Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Beetle seats - again

Fun July 4th with a lot of progress today. I decided to start in the back and work my way forward today. We stripped out the carpet from the cargo area, and put in the new carpet. This was my first adventure with the contact cement, and it works much better than I expected. However I am glad I started in the back. The carpet is a little wrinkly around the edges in some places. Once you make contact with the contact cement, you can't really slide the carpet around. After the first couple of pieces I think we've improved a lot, and the front will look much better than the back (although the back doesn't look bad).

After we finished the rear cargo area my son wanted to take the car for a drive, so we popped the newly upholstered passenger seat into the car. It made a nice picture showing the old vs new upholstery. He and his friend drove the car around all afternoon. I checked right after lunch, and found out one of the air hoses became detached and was causing problems with the car's acceleration. They had stopped and reattached the air hose and the car started driving correctly again. About an hour later he called again and the car was sputtering. He said there was oil all over the engine. I suggested he check for leaks, and check the oil bath air cleaner because I was worried it had been overfilled. When I got home, the car and my son were gone again. The old oil bath air cleaner was sitting in the driveway, the empty packaging for the regular air filter we had purchased was laying on the floor in the garage. So I figured he had installed the air filter and all was well again. Later reports confirmed this.

While my son was off enjoying the car, I decided to tackle the bench part of the rear seat, and apply the carpet to the backrest. Stripping the old upholstery was no problem, but once I got the frame cleaned off I found a cross-bar that had become detached and a broken spring. I called my ever dependable brother-in-law and asked him to weld the frame for me. He wasn't too busy so I put the frame in the back of the van and headed over to his house. The welding was done in short order. With a fixed frame in hand, the upholstery on the bench was completed with no problems.

Obviously I created bad karma by feeling too confident since things were going so well. All I had left was to apply the carpet to the back panel of the rear seat back-rest. I pulled out my carpet pieces to lay out on the back panel. That's when I realized I did not have the correct back panel for the seat. Time for my daily trip to Lowes. I bought a 4' x 2' piece of luaun and a small jigsaw. Figured, I didn't have any choice but to make a panel. I laid the carpet out on the wood and traced the outline in pencil. My husband came out while I was trying to cut with the jigsaw. Obviously I was doing something that made him nervous because he took over and cut out the pattern for me. He stayed out long enough for me to find the screw holes and mark the board. Then he took the drill and drilled the holes for me as well. I guess me and power tools are not a good combination. We attached the board to the seat just to make sure the holes lined up properly. A little glue and the carpet was attached. The only remaining problem was the small flap of carpet that gets attached at the bottom of the seat. A piece of the bottom frame was missing as well, so we contacted my brother-in-law again and borrowed his staple gun. And once again my husband did the actual stapling with the pneumatic tool. I hammered down the ends of the staples, attached the board to the seat, and I think we are ready to install the rear seat!

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