6G Celicas Forums

Cheap interior and engine access are by far the biggest issues with these cars. Though dash pad aside the interior really isn't any worse than most other cars, and honestly is better than some cars made in the last 15 years even taking the dash pad into consideration.

Ah 90's GM interiors. Those were the days.....

At least the Firebird they made nice enough with soft vinyl arm rests and the dashboard is soft vinyl too except the pad, glove box door, and knee pad. That and the seats are actually pretty comfortable and supportive, which all of this is more than can be said for the Camaro. The Camaro seats are terrible, how and why such a difference there is beyond me. Though I want to say starting in 1997 the Camaro got a soft vinyl dash too similar to the Firebird, but the seats still sucked.

Oh yeah, I ordered some solvent cement meant for acrylic and polycarbonate that will arrive tomorrow. SCIGRIP 16? From what I could find online it's the best for polycarbonate outside of methylene chloride which is really expensive and a known carcinogen, so hopefully it works really well and I'll have it all in one piece again ready for wrapping in vinyl. I'm ready to get this nightmare over with.

I demand photo's of the nigthtmare.

It's all back into one piece again, amazing what happens when you have the right adhesive. I duct taped the backside of the pieces back together then applied the cement, which has about the consistency of maple syrup. Sets pretty quickly, but still says to give 24 hours to cure. Came here to take a break before doing the last, and largest, section. I'll get a picture of it together, then one of it wrapped, then another of it back in the car. For some reason the mood never struck me to take pictures of it as a jigsaw puzzle.

Booo

It's sitting and curing at the moment, I'll take a picture before cleaning up the topside and you'll be able to see everywhere it was cracked. Thinking will probably tape the underside to add some support as well, then the entire topside will be covered in vinyl so once it's all said and done it'll be nice and sturdy and I'll never have to mess with it again. I know I'm tired of looking at the giant void and not having the A-pillar covers on. It really sinks in how big the dashboards in these cars are when the pad has 6" of overhang on each side of a card table laying diagonally.

U has a car thread now. We demands pics.

I bought a Ford F150 underhood light with harness, I see those Ford under hood lights never die and I want an underhood light on my car, but I don't know which one I want it on. Probably the daily driver. Lamp holder and switch all in one unit, need to get some LED's to stick somewhere then just wire it to power and ground and let there be light when I open the hood! I'll need to rig a water proof on/off switch on it somehow though.

Patience my dear. I might be able to get it covered in the vinyl tomorrow, hopefully it looks as good as I imagined it to.

Might be able to find the hood light switch off a car that'd work for your needs, perhaps could replace a hood stop with the switch. I've thought about doing the same except use waterproof smd LED strips versus some kind of halogen bulb and housing.

The Ford lamp housing has a switch built into it, tilt switch. They're pretty robust, I've never seen one fail. I meant a manual switch so I can turn it off if I have the hood up for a long time instead of just unplugging it like a heathen. Though that's probably easier. I just have to figure where I'll mount it and any LED's so nothing gets cooked or eaten by weather.

Just sold my 88 turbocoupe But in other news, more money for the 2gr swap

i felt sad, the forums are dead. I was the only member earlier...

Could just put in a hidden toggle or rocker switch on the positive somewhere hidden, I'd imagine one meant for marine use would be perfect.

So since everyone wanted to see:

The crack in the back runs all the way to the front edge, and there was one section in the front left the epoxy actually held you can barely see. You'd think larger pieces would be easier, but it makes them a pain to get set and to stay in place. If all goes as planned it'll be wrapped tomorrow night and put back in Saturday.

Frankenstein's Monster.

Pretty much, of course it's continuing to fight me and the seams are not wanting to smooth out. *sigh*

That's it I give up, start to get it smoothed out and then it splinters. I ****ing hate polycarbonate, I ****ing hate GM. Of course it needs to be fairly smooth otherwise it'll show through the vinyl wrap...

This post has been edited by Box: May 20, 2016 - 10:16 PM

You may need to get it strong enough to mold one out of fiber glass off the original or just wrap it in fiber glass mat and resin and THEN wrap it in whatever you like. It'll just crack again under the vinyl wrap otherwise.

My original plan was doing the back in fiberglass but the polycarbonate for whatever reason screwed up the resin setting up and hardening, what was in the mixing tray hardened fine so I know it wasn't the mix. There was someone on eBay selling actual replacement pads made of ABS plastic for $200ish shipped, but it seems like they stopped a year or two ago... People still make the caps that go over and adhere to the cracked pads, but I imagine they don't look that great. Had I decided on committing to the padded suede I'd be fine as it'd hide everything, but I was concerned on adhering it to the pad and the sun not undoing the adhesive and/or it outgassing fumes for months until it finally cured all the way.

This post has been edited by Box: May 20, 2016 - 10:44 PM

cover it in shag carpet.