First Car -- 1968 Barracuda Notchback
After I got the carpet and cheap sound insulation installed, I decided that I wanted to make a trunk divider as well. My mom had some extra sheets of thin plywood from a construction project, as well as a yoga mat that had only ever been used as a scratching pad for the cats. Mom helped me make a template with cardboard ('cause moms are the best!), and then I cut it out on the plywood with a jigsaw and stapled the foam to it. I had some extra material, so I laid it underneath the rear seat where there was no carpet for a little extra sound deadening:
It was a total pain in the *** trying to cut the plywood to fit over the hooks for the rear seat back, but I finally got it to fit. At this point I had finished the carpet and sound insulation, so I FINALLY started on the cluster removal again. Also, pro tip I learned the hard way: When you're cutting carpet with a razor blade, don't just hold the bare blade in your hand, because your tendons don't like it too much (mine didn't, anyway).
They were just super enflammed from all the grabbing and pulling I was doing with my hand, the pain went away in a few days!
After about another four hours of cursing and cutting my hands open on sharp edges, I finally had the instrument cluster out!
I fixed a few janky wiring situations such as wire nuts holding things together, and the following day I put the dash back in. It only took me about 45 minutes to reinstall! One of the issues I was trying to fix as well was the HVAC. For some reason, I can't move the position lever to defrost, which is very inconvenient when it rains or dips below freezing here. The defrost used to work when I bought the car, but at some point in time I guess I moved it to "vent" and it never moved back. So I guess I'll just have to dig deeper to fix it!
After the interior debacle, I moved on to wiring in the engine bay. More on that in the next post!
After I got the carpet and cheap sound insulation installed, I decided that I wanted to make a trunk divider as well. My mom had some extra sheets of thin plywood from a construction project, as well as a yoga mat that had only ever been used as a scratching pad for the cats. Mom helped me make a template with cardboard ('cause moms are the best!), and then I cut it out on the plywood with a jigsaw and stapled the foam to it. I had some extra material, so I laid it underneath the rear seat where there was no carpet for a little extra sound deadening:
It was a total pain in the *** trying to cut the plywood to fit over the hooks for the rear seat back, but I finally got it to fit. At this point I had finished the carpet and sound insulation, so I FINALLY started on the cluster removal again. Also, pro tip I learned the hard way: When you're cutting carpet with a razor blade, don't just hold the bare blade in your hand, because your tendons don't like it too much (mine didn't, anyway).
They were just super enflammed from all the grabbing and pulling I was doing with my hand, the pain went away in a few days!
After about another four hours of cursing and cutting my hands open on sharp edges, I finally had the instrument cluster out!
I fixed a few janky wiring situations such as wire nuts holding things together, and the following day I put the dash back in. It only took me about 45 minutes to reinstall! One of the issues I was trying to fix as well was the HVAC. For some reason, I can't move the position lever to defrost, which is very inconvenient when it rains or dips below freezing here. The defrost used to work when I bought the car, but at some point in time I guess I moved it to "vent" and it never moved back. So I guess I'll just have to dig deeper to fix it!
After the interior debacle, I moved on to wiring in the engine bay. More on that in the next post!