Dropping off my Roady wagon in 20-mins

Headliner fell really badly in the back. Wonder if the cold weather had something to do with it...? I think the dealer I bought it from had it done before I got it, because the material is still soft and thick....it's just hanging like a huge bubble over the cargo area.

Dropping it off with my interior guy at lunch, then heading home to wash the '79 Buick...my commuter car until tomorrow night.

-Mike

Did you go with something bitchin that your kids will remember forever, like a zebra print - or did you snooze it up with another 20 years of "old man tan"?

Well as usual I'm doing more than I planned. Got to my upholstry place and Alejandro (Allen) leaned in, looked up at the headliner, and said "is that all one piece?....." Si, es muy grande! Ha!

Anyway while I was waiting for my ride back to work, Allen and I were talking and I pointed out the fact that while my front leather seats are in great shape, with 105K miles, 16 years of use, and my big rear end, you sink LOW in the car now, especially the driver's seat.

SO Allen is "re-arching" and re-padding both lower front seat cushions as well as doing the headliner. We'll see how this comes out. I sure hope my head is not hitting the ceiling when I get back in the car, and that the seat bottoms are not as hard as church pews.

What fun! The car will be done Friday afternoon.

-Mike

Bewber wrote:

Did you go with something bitchin that your kids will remember forever, like a zebra print - or did you snooze it up with another 20 years of "old man tan"?

Went with "Old Man Maroon", the stock color.

-Mike

It's always something.

I had my old Fleetwood front seats re-done. Added more lumbar and side/leg bolstering, too.

Damn I hope they dont ruin that great seat!
Jim

Allen just called, the Roady is done. Trying to get a ride over to the shop at lunch.

Looking forward to seeing the new headliner....and hope the re-arching and re-padding of the front seat bottoms did not turn them into church pews.

-Mike

Ok I understand this is pointless without pics, but I got the Roady back at lunch.

The headliner looks great. It's just the slightest-bit lighter maroon than the rest of the interior, but it's smooth, and all the trim around the edges and the Vista window was put back on correctly, and all the lights still work and the grab handles are tight. I'm happy.

As for the seats....HOLY COW it's WEIRD. The lower seat cushions are no longer concave....they are actually convex now. It's almost like sitting on a beach ball.... He said knowing how big I am that normal foam would most likely crush down pretty quickly, so he used carpet underlay to re-pad the seats.

I'll say this, I'll have to drive it a while to get used to it. It's still soft, but you no longer sit in the seat, you sit up ON the seat. Also my head is up near the headliner now, I have to lean over more to get in and out of the car, and I spent half the ride back to work trying to lower the seat...it was all the way lowered already...and I ended up raising the front part of the seat up some to lean me back a bit, and then reclined the seatback some as well.

The door panel and center arm rests are no longer right there either...they're below my arms now if that makes any sense. It does not feel quite as much like sitting in a La-Z-Boy now.

Allen did say that with use the seats will sink some. With my 300lbs on them I'm sure that'll be true. I honestly thought pics would be silly before I saw the seats. They look much different now....it'll show in pics.

As for why their are no pics, the clutch went out in the '97 S-10, so Dad asked if he could use the Roady and we drug the truck to my friend's shop. That's why I took a three hour lunch...what timing!

So I'm back in the '79 Buick again. Will run over to my parents house sometime this weekend and take pics of the Roady seats. After we dropped the truck off Dad went to get in the Roady and hit his head on the roof. I got a "what have you done" from him. Oh well.....

-Mike

I was worried that would happen.A carpet underlay doesnt usually settle all that much.My
neighbor had his drivers seat done because he weighed over 400 lbs and he ended up getting
it all removed and just had the foam replaced instead.
Jim

We'll see what happens. I think once I squash it down some it'll be fine. It sure looks different now....

Bummer. I'd have him take some of it out. No sense in being uncomfortable for what might, maybe settle down with miles....

81X11 wrote:

We'll see what happens. I think once I squash it down some it'll be fine. It sure looks different now....

More twinkies big fella,..

Nique

So here's the latest. Saturday morning I went and grabbed the Roady back from Dad in order to replace the front brake pads, that my tire guy had pointed out were nearly shot when I got the Goodyears last week.

So I picked up some good new Ceramic pads (I don't like dusty wheels), jacked the Roady up, pulled off the front passenger wheel, then went to pull the front driver's side wheel, and noticed my new tire had a half-broken flat razor blade sticking out of the treads!!

.....I'm not sure how I've pissed off the tire gods....but whatever I did, I'm sorry for....

SO I threw the wheel in the trunk of the '79 Buick, went to Seras Tires, and my buddy gave me ANOTHER Goodyear. He's was cool...again...and didn't charge me a thing for it. He'd actually gotten a fresh load in so he had 12 new Eagle Take-Off's. I picked the best one.

SO back to the house, and did the brakes, no issues there, thankfully. Easy job.

Dad called, my uncle bought an auger to go on his tractor, and asked if I could pick it up at his friend's ranch outside of Florence, about 45 miles away, and then drop it off at the family ranch in Burnet. At this point it was 4pm, but I'm always up for a road trip, so loaded the kiddos in the wagon, hooked the flatbed trailer on the back, and went over and got my father.

I put 140 miles on the wagon Sat night. Towed fine, rode smooth, brakes were perfect, and between my father and I, we squashed the newly padded seats down somewhat. I'm actually starting to like the seats now. I had no back issues on the drive, and sometimes I had in the past, and I'm getting used to not sitting so low in the car.

