My recap and ongoing final stretch of building my Hatch

[shagymc]

Got a lot of things done this weekend with recovering the interior as well as some parts on order. I noticed the paint had a small crack in it on my iPad dash so I grinder the crack out and filled it with glazing putty


I didn't want to repaint the whole thing so I used 400 grit to knock down the filler and then sprayed it with 3 dust coats.




The paint was still wet on those pictures but it looks great now. After that, I decided to scrap the plaid trim pieces but I'm keeping the headliner in plaid. To keep the inside flowing, I went with a black suede to cover the trim. The first thing I did was remove all the trim I planned on covering. I then ripped the old material off. This is the aftermath:


From there I just sprayed the piece with 3M general spray adhesive (Both the fabric and the part, 3 coats) and then covered them. I didn't take many pictures but you get the idea.



I love the look of the suede, it's more subtle in the black and it helps accentuate the headliner. After the trim was covered, I decided to get back on the driver side mirror and restore that. The first thing I did was fill the pitting and cracking that the sun and time did to it over the last 29 years with a glazing putty.


I then sanded it down with 320 and then primed it with filler primer. To get the rough spots out I sanded it lightly with 400 and then set it up for paint. I covered it with 4 light coats of SEM gloss black and then dusted it for some texture. Came out great.






The other parts to the mirror are soaking in soapy water so I can't repair and fix the rest of the mirror until I clean the motor all up and fix the mirror trim. That's going to have to wait a few days. While I had the trim apart I tested the sunroof and the dome light and to my surprise the roof works great. I had thought it was having issues with getting stuck halfway back but it's not the case. I also discovered that the dome light I have is messed up and not really worth my efforts for repair so I ordered an all black one off of ebay. So I'll get a brand new OEM dome light in black to match the interior.
While I was testing the sunroof, I realized that the sunroof switch panel looked like ****. So I took the panel down, went through the tedious task of taking it apart and prepping it for paint. Then laid a few coats of the SEM paint on it and called it good. It looks great. Again, I didn't take many pictures of the prep work but between coats and then re assembly I did.







Overall, really excited for the new look and upgrades. I also hard wired the power mirrors up so that I didn't have to worry about it once I finished restoring them. There's a DIY topic I wrote up for it if you're interested in the DIY section. I have the dome light and the door grommets on the way as well as Lexus GS door strikers. It's the little things

[Hindi]

I really like the attention to detail!
I've found fixing and restoring small bits around my 86 are some of the most enjoyable times I've spent working on it.
I'm anxious to see how your door cards turn out, I've been planning something similar but with abs plastic.
Great work!

[shagymc]

Thanks, it's very slow tedious work, that's for sure. It is great to see it coming together though. I have a circle jig for my router coming so I can start cutting the speaker rings and molding it together and I have no idea what I'm going to do with the tweeters either.

[grappletech]

If you don't mind me asking what shade of SEM paint did you use for the sunroof switch panel?

[shagymc]

SEM is gloss black for plastic and vinyl. Today I got my circle cutting router jig which Id been waiting on to make the speaker rings I need for the woofers. I still don't know where I am going to put them but at least I have something to work with now. I started by cutting out 4 rings the outside diameter I needed.
I put a small chamfer on the inside of the top ring, and then nailed the two rings together and put a round edge on the outer edge. This is my finished product. So now I have something to work with.



Looking at either kick panels or door for these, not sure though yet.

[RuizXIII]

Excellent wood work. That looks great.
The stuff you sprayed really turned up fresh. Awesome.

[shagymc]

So I got a black dome light in today to match the trim and headliner. It looks great. It was to dark to snap photos of it installed tonight so I'll take some this weekend when i finish the trim.



I also decided to start working on my switch panel. Since I removed everything with the HVAC system, I decided to fabricate a new panel out of plexiglass to fit in the space above the ashtray. I have the two buttons for each door popper, a volume knob for the iPad, and then the window switches. I haven't cut the window switch hole out yet but so far I like how it looks.





I'll work on it more this 3 day weekend and update

[shagymc]

Made the switch panel:


With a little glue for the switch panel, here's the finished product



Really stoked on this, I'm thinking I want to put an emblem or decal next to the window switches to fill the small gap there. Any suggestions?

