328 interior restoration

The teardown for the new interior and repaint has begun. At first, I wasn’t sure about doing the repaint at the same time, but after the nightmare pulling the windshield turned into, no way as I going through that again to repaint it down the road. Here are some of the pics of what it looks like now. AS you can see, the interior is pretty worn and beat up. The door panel is coming apart along the rear edge. The carpet is also very faded and all the leather is beyond any dye job. ReOriginals has the entire interior in their shop now, and will be getting the parts that are coming out of the car next week.

I did find one old box of cigarettes under the passenger’s seat. But I have to say, for a guy that has only torn down 30-50 year old British Roadsters, this job has started out to be a fairly straightforward job. I haven’t had to chisel out a rusted bolt yet!

I hope by the end of the weekend to have the rear three windows, the rear shelf and the dash all out.

I’m sure I’ll have a lot of questions as I progress with this job. The first is how do I get the handbrake handle out? The cover was simple, but I still haven’t figured out how to get the handle off. The second is how to get the sections covering the windshield frame on each side off. The center strip on each side is held by three fasteners. I can tell if it just pops out or what, and I don’t want to break them by prying at them if this is the wrong way to do it.
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The hammer? I use a hammer with all automotive work.

Seriously, I had to bang the allen wrench into place on one of the seat bolts as the head had been damaged at some point in the past.

And the wire snips were for the aftermarket alarm system.

 

IS that thing worth something?

Already in the house.

 

Yep, that job you did was one of my inspirations for doing mine! I could have never done mine with dye however, as I have too many cuts and tears to the leather on the console and panels. The seats might have been doable, but I doubt they would have matched the rest. And rest assured I will be asking you for tips! If you know how to get the handbrake handle out or the windscreen pillar covering out, please let me know.

 

Thanks Jdubbya!

Made some more progress today, and still hope to have the interior stripped to ship off tomorrow.
I managed to get the dash out finally! It actually wasn’t that hard.\
I’ve read on some other posts about the difficulty on removing the instrument cluster and the risks of scratching the backing plate getting the 4 lenses out to access the 4 screws. I didn’t have to do anything to the front of the lenses, just reached behind the console and pushed them out. Yes, I scratched the heck out of my hands (I have big hands) but it wasn’t hard by any means. I’ve torn my hands up much worse than this working behind MGB dashboards. I also love how all the gauges and switches just have a plastic plug that snaps off the wiring harness, and not 5 or 6 loose wires that you have to label to remember which goes where and to what instrument! Still took a load of pics to be safe.

Also, the steering wheel was a tough one. I started with those allen nuts, but then gave up after shearing a wrench off in one. Then I decided since I’m staying with the same wheel, I really didn’t need to do this and just removed the whole wheel. Easier said than done! I ended up having Daniel ship me the special tool to remove the central steering wheel bolt which worked like a charm! (Thanks Daniel!) Then I needed to use a three-arm hub puller to get the dang wheel off. Had to wrap it up in padding to keep from scratching the wheel as well. After that, the entire steering cowl with the stalk switches attached just pulled right off the column. 

So, the last three things to remove for the upholstery shop are all the sun visor and surrounding pieces off the top of the windshield frame, the cover of the handbrake and that last pain in the rear piece from the rear shelf.

Now, I DID read the other posts about getting the small heat shield out and then getting at the retaining stud for this piece, but I STILL can’t figure out how I’m supposed to do it. Do I have to remove the coil block and the fresh air intake assembly first and then I can see the pipe brackets? I’ve attaches some pics of the instrument cluster coming out, how the car looks now, as well as some shots of that heat shield I need some help in removing.

Thanks!
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Whew! Got a good bit done today.

Removed all the lights, grilles and entire rear bumper, as well as the badging.

Removed both the hood as well as the engine lid, separating the louver assembly. I'm already dreading reinstalling all those black pop-rivets!

Removed the front bumper assembly as disassembled it. Also removed and disassembled the headlight units, wiper controls and washers. Man, there's an insane amount of work to remove that front center nose badge! I had to disconnect the top radiator tube, free up the radiator and shift it back about 8 inches or so. Not to mention removing all the front bumper stuff!

I'll try to get some pics up later, but all that's left to strip for the paint shop are the doors (sure to be a pain) and all the engine parts that I'll be refinishing while it's in the shop. The paint job should be nice, as they will not have to tape a thing!

Also, the entire interior is being crated up for shipment to ReOrginals and should go out tomorrow.

Now it's off to watch the BCS show and see if LSU slipped into the NCG.

 

Oh yes, my camera is getting a lot of abuse with this job. I'd be lost without it. I’ve done 6 other complete tear-downs and rebuilds on other cars, so it's not all new to me. It's still a bit nerve-wracking to do this to one this valuable, however. The doors, especially the glass and winding mechanism channels have me the most worried. It's always hard for me at least, to get them to line up just perfectly after a rebuild.

Anyway, here are a few shots with one of my helpers sticking himself in the picture.
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Yep, the panels come right out after removing the trim screws and handle/mirror attachments.

And when the interior comes back I am certainly going to post pics of it.

 

Thanks Carmine.

These are the best pics I have seen for the removal of that top heat shield and then the retaining studs for the rear shelf pieces.

Thanks a bunch!

 

Almost done stripping the car down to the point I can take it to the body shop. I just need to remove the fuel filler neck and the intake duct cowl. I managed to remove most of the engine pieces I'm going to refinish off of the car. The rest I'll clean and polish once the car is back from the shop repainted. Tell me this; does anyone know a source for the black fabric-braided hoses used all over the engine? I'm hoping to find a place that sells the various diameters by the foot, and replace all the tubing.

Also, I seem to be missing the rear exhaust analyzing pipes. I see that these aren't available new, so does anyone have some they'd want to part with? I guess I'm calling GT car parts Monday.
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Well, just an update.

Spoke to the body shop today, and they expect to put color on it towards the end of next week. I'm hoping to have the car back in about 3 weeks or so, if it all goes well.

I've been cleaning and refinishing the various stripped parts and have a question about the fuel injector bushings. After pressing them out of the intake manifolds, I found that almost all of them have some degradation/wear at the inner lip. Now, this part doesn't come into contact with any moving parts, so I'm not sure why there is any wear there at all. My question is should I replace the bushes, or reuse them. They are a pretty penny and from what I can see, the wear shouldn't affect seating the new injectors or sealing the port at all.

Here's some pics of the injector assembly and the bushes/seals, as well as the manifold. Cleaned up well I think!

Oh, and all I can say is thank God for F-chat! I about dropped when I saw the price of the injectors, as I planned on replacing them all. Then with some searching, I found the brass ones Bosch sells as replacements for about 10% of the originals! Whew!
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Yikes. Doesn't Dave post here as well? Can you tell me why he said to stay away from the brass valves? I've read where quite a few folks here have used them and had no complaints. I have two reasons for not wanting to use the old ones. 1. They are REALLY dirty, as some blasting media got inside a few (protective caps came off unbeknownst to me, don't ask why I didn't pull them out prior to blasting) 2. A complete set of new steel injectors from Ricambi will set me back close to $1500!

 

Oh, and the originals don't look stainless to me, quite a bit of rust on them.