Interior finished and installed

Today was a great day my leather interior guy reinstalled the newly treated and dyed interior. The original blue color was faded and blotchy and He determined that to try and reblue the interior would not give good results. He had removed the seats and trim last Friday and worked all weekend to get the interior done for Candy's birthday Saturday.

The drivers seat was badly worn and the tracks were bent and missing many of the balls and one of the larger rollers. I had to machine a new roller and cut a groove in the running surface for a rubber "o" ring. I ground the race ways that the balls run in and used oversize balls to make the tracks run free and smoothly. With the missing center roller the track had been bent and needed to be straightened as well as narrowed too. This turned out to be 1 day of serious machine work and repair. Now both slide tracks move
effortlessly.

At some time the 8 allen head caps screws that hold the seat track to the floor had been replaced with ones that heads that were to tall, and they would not let the seats slide their full travel. I machined 8 new ones with shorter heads to give clearance between the track and the bolt heads. Now I have full travel and it all works smooth and as it is supposed to.

An interesting fact is that the seat bottoms are totally interchangeable(as are the seat backs) from side to side, by just changing the hinges and tracks. This allowed me to take the lesser used passenger seat and use it on the drivers side. Then the worn leather on the drivers seat was repalced and the seat bottom treated and dyed.

The newly refinished interior is extremly soft and smooth. This was a great mini restoration project that really shows as time,effort and money well spent. Thanks to this site I was able to find the hidden bolt to help remove those pesky door panels.

Pictures to follow next week after the party,

Howard Musolf
tr0768
1981 308gtsi
1982 400i cabriolet
Maserati Spider
2 many brass era cars

 

I made a fixture to hold the track on my milling machine table. I then made a mount to hold my small tool post grinder in the head of the milling machine. I then used a diamond cutter to profile the grinding wheel to match the contour of the race ways. The grinder was fixed and I was then able to transverse the table to grind the raceways. I have adjustable speed power feed and was able able to make slow and precision passes.

It took about 1 hour to grind the ways to accept the oversize balls. I mentioned that my tracks were bent and I needed to straighten them 1st them before the grinding. There are 4 rollers with a rubber "O" ring that actually support the tracks. The reason the drivers track was bent is that the rearward roller was missing. I machined a new roller with a groove for the "O" ring.

With a light amount of lithium grease applied the seats roll forward and back most easlily. I am very happy with the results. Its amazing how a simple little project can burn most of a day.

Any day working on one of my cars is better than a day at the office. I retired 15 years ago and have not missed it one bit.

Howard Musolf
tr0768