Anyway I pulled out the camera Sunday, so at long last, if you care, here are the pics.

This is a shot of the seats before I had the bases re-padded. Notice how the bottoms curved down in this pic:


And here's the seats now. The flash makes them look lighter than they are. Notice how the seat bases are flat now, no "butt pocket" anymore.




And heres some shots of the new headliner. I didn't have the visors re-covered, they were fine. You can see it's a slightly different color, but it looks good and it's smooth, and most important, no sags!




Projects Projects!

-Mike

LQQKn good Mike

If you don't mind, what did the headliner job set you back? I'm thinking of farming that job out on the OCC.

It's probably the same as the factory color, minus 16 years of Texas sun exposure.

Looks good, Mike.

Looks awesome Mike and glad your butt is adjusting.I am curious about how much the headliner
cost too?
Jim

Olds Weighty Eight wrote:

If you don't mind, what did the headliner job set you back? I'm thinking of farming that job out on the OCC.

It was $100 for the headliner and $50 to re-pad the seat bottoms.

I did the little headliner on my single-cab 93 S-10 myself years ago and had issues getting the glue to stick and getting all the wrinkles out. To me it's worth paying to get it done.

Quess the closer you are to the border the cheaper things like this cost you.Unless you have
a lot of contacts and no I am not trying to sound like a racist either.
Jim

Stingroo wrote:

It's probably the same as the factory color, minus 16 years of Texas sun exposure.

Looks good, Mike.

You may very well be right. When I bought my car it still had window tags from Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio..and the windows were not tinted. I'm sure it sat outside. I tinted it right off, and use a sun-shade in the windshield when parked, but it's still an outside car.

Thankfully the dash, seats, and upper door panels are still nice. I'm seen some badly faded blue and maroon interiors in the salvage yards here on these.

Flasheroo wrote:

Quess the closer you are to the border the cheaper things like this cost you.Unless you have
a lot of contacts and no I am not trying to sound like a racist either.
Jim

It does help to have friends in the business, but I don't think anybody would charge more than $150 would they? That '95 Park Ave Ultra I used to own had front and rear seat visor/vanity mirrors. So four had to be recovered, plus all the lights, grab handles, and the A and C-pillars are padded too. I think that car cost me around $160 to replaced all that.




A good thing the pillars on our wagons are not covered with headliner material, and luckily my visors were still fine, that saved some money there too.

-Mike

At least it's not all cracked to hell.

I'd love a new TBI red dash pad... if only.

Man... We need mexican upholstry shops up here, too!!!!

toomanytoyz wrote:

Man... We need mexican upholstry shops up here, too!!!!

Si!

toomanytoyz wrote:

Man... We need mexican upholstry shops up here, too!!!!

You can say that again! I wanted to get my rear bench reskinned before WF, I went to 4 shops. The cheapest was $100, the most expensive was $190. And I even had the skins!

If I come across a good Roadmaster Sedan rear seat I'd still like to do that mod on mine. Looks much better, even if it will no longer fold totally flat. Base just snaps in but the seatback has to be sewn on. Wonder what Allen would charge.

It's WAY down the to-do list...but it's there!

81X11 wrote:

If I come across a good Roadmaster Sedan rear seat I'd still like to do that mod on mine. Looks much better, even if it will no longer fold totally flat. Base just snaps in but the seatback has to be sewn on. Wonder what Allen would charge.

It's WAY down the to-do list...but it's there!

Oh no, this wasn't the Roadie seat swap. This was to remove my cloth seat skin and put on my leather/vinyl one.

Cadet57 wrote:

81X11 wrote:

If I come across a good Roadmaster Sedan rear seat I'd still like to do that mod on mine. Looks much better, even if it will no longer fold totally flat. Base just snaps in but the seatback has to be sewn on. Wonder what Allen would charge.

It's WAY down the to-do list...but it's there!

Oh no, this wasn't the Roadie seat swap. This was to remove my cloth seat skin and put on my leather/vinyl one.

Yikes! That is not cheap!

-Mike

81X11 wrote:

Cadet57 wrote:

81X11 wrote:

If I come across a good Roadmaster Sedan rear seat I'd still like to do that mod on mine. Looks much better, even if it will no longer fold totally flat. Base just snaps in but the seatback has to be sewn on. Wonder what Allen would charge.

It's WAY down the to-do list...but it's there!

Oh no, this wasn't the Roadie seat swap. This was to remove my cloth seat skin and put on my leather/vinyl one.

Yikes! That is not cheap!

-Mike

Nope! So I bought some hog ring pliers at HF, and some rings at Ace and i'm going to read the FSM and do it myself.

That looks good Mike. Good price, too. I got quoted $190.00 to do the Caprice headliner today. I think I'll have to shop around. Or send the car to Texas...

Jon

Just wait a while Jon the upholsterers are coming to you as we speak!
Jim

I know... I knew the guy who did my bonnie rears in Morticia and he cut me a killer deal, and I still paid $200!!!!!!

Mike, you can make the Roadmaster sedan seat fold flat. It just requires some trimming and cleverness.

Silverfox103 has Bonneville rear seats that fold flat in his wagon.

Stingroo wrote:

Silverfox103 has Bonneville rear seats that fold flat in his wagon.

No, he has roadie sedan seats.

Oh.

Well then... there you go, Mike.

If I shop the local establishments near my house they will cost me 2-3X what I could get the work done for down in Miami if I could habla Cubano. If I need interior work done, I'm callin' up my INC buddies for a hookup.