[bahamianfisher]

Amazing , this build has my full attention . I love the attention to detail !

[shagymc]

So today I finished the dash bezel with some fresh paint and reassembly. I didn't take many pictures but Here's the bezel painted:


Dash bezel reassembled with the cig lighter and ashtray in:


Complete with the iPad dash installed:



The door pop switch rings light up with the parking lights and look like this:


I also got another trim piece sueded but I need more fabric to get the rest of the car done. Loving this look

[shagymc]

Finished Mirrors:




Sorry the last 3 are blurry, it was night time in the garage. I may take better pictures tomorrow after work. So the mirror was tested and works great, I'm really happy with how these turned out too. I think the next big thing is going to be trying to cover the dash in new vinyl. It's kind of scary to think about has. We'll see what happens.

[.TRD.TRUENO.]

You are a DIY genius! Must be awesome to step back and feel proud at your accomplishment. Keep up the hard work!

[shagymc]

Thanks! It is rewarding but it takes time. I was just lucky to have learned a lot of things in my car audio background working with amazing people. The dash is going to be a mother f*cker though, i know it

[shagymc]

Deleted to consolidate my thread

[shagymc]

Deleted to consolidate thread

[shagymc]

Last week I started on building the kick panels though for my speakers and I also finished up the back to my nintendo remote. I guess I'll start with the tease of the driver kick and then show the finished remote.
For the set of components I have I was having a hard time finding a good place to put the woofers. When I placed the rings I cut for them on the door, they just looked out of place and the door looked obnoxious so I scratched the idea of putting anything there. The next logical place was the kick panels. The drivers kick is going to be the worst as far as speaker placement due to the clutch and the fuse panel not leaving a lot of room. I'm nowhere near the end but here's the start:
I had to pull a mold of the kick so I laid down some tape and then basically set up a 'Dexter-kill-room' for the rest of the car so no resin would drip where I didn't want it too.



The shiny stuff is aluminum foil. I didn't want to wax all the tape so the glass would release so I covered the tape in aluminum foil. It works great. I put about 16 oz. of resin on this side with about 3 layers of matt fiberglass. Nothing crazy. If I need to thicken it up more I can do that later.


I trimmed it up and then test fit it in the car with the ring. I played around with speaker placement and I still don't know what I like yet.


I think I'm going to hook an amp up just to play with different speaker positions to see how it sounds.

[shagymc]

It's been a little bit but I recently started hooking up my amp. I was having trouble deciding where to put the amp and also where and how I'm going to build the sub box. The only place that seemed reasonable was the back of the seat with the strut bar. Here's what it looks like:


I also got the speaker wires ran to the crossovers which I mounted behind the iPad dash. They fit great there and allow easy access in case of trouble later:



Now that these are wired up and can temporarily hook up the speakers and figure out where exactly I'm going to mount them. I'm hoping to make more progress on the kick panels in the next few days.

[shagymc]

Made a little progress on the component installs this past weekend. Wanting to drive this car as a daily, I needed good sound in my stereo and the factory front speakers are only 4" holes. 4" speakers are awful so I stepped it up. After playing around with different ideas and what not, I decided kick panels for the woofers and that I wanted the tweeter up high to raise the overall sound stage. I was worried about positiong of the tweeters and the woofers so I did some tape mock up and listened to it. I was surprised and pleased that, at least for the driver, it sounded decent. Here's the tweeter mock up on the side mirror triangles:


After I figured out the best positions I etched up the triangle and tweeter cup and then glued it in position.





To give the fiberglass some shape and a base, i glued some cardboard strips into a really rough shape then laid about 3-5 small layers of glass.






After the glass cured, I gave it a quick shape up and checked fitment:




I put some glass filler over that to add some shape to it and This is where they're at now. I have to put the door cards back on and then fill and shape the pods to meet the top of the door panel as well as fill and shape the top edge to match the door curve. So far it's coming right along.

[shagymc]

Got the driver side tweeter pretty much done today. It was very tedious but I think it turned out great. I spent the better part of the day just filling and sanding. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Right now it's waiting for the paint to dry.







I also laid down a base glass layer on the driver kick panel so I have a good starting place for that. I'll post progress pictures of those later and a finished shot of the tweeter tomorrow after the paint dries

[EvoSolley]

^^ Wow great job, the finish product looks stock. Looking forward to more updates!

