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Polar White and Rust - a restoration epic, can it even be done?


IanMc
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Must say Ian, your making a great job of those seats!

If you enjoy doing this you should definantely think about setting up a side line business, i have my interior at the trimmers now and it costs a damn fortune but to be honest i wouldn't know where to start. 👍

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1 hour ago, bris jas said:

Must say Ian, your making a great job of those seats!

If you enjoy doing this you should definantely think about setting up a side line business, i have my interior at the trimmers now and it costs a damn fortune but to be honest i wouldn't know where to start. 👍

Thanks Jason, much appreciated - and seeing the quality of all of your work, I am humbled to receive such a compliment.

Not sure I’m up to doing it ‘for real’ though to be honest. It’s one thing doing your own old banger, but somebody else’s pride and joy is quite another...

48 minutes ago, 1200bandit said:

Looking excellent,and every time you get in the cav you can think “ l did this “ 

What are you going to do when you have finished the seats

Hope your you and the family are doing okay 

Thanks Wayne, much appreciated matey.
 

When the seats are done I have three main tasks left to do:

1) Make a template, then try to make MG own headlining. Then fit it of course.

2) Make a copy of Graeme’s boot carpet and then fit that.

3) Flat and polish (compound) the coach enamel paint. Unbelievably I sprayed the car around a year ago and still haven’t done that yet.

Our Son is doing really well, thanks for asking. He has had two medication reductions in the last 3 weeks (without any ill effects), so that is nice for all of us - but especially him of course. He has also been told that he can apply to get his driving license back too, which really cheered him up.

Our Granddaughter is pretty as a picture and turning into a little chubba, the way they do. It’s painful only seeing her in photos of FaceTime of course - but hey, it’s the same for all of us at the moment.

Take care - stay safe, stay well x

 

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Well, some good news - or perhaps its was just good luck  :lol: - it fits!

 

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A bit of steam and a few smacks of the hand should see it fill out the corners etc a little better, but not too bad really  :thumbup

I will try to get it fitted later and then take a photo of that and to show the difference in the interior generally now.

 

Oh I nearly forgot, the top cat himself (Domino) was this afternoons 'Supervisor' - note the jealous Lola in the background lol

 

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Edited by IanMc
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Thanks Jess, it wasn’t until I looked back at the original photos that I realised just how much of a transformation there had been!

From never having even touched a sewing machine to achieving that is something that even I can’t quite believe to be honest lol

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Thanks for your kind words everyone, to have compliments from people I genuinely view as being more talented than myself makes me feel very humble.

Have a nice evening everyone   :thumbup

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I had a couple of hours to spare for this afternoon, so I decided to consult my Cavalier 'To Do' list - which is an exceptionally long document  :lol:

One of the things to do was to tidy up/recolour the Drivers side foot well kick panel. Looking around the garage, I noticed my pile of Leatherette off cuts from the seats - a plan was hatched...

So this is what I started with:

 

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After stitching some bits and bobs together I cobbled a piece big enough to cover it and some upholstery adhesive was applied:

 

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After a bit of drying time and some rough trimming, we have this:

 

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At least it blends into the rest of the colour scheme I guess.

 

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That’s a great idea.  I stripped my interior out last weekend and both passenger and drivers side trim are in a similar condition to yours .  I was wondering if they are available, at least now if I can’t get replacements , there is a great option, in fact I may cover them anyway as it could improve the look. My door trim is black vinyl so they won’t be too far from original . Brilliant Ian

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During the build I swapped the rotten Cavalier doors for donated Manta doors. All I needed to do was to swap the hatch glass for Coupe glass - or so I thought...

It turns out that the Manta's used 8 spline regulator input shafts, whereas the Cav had 16 splines. This meant that I was unable to reuse the original Cavalier winder handles. After weighing up my options (see the posts in the Parts Wanted section), I opted to swap over the regulators from the Manta doors to my (saved) original Cav ones - meaning I could now refit the original winders. A couple of hours work, just for a winder handle  :lol: - still got the other side to do as well yet lol  :rolleyes:

Anyway... now I have this again:

 

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I will tackle the other side once I have had a fresh delivery of motivation - I seem to have run out for today. :thumbup

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On 10/05/2020 at 16:54, H-400 said:

Nice work, just wondering what you can do with this and your sewing machine:

 

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Hi Herman, many apologies I completely missed your post  :rolleyes:

I could make a real mess of it probably :), but why do you ask?

 

This mornings small win was to swap over the Manta 8 spline to (original Cav) 16 spline window regulator in the Drivers side door. As you will see from the below photo I managed to get that done. In my opinion, the Cav GLS chrome surround ones look much better in my car.

 

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Today's top tip: dont ever let anyone convince you that its as good idea to try to save time by not removing the glass when you change a regulator on your own....  I tried to do it this way and in the end I took the glass out - I just didn't have enough hands :lol:

Have a nice weekend everyone.

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Hi Ian, was just joking😄,   the chrome handles look indeed better on a classic Vaux. Strange things, found a 8 spline in the grey newer design and 16 spline with the chrome disign...Picture of the doorcard of my "400", yes it is a B1 with also the chrome touch:

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