger. It was only four cracks with the longest about 3" long when I acquired the car. 500 or so miles with the muffler actually connected to it encouraged it's growth to this:

.

I guess it does not pay to procrastinate. I cleaned off the paint and jacked the muffler bracket up to close the gaps, gave it a few taps with a hammer and punch, welded it closed and hit it with some primer for now...

[azygoustoyou]

It's amazing how something light like the muffler could do something like that. It's good you got to it.

[bwilson27]

Mine had that crack in it, too. I had to weld it up as well.

[Twister]

It's amazing how something light like the muffler could do something like that. It's good you got to it.

Not sure about yours, but my muffler is fairly heavy. Also other than the springs on the cat and the connection to the manifold these are holding the entire pipe. I've been thinking of adding additional hangers in front of the axle.

[Twister]

While driving around town today my tailpipe separated from the mid-pipe resonator... grrr cracked the weld apart where they connected. I figured out that there was some difference between the "stock" mid-pipe and the IAP rear section, which resulted in some excessive force being applied to the pipe. I added about 0.5" of length to the pipe and it sits much better than it did previously. Other than that, all I've done lately is add gas. Averaging 26MPG as of today. I have a cruise control on order, which I hope to tackle soon. I also need to get the passengers visor re-stitched; I had to pull some of the stitching to get the cover off so I could weld a few cracks in the internal wire frame. I need to get myself a nice heavy duty sewing machine one of these days.

[Twister]

Well I had to drive up to the Chicago area for a family emergency the other week... I left KC Friday morning and made the trip in a little over seven and a half hours. 247.5 miles from my destination my speedometer cable broke. It had been making noise on and off ever since I installed it. It turned out that they did a poor job of cleaning up the cut on the outer sheath so when they crimped the plastic end on it pressed a sharp edge into the drive cable. It wound up breaking about 1" behind the gauge. I called my favorite parts supplier and they arranged for a Saturday Fed Ex delivery at my sister's house. As I slowed to city speeds I noticed a distinct exhaust leak. It turned out the bolts on the exhaust manifold at cylinder #1 had loosened and the gasket burned through. Oh and I discovered that the windshield leaks; so I cleaned about a pound of old clear RTV out of the windshield gasket and ran a bead of 3M black windshield sealant between the glass and the gasket. I'll have to take another extended drive in the rain to see if it fixed the problem...

The return trip was not uneventful either... My 3 month old 95 amp alternator's started to make noise as well as the (possibly original) water pump. Then one of the 6 month old fuel injector lines blew out on I-80 . All I knew was I could smell gas rather strongly. I pulled off the next exit (West Branch, IA) and coasted into a gas station. Fuel was all over the engine bay (fortunately no fire ) Of course I left my extra line back in KC, so I walked about a mile to a repair shop and they were nice enough to sell me some very nice 5/16 GoodYear injector hose (SAE J30R9) and I replaced all the hoses from the rail to the injectors. I've decided to order more of this hose and replace all the other hoses on the fuel system.

Today I isolated the majority of the intermittent squealing to the water pump and pulled the high flow catalytic converter and re-did the welds on it. The person who assembled it did not have enough heat on it and one of the pipes was not fully connected. I'd noticed the tell-tale black stain around the weld before the trip, but it was not leaking much when I left (though it made for an interesting intermittent rattling noise). Tonight I'll pull the alternator and split it apart and see if it's reparable. Tomorrow I'll get the pinion seal replaced in the differential.

[Twister]

OK, I'm losing my marbles with this rear differential pinion leak. I've been looking at the manual and I have to come to the conclusion that the pinion shaft seal can not be replaced without using a new collapsible spacer and tightening until the rolling torque of the pinion is within tolerance (a poorly described concept). This seems like a really bad design to me... Is there a simpler way to do this that makes doing a total rebuild not a better option? Is it really more reasonable to replace the entire rear axle than to replace a seal?