Finishing the upholstery

Seat back and cushion fits well. Now for the door panels.

I used all the original springs and wood frames. Everything was still in pretty good condition considering the 41 years it's been since I first installed them!

LaBaron Bonney's instructions leave a lot to be desired. I'll bet they have not upgraded in decades. The paper looks to be type written and photocopied. And nothing is very clear. For $1,200 plus I would have expected more!

Installing Dynomat for noise reduction

After discussing it with my son, Markus, we purchased a case of Dynomat soundproofing material. I've installed it on each side of the car including front side cowl, doors and rear side panels. I've also installed some on the rumbleseat floor.

Studies show that only a 25% area needs to be covered to significantly reduce noise. One side is covered with an aluminum shield for heat reduction while the opposite side is covered with a tar like substance that adheres to all sorts of surfaces. Easy to install!

We'll see how well it works but it already sounds better just sitting in the garage. lol

Upholstery panels installed

Here are some photos of the final install of the side panels and headliner. You'll notice that there is some puckering in the headliner but I was assured from a fellow Model A enthusiast that there is a way to get rid of this. Rudy Perez has suggested that, after parking the car in full sunlight, I take a spray bottle of water and lightly spray the affected area and let it dry. The material is supposed to shrink up when drying and tighten the wrinkles out. I'll try it as soon as the weather is appropriate.

So now on to the seat upholstery...This could be interesting!

A portable hairdryer came in handy

I used a small portable hairdryer to heat and soften the material so that I could peal it back and trim the backing board appropriately. This would have saved me about 3 hours of work if LeBaron Bonney would have provided me with the right sized panels to begin with. (And they should for the $1,230 they charged for the kit!)

I Finally get started on installing upholstery

I finally received my upholstery kit from LeBaron Bonney, two weeks before I expected it, after their latest delay. So it took a total of 9 weeks to get it. (Their website states 2 weeks) Everything looked good until I started installation. The headliner was a lot of work and took me 9 hours on Friday June 15th. I could have done a better job if I would have read the instructions before I started (like they suggest)

But then a Snafu in installation: the rear window quartet panels didn't fit properly. They were found to be each5/8" too wide and needed to be trimmed. (This photo shows how it overlaps the rear window instead of slipping underneath the lip like it's supposed to) I contacted Doug at LeBaron Bonney and he suggested I could do it myself by using a heat gun to loosen contact cement then peel upholstery back and trim the card board backing. Material would then be trimmed accordingly and reinstalled so that it fits properly. Now it butts up against lower and upper rear window pieces! (You'll see in my next photo set how it all finished up)

Still waiting for my upholstery kit from LaBaron Bonney

Ok, so I order my upholstery kit from LaBaron & Bonney 7 weeks ago and figured to have it in a few weeks to be ready for the Steve McQueen Car Show on June 2nd. But when I called to see where it is in process three weeks ago they tell me they don't have it even scheduled for manufacture until June 22....Ahhh, Really? What ever happened to the 'Two Weeks' as advertised on their website? Now I won't even have it for the July Fourth parade in LaVerne!

Well, now I can say that my car is 'Award Winning' as it won 'Best Model A or T' in the Friends of Steve McQueen Car show at Boys Republic this past weekend. Here's a photo. I've also added a photo of the frame as it looked during dismantle...