WAITING FOR CLIPS

A couple weeks ago I ordered clips to put the door trim back in but because the descriptions on most of the Fiero websites aren't very good, and I didn't take the time to look at the old clips, received the wrong ones. Well, kind of wrong, as I actually did need those to put the rear panels back in but still also needed the ones for the door trim. So Sunday was spent cleaning and refinishing the other seat belt assembly. The rear trim panel was also removed, as I found out the door trim has to go in first. So basically, the headliner, rear firewall cover, and carpet cleaning is done and I am waiting for clips to install all of the trim.

TRIM CLIPS

Another set of seats came with the car when I bought it, but do not appear to be the GT seats, do not have the speaker holes and the drivers side has some wear on one corner of it. The original passenger seat is in pretty good shape and could be cleaned up to look nice but the drivers side is pretty much destroyed. I have looked on the internet trying to find a good gt drivers seat but with no luck. My other option is to order leather Fiero seat covers but that is going to throw the timeline to get the better place batteries installed back quite a bit and I really want to get the car on the road.

Also, the placement of the meters and the Dell Venue tablet placement in the dash has been a challenge. I have purchased some LED meters and had a couple of them mounted in the instrument pod, but can not find meters that fit well in the instrument panel. 

Anyway, I got a lot done yesterday but not so much today.

Randy 

INTERIOR PROGRESS

The ozite carpet arrived last week, so Saturday, I put it on the inner firewall panel and installed the finished panel in the Fiero. The installation went well except it was windy outside where I put the carpet on the panel and I had to use clips to keep it from blowing around until it was glued to the bare panel.

FIREWALL INNER PANEL INSTALLED

Next I removed the passenger side seat belt to clean the fabric and give it a coat of fabric dye. The seat belt mechanize cover was painted and all of the hardware was cleaned.

 

SEAT BELT CLEANED AND DYED

After a trip to Advance Auto Parts to pick up some more paint and some carpet spot remover,  the bottom of the dash was given a new coat of medium gray interior paint.

DASH BOTTOM PAINTED MEDIUM GRAY

Before going any further with installing the interior, I wanted to test the rear defroster. I checked continuity from the connector going to the defroster to ground and got continuity, so checked the lead going to the switch and also got continuity. Then the fuse and circuit breaker were checked, with both testing  good. I will need to check the switch next to make sure it is ok also and will need to check the schematic to see if there is a relay or timer that needs checked.

With the headliner and firewall interior panel installed and passenger side seat belts refinished, it was time to start putting the molding back in. I started with the piece along the bottom of the door and after finally locating to bolts, got it installed, then put the rear panel but realized wen I started to put in the windshield column piece, that it should have gone in first. Additionally, the clips that were ordered were not the ones I needed, so ordered some from EBAY. I will need to remove the rear panel that is installed when the clips arrive to make it easier to install the wind shield molding. The driver's side bottom door opening molding was installed and things are moving along pretty good now. 

To celebrate a productive Saturday, I went to Buckeye Lake Brewery and got a growler of their IPA.

The expenditure on the car is now over $11,000 and my goal is to build the EV for under $10,000, so I have been trying to sell one of my Better Place battery pack modules. Two modules should be between 14- 16 KW and should be enough to drive the 44 miles back and forth to work, so I have had several inquiries on the third module. I actually offered to sell all three to one of the inquirers, if the price is right. I can add 10 more 100 AH cells to the existing pack and be just fine but really had my heart set on putting 2 of the Better Place modules in the car. When the packs were first delivered, there was quite a bit of buzz but I have not heard of anyone putting them a conversion yet to report on how they are performing. With each cell have to be bottom balanced twice, there will be a whole lot of time needed to get them all to the 2.6 or 2.6 volts needed before hooking the packs in series and testing the EV with them.

NEW SUN VISORS AND BRIGHTER LED DOME LIGHTS

My mother finished sewing the sun visors Monday and my sister brought them over to where I work in Columbus on her way back from Cincinnati. When I got home from work, I installed them and am really happy to have the top part of the interior back in.

NEW SUN VISOR DOWN

NEW SUN VISOR UP

The brighter LED bulbs also arrived and were installed in the dome lamp and  courtesy lights. The picture does not show the light very well but it is much brighter.

NEW LED BULB

The ozite carpet also arrived today so I will cover the rear firewall cover tomorrow or Friday and put it back in this weekend.

Thanks to my mother for sewing the sun visors and my sister for bringing them over to me.

Until next time,

Randy

HAPPY EASTER!

Another long weekend and the interior is starting to come together. I continued working on getting all of the old tinting off of the rear window and finally got all of the small patches removed.

REAR WINDOW FINALLY CLEANED

The LED lights arrived and I was able to mount the dome lamp. The second picture is with them on but it was daytime and they didn't show up very well..

DOME LIGHT MOUNTED

DOME LIGHT WITH LEDS ON

Then onto fixing my too large of a hole screw up, on the sun visor brackets.

BRACKET EXTENSION CHECKED FOR FIT

SUN VISOR BRACKET AND EXTENSION INSTALLED

It feels good to finally have the headliner installed and all of the brackets and lights bolted in place but when the seats were removed, it became obvious that something was going to need done with the inside firewall panel. I tried to clean it but when it was brushed, it looked like horse hair. Then I looked for vinyl to cover it with but could not find anything suitable for a reasonable price, so I did a search and found out that the stock covering is called "ozite" and found some at Your Auto Trim.

INTERIOR FIREWALL PANEL

After the seats and interior firewall panel were removed, the carpets was cleaned. this side still needs some more work but is looking a lot better than it did when I started.

