The hands of fate and the hammer of not bickering smiled upon me recently as a long since ordered but unpaid for interior kit and my extremely busted and thrashed interior managed to come together as one so to speak. The guys at Chirco.com thought it would be cool to install it in my car.We put together this “little” photo diary of some of what went down.
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As you may or may not know, my 58 Type 1 Ragtop, Mistie, is my daily driver over 9 years now. She’s been a great car and I love her to death, but I’m afraid I may be responsible for what the poor gal had to endure. The driver’s seat has been broken since I got the car and many moons ago when my buddy Nate did my interior we had another pal, Brandon, do some welding on the springs to fix it but my over sized hinder parts (I have nutter butter refusal deficit disorder) compromised the integrity of the seat and well…it just went down hill from there so… first things first…had to strip off all the old interior. here you can see Chirco shipper/receiver Brian removing hog rings. |
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| Here you can see the damage my seat back suffered. I would like to blame the desert heat but it is more likely the cookies. At this point there was a lot of talk about how great German springs are then everybody pointed at me and laughed.Joe informed me that he had another seat back at his fortress…oops…I mean home (more on that later). |
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Here’s a shot of the fronts out and you can see the door panels need some love too. Yeah yeah I know…semaphores…anyway it was pretty cool to see so much happening so fast.There was only like 27 cents in it. 6 years ago when we did the last interior there was like 8 bucks!!! in nickels!!  |
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| BEAR DOWN! (Arizona Wildcats…yeah!) oh and that’s the rear seat back. At this point we removed all the existing material and…. |
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| Threw it away! |
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| Now here’s some good stuff for you. At Chirco.com we can help you get an interior kit ordered for your air-cooled VW. I wouldn’t say it’s an easy thing to do on your own, but our knowledgeable staff is always ready to lend a hand. Just call us at 1-800-955-9795 and we can walk you through it. I’ll kinda glaze over the process though just so you know.The first thing you want to do is go to the TMI site to pick colors.
http://www.vwupholstery.com/swatches.html There are a bunch of choices. Write down the color(s) you’re interested in and then give us a call. 1-800-955-9795. We do this all the time and like I said, we will get you home. In my case this kit was sitting on a back shelf under the tunnel and just past the fireball thingies before the princess so I didn’t have to go that route. |
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| Oh!…also while the whole interior thing was going on, Chirco shop mechanic Jon Bol was giving Mistie the once over. Valves, carbs, leaky boot, etc. We had a cruise scheduled and Jon was kind enough to make sure I would make it. |
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| Here you can see the new foam padding I ordered.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PADDING ON CHIRCO.COM Chirco carries the padding for all makes models and years. If you’re looking for it…we can get it. At this point it was time to bring Big Daddy Joe Chirco into the mix. He is the Master Blaster! |
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| So…Joe and I took the front seat pieces, including the one he got up at 7am to find for me over to his garage for some sand blastin.(Note: I was also able to have coffee in his home and listen to his little kids sing “TNT…Dynomite!” while they ate Cheerios. |
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| Here’s Joe doin some blastin. Look at that smile. He acts like it’s his first Tonka every time. |
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| While Joe blasted I took some random shops of stuff in the garage. |
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| The blasting was amazing! The bare metal seats looked great! Thank you for taking the time to make a difference Joe. I’m sorry I told people you should post your picture on menwholooklikekennyrogers.com. |
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| I took the seats back to the shop and the little pin where the seat back arm slips onto was a little loose so Bob re-welded the pins for me. In this shot you can see he just opened up Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase. |
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| Shipper/Receiver Johnny went out and got a better matching color and painted the seats. Just the parts that would show after installation.Johnny and Brian did more than the lion’s share of the work on this project. I was happy to get to help some but I really owe them a huge thanks, and hot wings. |
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| In order to get the material to fit it helps if you heat it up. I have seen people use high heat dryers but here in Tucson we have a big ball of gas (no not Joe) 93 million miles away called the sun.It worked great! (Note: we did use a dryer a bit too.)
The material stretched easily over the frame and padding. |
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| In this picture you can see Johnny searching frantically for his Buddha necklace or jelly beans. I’m not sure…I do know that when he doesn’t shave for a long time he looks like a Christmas elf and I appreciate all he does here. |
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| Here’s the back seat back before we hog ringed the corner pieces to tighten it up. |
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| Here’s a look at the back seat bottom, which is kind of funny to say. Great job once again by Brian and Johnny. |
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| The front seat bottoms went on really easy too. the little drawstring on the underside is slick. |
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| They really did come out great. I was really really happy at this point. |
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| In this shot you can see some hog ringing going on. Chirco sells a hog ring kit. It was pretty easy to use actually and it really did help tighten it all up. |
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| next we started putting the pieces back in my car. I know you’re distracted by the sexiness of Brian’s leg, I mean how can you not be but what I wanted to show was the black quarter panels in the rear. |
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| The backseat…where the magic happens…if by magic you mean where my son sits and makes faces at me while I drive. |
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| Here’s a look at the front seats back in. What a difference! |
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| I wanted to show you the door panels. Getting the clips in wasn’t easy but it wasn’t too hard either. When I put them on the doors I used those little rubber sleeves and things locked on pretty good. |
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| My buddy DMF (Dave MorganFlash) rolled through and lent a hand. He helped me get the panels on and told me 2 really funny jokes. We talked about the cruise a lot and just enjoyed finishing up this little project. |
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| I did get some new seat belts which I needed because I kind of almost set my car on fire vacuuming …I know …I know …I was vacuuming and the belt slipped and the battery and the smoke and then this bear shows up in a ranger hat and he’s all “only you” and I’m all “only me what?!!” and then we ate cabbage and it was all good. |
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| Ahhhh…..smooth as Gold Bond lotion and done in time for the cruise. |
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| Big time thanks to all the Chirco crew for all you do. I learned a lot and had a great time doing it.Remember if you have any questions about an interior for your air cooled VW, give us a call. 1-800-955-9795
Thanks for checkin it out. -lemorris |
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