Rear Seat Restoration

Grampy was here again, and the project this weekend was to restore the rear seats. We have been looking at various ways to get the interior restored, and found that the most common suggestion has been to clean the mold and dirt with a spray of white vinegar, and gentle scrubbing. Then once the seats are mostly clean, to go over them with mineral oil which will bring out the sheen of the vinyl and also help soften them up a bit. We gave it a try.....

The first test went well. We cleaned up the section on the right, and it was now in much better shape.

Here we are with half the backrest done.

Here is the set bottom completed.

All cleaned up and installed back in the car.

Shocker

The shocks on a car like this need replacing every couple years, and we did some of the prep work to get the old ones loosened up, and got replacements ready to go. We had another work day with Grampy, and worked on installing the new shocks.

Here's the front side ready to get started:

 

Old vs. new, the old ones were pretty useless, since they compressed, and did not push back out.

Connor working the drivers side shock as Grampy supervised.

 The rear shocks seemed like they would be easier to replace, but oddly took a bit more contortion to get the wrenches in the right places.

Working in the back seat was not too bad, besides having to remove the seat and firewall to get at the bolts.

The tricky part was getting the bottoms unbolted, and getting the new shocks in and bolted in place.

Once the new shocks were in place, the car leveled out a bit better, and rode a bit higher. Pushing on the bumper, it now bounces back and levels off quite nicely.