Space City 1982 GP Build

Rktpwrd said:

Jared, everything looks fantastic. Nice work man. I can sympathize and relate to just how much prep work goes into the parts long before you ever load the gun with paint. It doesn’t matter if they’re interior or exterior parts. But the prep is what makes the job successful (or not).

Congrats on getting so much accomplished, I’m really looking forward to seeing them installed in the car. BTW, those speaker panel inserts are trick! I may have to look into getting a set or two for my cars!

D.

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MrSony said:

ditto! those things are cool.

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Thanks guys! It was a ton of work but I'm happy with the result. I want to mention something on the speaker panels. I will detail this topic once I install the panels in the car but I wanted to warn you that the opening behind them is pretty shallow. Like 1-1/2". There is some metal that could be cut open under the opera windows to make ample room for any speaker but I decided I didn't want to do that. I bought 1/2" spacer rings to space the speaker outward to make more room. I bought Kenwood 6-1/2" speakers and their depth is 1.8" so they should work nicely with the spacer rings. We'll see how it looks once it's installed.

Well the snowball did some rolling down the hill this week. I started cleaning up the dash in preparation of installing the freshly painted side trim and starting to fasten it back to the cowl. I noticed that the paint on the top of the dash is cooked. I don't know how I never noticed this before but I guess I never looked at it very hard and never looked at it at the right angle. For about 30 seconds I thought about putting one of those carpet dash covers on top of it and pressing forward but in the end I decided to pull the dash so I can paint it.

I didn't want to paint the dash primarily because painting the black reproduction dash that we bought for my brother's car was a negative experience. We used DuPont products on that entire build and followed the tech sheets to the letter. The dash looks nice but it is easy to make the paint on it crack. I didn't want to deal with that on my car. Also, I didn't want to take the car apart any further. I had decided to leave the dash burgundy and stay with the burgundy headliner (was redone nicely before I bought the car) and the burgundy sun visors. Everything else is going black. As I mentioned a post or two above, I used SEM to paint all of the interior plastic that I painted last weekend. The results I got with it on my rear armrests have given me more confidence in painting the dash. In the end, the car is this much apart. Now is the time to do it and not regret not doing it later.

Here is a look at the baked paint on the top of the dash. I don't know how I didn't see this before....


Here's a look at the dash out of the car.....


And a look at the car without a dash. I guess if you've seen this once, you've seen it but here it is...



I had the dash torn down pretty far as it was. There really wasn't that much holding it in there. The worst part was separating the engine/front light harness from the bulkhead connector. If you remember, my car was a diesel so the engine compartment side of the connector was slathered with that blasted sealer......


I had to dig a bunch of that stuff out to be able to get to the bolt that secures the harness to the bulkhead connector. It was no fun and now I'm considering replacing the engine/front light harness. I haven't decided.

I did manage to get the package shelf back in the car, this time for good, I think. I started by putting some Eastwood X-mat over the speaker holes in the bottom of the package shelf since I'm going to go with speakers under the opera windows instead of using speakers in the rear deck.....



Next I cleaned up and installed the original sound deadening material that hangs on the hooks behind the vertical portion of the package shelf. Then I put the freshly painted end trim pieces on the new package shelf and installed it in the car. I have the bracket for the third brake light bolted back down but I didn't install the third brake light yet. I need to clean the rear window first and I didn't have any ammonia free glass cleaner on hand so that will get done the next time I go over to the storage. Here's a look...



Sean and I are going to set up the Camaro bay for paint again tomorrow. We'll then work on prepping the dash, the glove box door, the under column trim panel, and perhaps my floor shift steering column for paint. Right now the forecast looks favorable to paint Sunday afternoon but we'll see. If the weather isn't right, our thought is to have everything setup, ready to go and come home one evening next week (weather looks good) and get it all shot. We'll see how it goes.

