Completed the back shelf by making the centre carpet piece and using hot glue to make the moulded section covering the shock absorber humps on each side.
Turned out ok from the top but a bit messy from underneath. Will use some 'velco' strips to hold it in place if it needs it. For now it seems to sit reasonably well.


Also bought a strip of 'peel & stick' rubber to seal the battery cover and that seemed to work well.

On a separate note, regular readers may have noticed that I'm using the photobucket links for diplaying my pics more. Main reason is that it's quicker and I only have to upload once. If it is making it harder to read for any reason, shoot a comment and I go back to the photo upload here.

Edit: I did these this afternoon, so I thought it best just to add to this entry.
Procedure was the same as the other panels, so I just included the pics of the finished panels.




Only the doors to go and the interior is all-but finished.

The back shelf is a very difficult surface to cover with carpet and one piece has to be removable for battery access. I decided to cover the section just inboard of the wheel arch with a small piece of carpet and then fit the removable cover to the section inside that only.
I cut a template out of stiff paper.....

and used it to cut the carpet pieces for both sides.

Glued them in..

And then moved on to the centre console.
I was going to paint this body colour, but I had a thought, that being inside and vertical, maybe it should be grey.
The grey vinyl I bought is pretty stretchy so I was fairly confident I could get it stuck on without too much difficulty.
Well it was difficult and I've got a few wrinkles, but It may be ok.
I'll sit on it for a while and see if I'm still ok with it in a few days.

Gave the battery cover an etch with the last of the MetalReady and used up almost all of my PO15 on it.
I've done this many times before so I didn't bother with before photos.



I revisited the rear bulkhead cover, which was a little too snug - still is actually, and peeled off the vinyl to trim a few mms off the hardboard.
I was worried that me thinning the contact to brush it on may be weakening its bond. Well that is certainly not a concern. I had real difficulty in peeling back the vinyl so it is sticking well.
While the battery cover was drying I started on the wheel arch carpets and made a rough pattern from newspaper. I transferred the shape to a piece of carpet and cut it out a little over size.
I used the carpet to determine the final shape with 2 pleats in it to deal with the curve. As I progressed I transferred the shape to another piece of carpet for the other side. Then I glued the pleats and dry fitted in place.




I then applied the glue, thinned about 2 to 1 to make it easier to brush out. The thinner softened the glue that I'd used for the pleats so after it dried I was able to reposition the joins again. I'm not sure if it made it easier or not but I was able to get them in and attached to the wheel arches.
One aspect with the glue or the thinners is that after the glue has been applied it makes the carpet very pliable, which helps smooth it into shape.
After I'd glued in the carpet I discovered that I'd been to accurate with the panels I did the other day and they are a little tight. But they will be fine. It's a reminder on the other panels that I have to do is to give myself more clearance around the hardboard shapes.

A bit of variety in this entry.
Got the seats back from Scotts Uphols. last Wednesday and I'm really pleased with the colours. The quality of the job is good, not great but you get what you pay for and I made the decision to get a $600 job and not a $1500 job. I don't believe the car is worth the extra $900. I'm happy and bang for buck I'd recommend Scotts.
They're just sitting in the car for now, I've still got a few things to do with the carpet and under the dash so I want to be able to get them out easily.



Got the windscreen out of storage yesterday and checked it out. Cut off the old seals and after cleaning up the old grey sealant and the hardened gunk, I went about replacing the side seals and the bottom seal.
Two of the screws holding the frame together fell out and it was obvious a DPO had struck again. They were just pushed in, filling up the hole.
I deliberated whether I would dismantle the frame but after some advise from the forum decided to simply push them back in with some locktite and forget them.
The bottom seal went on ok after I made a tool to push the seal into its slot. Trimming it to length and at the correct angle caused me some concern but one fellow from the forum just tonight confirmed that I'd done it correctly.




(I've not linked to photos like this before, but I saw it on another journal and seemed like a good idea.)
I've positioned the windscreen in place to try and get the seal to flatten out. It's just sitting there too. I may want to put some more paint on the car so I want to be able to take it off.

Started on the interior panels and I'm very pleased with the results. I chose a high density foam to go under the vinyl and it gives a great finish to the panels. I can shape it with abrasive paper and the vinyl's nice and stretchy, so I get a nice rounded edge with a firm, bulky feel to the panels.
Very happy with the results so far.

This morning I looked again at the finish I'd got after primer coats and decided that it wasn't good enough. It had some small holes along the nose so I tried to sand them out. Got some of them out but decided to try a skim coat of filler to fill them.
This was OK but it took a long time to sand that filler back level and smooth.
Put another 2 more coats of fill primer on, sanding between and then went over the whole lot with some 350g paper. Had a funny dimpled finish which, not until later, did I realise that the demon condensation was back.
Put two coats of colour on and left it for a half hour.
Coming back to it the moisture 'flush' had struck. Tried heating but it only made it worse. A light spray with thinners was the best solution.
I swapped to the bigger gun and although I was getting some orange peel, the moisture problem seemed to go.
I laid on 3 to 4 coats, waiting about 15mins in between and I was getting good results. The compressor doesn't quite deliver enough air for this gun but It works ok if the passes are not too long.
After letting the bonnet dry for a few hours, I put it back on the car.
There are still some marks from the filling and sanding but I'm sure some compounding and polish will get them out.

Well, I couldn't put it off any longer, so this weekend I attacked the top of the bonnet.
Fill - sand - fill - sand - more fill - more sand - more fill - more sand primer - sand - more fill - more sand - more primer - more sand etc.
After a day and a half I've got a surface that is reasonably flat and reasonably smooth ready for a colour top coat. It took a full 600g pack of filler, however, most of that ended up as dust on the ground.

May give it another coat of primer and a light sand to be sure, but Wednesday should see the bonnet finished and maybe back on the car.