derekf.com

Interior work time.

(30 Mar: Added the pics that I should have taken yesterday but didn't)

Started by pulling out the seats and seatbelts. Here's the carpet by itself. Definitely needs replaced, but no money to buy new today.

Pulled out the carpet. I've marked the spots that had holes that needed welded up with red circles. Some of them couldn't be seen until I got real close, there were a couple that were filled with a soft filler-type thing (maybe seam sealer?)

Here's a lovely rust spot on the back wall at the outer edge of the driver's side. You can see the back tire through the multiple holes going back.

Hole to the left of the wire wasn't really visible until I got close.

This picture is from the To-Do page. This is something that will be taken care of during this process.

Alternate view with the carpet out.

Fixed and seam sealer applied.

I welded up and redrilled the holes for the sill plate screws. They'd been worn larger over the past years, it would have taken a #12 or #14 screw to fit tightly. Now they're are #8 or so.

I can't see this area from above. This is the back wall of the cab looking up at the underside of the package tray. I think that this area is on the inside of the glass, but I am not sure.

Alternate view.

Stretched a string between the outer seatbelt mounts to use as a reference to make sure that the seats are mounted straight this time.

Decided to make seat mounts instead of just drilling through and putting a washer and nut on the bottom of the car. Here I'm drilling holes in some 1/4" bar stock with my cheesy harbor freight drill press. I've got to replace it, there's not enough travel with this vise to drill anything much thicker than this.

Evenly spaced holes, 1 inch apart.

I tried using this Harbor Freight chopsaw thing that uses an angle grinder. The wheel lasted all of 20 seconds before breaking as shown here. After playing with trying to figure out why, it turns out that the grinder requires something a little thicker than these wheels. I believe it to be because it's also a cheap HF tool; but it's worked well for the other tasks I've used it for. I can't recommend this chopsaw thing, it's pretty flimsy as it sits..

I ended up cutting the bar apart using a cutoff wheel in a die grinder. It was slow and didn't give the precision I would have wanted, but it did successfully cut them apart. The holes are too small for the tap I was trying to use - I was drilling with a 9/32 bit; some digging online shows that to tap with a 5/16-18 tap I need to drill with an "F" drill. Huh? Went up to Sears, couldn't find an "F" drill, but I did find an "I" drill which is slightly larger (used for 5/16-24 taps). My plan is to find the appropriate locations on the floorpan for the holes and drill them through with a 5/16ths bit.. then thread a 5/16" bolt into one of these (just to center the block) and weld the mount to the floor. This should prevent the bolt-with-washer-and-nut style of seat mounting that the past few seats have used.

No pics: I had replaced my stereo partially because my front speakers stopped working (since the stereo was 20 years old it wouldn't surprise me if it had failed). Now I've found that the problem is the amplifier itself - channels 1 and 2 have failed. I'm going to try hooking it up with RCA cables, or I may end up using a seperate amp for the front speakers. I did rework the wiring for the rear speakers while I was at it.

Replaced the rear bow for the tonneau cover.. the other one was a little short.

Next up, I set up the seat mounts, reinstall the seats and carpet, install new amp or fix old amp. I'm starting to lean back towards installing the console and hooking it up properly.. I don't know that will get done tomorrow, but it may fall off the for-sale list soon. I also need to patch the rust-hole in the driver's rear wheelhouse; and I still have three bushings to replace in the rear end (the forward bushings for both upper arms and the rear bushing on the pass upper arm).

Go back to the previous day (15 Mar 03)
Go on to the next day (1 Apr 03)

	Started by pulling out the seats and seatbelts. Here's the carpet by itself. Definitely needs replaced, but no money to buy new today.
	Pulled out the carpet. I've marked the spots that had holes that needed welded up with red circles. Some of them couldn't be seen until I got real close, there were a couple that were filled with a soft filler-type thing (maybe seam sealer?)
	Here's a lovely rust spot on the back wall at the outer edge of the driver's side. You can see the back tire through the multiple holes going back.
	Hole to the left of the wire wasn't really visible until I got close.
	This picture is from the To-Do page. This is something that will be taken care of during this process.
	Alternate view with the carpet out.
	Fixed and seam sealer applied.
	I welded up and redrilled the holes for the sill plate screws. They'd been worn larger over the past years, it would have taken a #12 or #14 screw to fit tightly. Now they're are #8 or so.
	I can't see this area from above. This is the back wall of the cab looking up at the underside of the package tray. I think that this area is on the inside of the glass, but I am not sure.
	Alternate view.
	Stretched a string between the outer seatbelt mounts to use as a reference to make sure that the seats are mounted straight this time.
	Decided to make seat mounts instead of just drilling through and putting a washer and nut on the bottom of the car. Here I'm drilling holes in some 1/4" bar stock with my cheesy harbor freight drill press. I've got to replace it, there's not enough travel with this vise to drill anything much thicker than this.
	Evenly spaced holes, 1 inch apart.
	I tried using this Harbor Freight chopsaw thing that uses an angle grinder. The wheel lasted all of 20 seconds before breaking as shown here. After playing with trying to figure out why, it turns out that the grinder requires something a little thicker than these wheels. I believe it to be because it's also a cheap HF tool; but it's worked well for the other tasks I've used it for. I can't recommend this chopsaw thing, it's pretty flimsy as it sits..
	I ended up cutting the bar apart using a cutoff wheel in a die grinder. It was slow and didn't give the precision I would have wanted, but it did successfully cut them apart. The holes are too small for the tap I was trying to use - I was drilling with a 9/32 bit; some digging online shows that to tap with a 5/16-18 tap I need to drill with an "F" drill. Huh? Went up to Sears, couldn't find an "F" drill, but I did find an "I" drill which is slightly larger (used for 5/16-24 taps). My plan is to find the appropriate locations on the floorpan for the holes and drill them through with a 5/16ths bit.. then thread a 5/16" bolt into one of these (just to center the block) and weld the mount to the floor. This should prevent the bolt-with-washer-and-nut style of seat mounting that the past few seats have used.