Moving forward, I've decided to have the headliner redone to change it to black and either have the visors redone to change them to black or replace them. I already have new upper and lower door panels so everything will be black at this point. The only reason I was going to leave the headliner and the visors was that they were in nice shape and I was going to leave the dash burgundy so I thought it would tie it all together. In the end, I'll be a lot happier with all of the burgundy gone. At this point I don't think the car will run in 2018 but I feel pretty good about my chances of having it going in 2019. I'm not upset about it. I'm really happy with the amount of progress that's been made this fall/winter/spring and am happy with how things are turning out. Modifying the crossmember and getting the T5 sitting in the car right was a big milestone and it has me feeling pretty good about the conversion and the project in general.

That's it for now guys. Hopefully Saturday evening I'll have an update showing the dash ready to spray. Hopefully Sunday night it will be black. Until then, thanks as always for following along.

Best,

Jared

Longroof79 said:

Jared,
Now is the time to replace those speakers if they're old and original. So far everything is looking great. Nothing like working with a lap full of spaghetti...wiring, that is.

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Thanks Jack. I've been wondering how people replace those speakers without removing the dash? I'm not going to use them anyway. I bought the lower door panels from Dixie that have a provision for a single 6-1/2" speaker. I'm going with four 6-1/2" speakers and a single DIN in-dash head unit. It's enough for me. I'm not going to do an amp or subwoofer on this one.

kiko said:

Jared,

Nice work! I can "feel" your situation!! My 1983 GP was burgundy inside and now it's all black. I had similar thoughts about ripping out some good parts, but in the end, it will all look much nicer (and fresher), after some 35 years!!

One idea that you might consider regarding speakers (if not already done so) -- put small tweeters in the corners under the dash, with a crossover for your front door speakers. In the picture below, you can kind of see an example of what I've done. It's not hard to do now that your dash is out, and this will improve the sound -- big return for small investment. Just a thought...

Keep up the good work!

View attachment 84372

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Thanks Andry! Your car is beautiful inside and out. I can only hope my interior turns out that well. I'm glad that I'm doing away with all of the burgundy at this point. I just have never liked a burgundy interior or the color burgundy in general. My step-dad had an 83 H/O (new) when I was about 8-9 and it had the grey interior and I thought it was beautiful. Burgundy is just not my cup of tea. I looked at a nice 83 H/O down here about 6 months before I bought my GP and between its burgundy interior and the fact that I didn't want a 307 or automatic and couldn't bring myself to cut up a survivor, I passed on it. For the guys that have burgundy and like it, more power to you. GM made tons of cars with that color on the inside so I must be in the minority. Thanks for the idea on the speakers. I will definitely keep it in mind.

Guys, I want to take the opportunity to thank Andry (kiko) here in my thread. It is long overdue. Back in early December, last year I reached out to him to inquire about buying the exterior trim from his 83 LJ. I had seen a post from him offering to help another member with GP trim. My car is pretty nice but the trim really lets it down compared to the fresh paint on it. If I'm not mistaken Andry bought his car new and he did an 'update' on it where he removed most of the trim. Here are a couple pictures of his car as it is now...



If I was going to paint my car, I would have gone a very similar route as he did. I think his car is stunning. Since my car is painted, I'm keeping the trim. Andry was kind enough to sell me all of the trim off of his car for a very reasonable price. The job he did building the box and packing the trim was second to none. I think he spent at least an entire day on it. I received everything in great condition all the way from Ottawa, Canada in early January. It was so well packed that I didn't even unpack everything. The stuff that I did unpack was in beautiful condition. His contribution to my build will really take it to the next level. It will be a little while before I start swapping out the trim. Right now I'm focused on getting past the interior detour and then I'd like to finish putting the mechanicals back together and actually drive the car a bit. Still, it's a great feeling knowing I have all of that trim in beautiful shape that will fix the vast majority of boo-boo's on the car. Thanks again Andry. Guys like you and others on here are what makes this hobby and this site what it is.

Best,

Jared