Good evening, keeping the thread alive. Not much progress, but it is moving forward.
Started working on the belt presenters that worked intermittently. Turns out the plastic gears are partially stripped and one of the microswitches was dangling in the air.
Since I had to learn solidworks for another project recently, I figured out I will sketch and print the gears myself from nylon plastic.
While working on the mechanism, I really appreciated the very analog overload protection built in to the mechanism. When there is too much resistance on the belt presenter arm, the part that holds the bigger gear swings downward and presses the mircoswitch that stops the motor. Fantastic and very analog design to avoid damaging the gears and/or motor.
Next up, I restored the rain tray plastic. The car did not have these parts, so I bought used ones. They were wrapped in plastic and I did not check them when buying. Turns out they were covered in silicone (appearantly somebody tried to repair a leaking winscreen) and the metal mesh was all bent.
Kinks in the mesh
Sketching the lost shape of the mesh
Wooden blocks and a rubber mallet do wonders.
Pssst pssst
The glovebox looked like it had suffered water damage, it was too deformed to restore.
I bought a good used glovebox plus some bits and bobs for the interior.
The seats will not be reupholstered at this time, since I cant find the striped fabric. But I still needed some fabric for other parts, namely the rear parcel shelf and rear door cards. I found a matching fabric in a local upholstery store. Given the fact that the original fabric is very faded, the match is perfect.
Somebody along the way had installed a "very neccesary" thrid brake light by drilling holes in the parcel shelf.
I removed the original fabric which was super fragile from the UV damage.
Making the template
Heat resistant adhesive does magic
I think it turned out very good!