AFTER FIRST CARPET CLEANING

Finally work was started on cleaning, mending cracks, and repainting the dash cover.

DASH COVER

My wife and I went to my parent's house for Easter, had a very nice dinner and a great visit with all my family. My mother has been sewing all her life, so I dropped off the sun visors, to have the bottom stitched up. This is the last piece of the head liner, so as soon as the interior firewall panel is finished, the molding will be able to go back in. Still a lot to do but quite a bit of progress has been made over the last two weekends.

Until next week,

Randy

TIDYING UP WIRING

Today was spent tidying up the wiring going to the instrument cluster connectors. The speedometer had the original wires disconnected and different wires running back to the rear of the car. The original wires were reconnected and checked with on ohmmeter to make sure there was continuity to the C-200 connector. This will allow a clean wiring run through existing wires across the dash and through the center console

WIRING RE-TAPED 

C-200 CONNECTOR WIRES

Eight wires were bundled and run from the front battery compartment to the interior, routing with the existing stock wiring to the front of the center console. Another bundle will be run to the rear motor compartment before the interior is re-assembled to give me plenty of conductors for any new components that need to be run in the future.

NEW FRONT COMPARTMENT WIRES

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NEW WIRING TIED TO ORIGINAL

NEW WIRES TERMINATING AT CONSOLE

The rear window was filthy on the inside and appears to have a film on it, so I used acetone to try and clean it, with limited success. There is still a blueish film along the bottom of the window that has partially come off.

FILM ON REAR WINDOW

The motor bay hatch open switch had a broken ground connector and the new one from EBAY arrived last week, so I removed the old one and installed it.

HATCH OPEN WARNING SWITCH

I am at the point where when ever one task is completed, another two pop up that I hadn't seen before. I am still trying to figure out the final layout of the gauges and am trying to make sure there is available wiring run for it before the dash cover goes back on. New trim retaining clips were ordered today so hopefully, while I am waiting for them, the seats can be removed and the carpets cleaned. There is also the issue of the panel behind the seats and figuring out how to fix my screw up on making the sun visor holes in the head liner too big.  The sun visors still need sown together, so I have a little time to figure it out. I am also waiting for the LED lamps for the dome light before putting it back in.

Thanks for stopping by,

Randy

NEW HEADLINER AND MORE!

My son stopped over today and helped me install the new headliner. Everything went well except I cut the sun visor holes too big and the brackets do not overlap the material. I will need to make a plate to extend out a little to cover the gap between the brackets and the headliner. After the headliner is attached to the roof, there is a channel around the sunroof that the material tucks into. After a few tries, we finally got the rubber trim started into the groove, pushing the material into place and after getting around the first corner, had a pretty easy time getting the rubber trim in place. 

HEADLINER INSTALLED

The sun visors are done except for sowing the edge. My son's fiance is going to sow if for me but she needs to get thread and a larger needle first. I took the sun visors to a local upholstery shop but was told that they were in too bad of shape to be redone. Not! I am really surprised how lazy a lot of local businesses are. The owner wasn't even at his shop but was down the street goofing off at a body shop. Anyway, I got some cardboard and cut a new pattern, cleaned and painted the metal retainer, and put the press board in a vice between two boards to take the warp out. Then cut the cardboard, and material before using contact glue to put everything together. They look great and it is good knowing that I did something in a couple of hours that a professional turned away. 

REPAIRED SUN VISORS

The Plugable USB 3.0 docking station that I ordered last week, arrived today and will allow me to have multiple USB inputs to the Dell Venue 8 tablet. I was able to get the Synkromotive user interface installed and the USB driver for the adapter that plugs into the controller. I took the Venue tablet out to the car and was able to connect to the controller. Actually, I did not even need the docking station to connect but will  use it for the final set up to allow me to have multiple inputs, sound outputs, and charging.

PLUGABLE USB 3 DOCKING STATION

Next a little clean up to get ready to start working on the dash wiring and figuring out where and how to mount the meters and tablet. There is a ton of molding to re-install but I want to take the seats out of the car and clean the carpet before putting it back on.

Most of the major purchases have been made for the car, so now it is just a matter of getting everything back together and installed in the car. With only around 4 months until EVCCON, I will need to kick thing up a notch, if I want to be able to take the car.

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

NEW HEADLINER

The new headliner material arrived this week but I had to go to Autozone to pick-up adhesive, as it could not be shipped. During the weekend, the headliner panel was given a good cleaning and the new material was fastened to the panel. I watched a couple of YouTube videos before starting and everything went well.

NEW HEADLINER

Then I moved on to painting the plastic side panels and molding with interior paint.

FRESH INTERIOR PAINT ON MOLDING

Finally the seat belt attachment cover and coat hooks were painted.

PAINTED COAT HOOKS AND SEAT BELT COVERS

Everything turned out good but before starting to put everything back together, I want to install the new LED dome lamps that were ordered today. That will give me some time to recover the sun visors.

SUN VISORS

The dome lamp assembly and sunroof latch cover still look good and will not need any refinishing.

SUN ROOF LATCH AND DOME LAMP ASSEMBLY

There is so much more to a conversion that just the electrical work and I really want to get this interior done so I can start working on getting the Better Place Pack installed.

I have had a couple of contacts on the Better Place battery module and the crate that they came in, along with the HiPower cells that are all on Craigslist. I was hoping someone local would come and pick them up but so far, the closest prospective buyer is 100 miles away and the furthest in Great Britain. I really hate to have to ship these cells but if that is what it takes, that is what I will have to do.

Until next time,

Randy