[shagymc]

So the driver tweeter pod is finished and it turned out great. It fits really well in that location.



Also made some cuts and added a bunch of filler to the kick panel. This thing is ridiculous!



I plugged them up to see what type of sound i was going to get and it sounds great. I'm pretty pumped to get this part complete!
Thanks for the kind words Evo!

[shagymc]

So I can finally drive my car again. Received the oil pressure sensor from Torparts and it works great. I guess the sensor that was there was for an oil pressure light but doesn't work with the meter on the 86 cluster. The new sensor is on the left and the stock 20v one is on the right:


Hooked up:


I also was able to finish up the kick panel on the driver side. I won't bore you with how I made it but here's the progress pictures up to final fit and finish.




Finished product:


Now I just have to finish the other side....

[shagymc]

I know I haven't posted much in a while do to the holidays and work but I''ve made some progress. I'm not going to show any pictures but I installed a horn and fixed the issue with the button on the Nardi steering wheel I have. I ripped all the wiring out for the accessories and am in the process of re-wiring that as well. The big project I'm working on and continue to work on is making the door panels. Originally, I was just going to cover the flat door card in fabric but I thought that looked like **** so I decided to try and make them. Here's the progress from basically an idea to where I'm at now:












And this is how it sits now with the center insert mounting nuts filled in and the slit cut for the tow strap door handle:


Once, the filler cures, I'll sand it down and then cover it in black suede to match the other interior panels.

[shagymc]

Still have to re do the top

[shagymc]

And passenger side complete. The door panel is done but I have to figure out a way to mount it to the door. The top slides over the window lip fairly easily but the bottom panel clips won't stay clipped in. I'm looking into options. I need to pick up some more screws and fabric for the driver panel still.

[jdm86gtz]

Really like the interior mods.

[shagymc]

Thanks Jdm.
Nothing major today, I got my wideband Air/fuel gauge mounted in the dash. I think when I get the other two this set up will work out nicely. It fills the blank spot that used to be the old vents.


I also have a couple more build shots of the door panels. The first is the top of the panel I reupholstered. I put headliner material down first to give it a softer, padded feel.


This one is of the fitment of the insert and the original card, nice and tight.


The last thing I finished up tonight was wrapping the outer part of the driver door panel in vinyl. The insert is screwed down and mounted so that the glue will set on the vinyl how I want it to overnight.


Should be able to get the other gauges next check. I really like the innovative motorsports line of gauges and they're priced great too!

[yellowsnow4free]

Wow shagymc, awesome build!

The restoration of all the little bits on your car is really inspiring

A couple questions for you:

1) On the mirrors, does the glass pop out? I noticed in the pics it seems to be removed in a couple places. If so, any tips on doing this without breaking the glass?

2) Regarding using a drill to twist wires together, any chance you can explain this a little more with pics or a video? It looks great, and super OEM like you said, but I can't quite wrap my brain around doing it

Thanks and keep up the great work!

[shagymc]

The mirrors do just pop out however they are pretty fragile. I suggest kind of bending a corner and just slowly working the plastic off of it around the mirror.
This is the best video I've seen of how to twist the wires:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTJhrTTl-EE
You are going to want to tie off one end of the wires to something. I usually screw a screw in a little bit on the bench and then tie the strands to it. Just like the video shows, you'll then put the other two ends into the drill and tighten down. As you tighten, you'll have to move forward as the wire length shrinks. You'll also want to keep the wires taught as you do this to keep the twist even throughout.
Try it out with some scrap wire first! Hope this helps and thanks for the feedback. Hopefully I'll have them figured out by this weekend.

[EvoSolley]

Love this build!

Things seem to be moving along quite nicely. I LOVE the door cards, very sleek and professional looking. I saw you were having some problems keeping the cards flush on the door in some places. This is a very general suggestion (if you haven't fixed it yet), but maybe you can incorporate some Neodymium Magnets (Very strong earth magnets) to hold the cards on and in place. You can get them round a thin to minimize gaps between the door card and door. I recently built a bookcase door and used a couple of them to keep the door closed and sit flush. Again I don't know exactly how they would work for your application, but figured suggesting wouldn't hurt. Hope you figure it out and keep the updates coming!