Alright, so now comes more of the custom work you have been wondering about. In this post I will be going over the wheel swap, the dash and interior panel swap, and the custom made vinyl headliner and sun visors. These were some interesting days to say the least. So to kick it off, there isn't much of a story to swapping wheels but here is a picture of the Z28 wheels that finally went on and kicked the steel wheels and hubcaps to the curb.

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    Along with the wheels that I picked up, I managed to collect a full set of interior pieces I needed to make it feel a little newer inside. I had the front dash pieces, the firewall dash piece, the air ducts, center console, dash pad, trim and side panels, and I could not wait to get them on.

    It started with doing the dash. I ripped everything out from in front of the seats and tossed it out the door. I should have taken a picture when it was completely stripped, it looked so weird but I was too excited to care for pictures at that point. Turns out this swap was going to be easier than I had planned. Everything matched right up to the mounting points, the only problem is I was the only person working with these big bulky pieces. I managed to get the new firewall dash in as well as the duct work. The air vents took some persuading as they don't give you much room to run the little side hoses. Next I had to put in the new gauge cluster that I got out of a Firebird. Since the dash is a different shape, the old cluster wasn't going to fit. Of course even though the new cluster came from a Firebird that had the same engine, the plug was changed. So now I have to spend 20 minutes splicing wires together. Luckily there was only one confusing part of about 3 blue wires that I managed to figure out pretty quickly. For a couple moments, I didn't have lights on the gauge. Everything works fine after I figured out those wires though. After I got that in, it was time for the main front dash piece. This part with the airbag and all was actually pretty heavy. Since I was the only one trying to mount up this heavier piece that is obviously as long as the width of the car, getting it to line up to the mounting points was rather difficult. At one point, I'm trying to line up a metal shim that bolts to the floor and holds most of the weight of the dash. Well I am basically upside down and twisted around trying to get under there to get the bolts in. Wouldn't you know it I lose grip and the dash pops and lines itself up with the mounting point. Only there is a problem with this scenario. My finger is stuck in between the mounting point and the shim and I can't get it off because my other arm is basically pinned by my twisted body. So while it feels like my finger is being ripped off, I am yelling out of the car for someone that I know is currently outside to come help. Here is the thing though, when you work on a car, any mechanic and all will tell you, you will yell and scream and curse quite often. So it is actually pretty normal to hear. The person outside must just think I am going nuts because I dropped a bolt for the 50th time. So I am just about doing a head stand in my car bending my legs over my body and across the way to hit the horn with my knee. Finally, after laying on the horn, someone comes over and lifts the dash off my bloody finger. So at this point, I take the rest of the evening off and revisit the project the next day. Also, because of this, I would highly recommend having a second person help you if you do the same swap. It will go over a lot easier and a lot less painful.

    So the next day I come back out and I manage to finish bolting in the front dash, and clipped in the remaining smaller front pieces. The new dash pad that actually was not cracked went in smoothly. The center console was a breeze to swap out. About 7 bolts and it came right out, and the new one went right in its place without a hitch. So the last part of the swap was the really easy part. I just needed to swap out some trim pieces that I wanted to be tan instead. It went along great with the grey and made the interior feel a lot more open. So here are a few pictures from the completed dash swap, then we will get into the custom vinyl headliner.

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    Now onto one of the biggest changes. Time to replace that dirty, saggy, ugly, old cloth headliner with a new fresh look that will last a lot longer and be a lot cleaner. I had some excellent help with this and I wouldn't recommend doing it yourself if you haven't before. It probably won't turn out nice, smooth, and tight fitting like you need it. First thing's first, I had to rip that old stuff out of there. When I did, I unfortunately didn't think to use gloves, but I ripped off the cloth from the mold. I would wear a mask too if doing this again, but I didn't know just how much insulation was going to float into the air. Next I used a thick wire brush to scratch off all the glue, headliner remnants, and smooth out the surface as best as possible. Once that was all cleaned up, we brought out the vinyl and laid the sheet over the old cloth headliner I ripped off earlier so we could get an accurately cut shape. We left a little extra on from the original in case of any mishaps. Now this was the very difficult part that I am glad I did not have to do myself. First, there were incisions made around each corner so it wouldn't kink when applied to the surface. Then, section by section, we used 3M spray adhesive on the molds surface and pressed the vinyl smoothly onto it. Once we made sure there were not any air pockets or creases, we flipped the mold over so the inside is facing us now along with the edges of the vinyl. We sprayed the inside of the headliner now to bring in the edges of the vinyl nice and tight. This way the vinyl doesn't just fall on my head later on. This part of the project was completed surprisingly on the first try and all that was left to do were the sun visors. I am pretty sure they were way more difficult, but my magical helper had them done by the time I was done installing the new headliner. So I do not have much information on how that went, but they turned out perfect. Luckily I picked up some new clear glass T tops to set off this project just right. As always, here are the pictures for this project.

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