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Hackster's LSA / T56 2 door

Absolutely stunning, no other words. I?d say you certainly achieved what you set out for as far as the back seat goes. Looks phenomenal!

Thanks man, I am happy with how this is coming together.

Any pics of the rear seat foam before it was covered?

No I only have one of it with the holes and slits up the seat back sorry.


Sorry...no

How are the rear seat-back "inserts" held in place?

The rear seat inserts are just stitched in and held in with rods and hog rings like a normal seat. We cut the foams down to create the "bucket" effect in the rear seats. Its a huge difference from the stock seats.

Black arm rest look good to me.
Has OEM vibe.

Thanks, I am just struggling with how to do the front doors. Black accessories is going to be too much and look miss matched. So I am going to try and figure that out.

I think if you did black accents on the seats(the horizontal parts), it would look really sick and custom. You would probably have to swap the armrest on doors to match.

Thanks, the stitching on the seats while not visible in the photos is black and double french stitch. Not really going for a custom look on this, trying to blend the lines of Volvo and high end european sports car.

If I take my shoes off first, may I climb into the back and sit on the rear seat? Someone has to try it out. I don't want a ride, just a sit.

You can be the second. I fished the wife back there to help install the rear side window =)

Its all the little details that most people dont see, spent last night getting all the lighting in the center dash piece in and working, got the original gas pedal cover installed so the side panel has a proper place to clip into. Trimmed a little more on the carpet, tidied up the wiring under the drivers side of the dash. Ironed out the horn and got that working again as well as the windshield wiper motor. Installed a pocket in the lower radio hole so it looks nice and finished.

Got the rear ashtray all cleaned up and installed.

Steamed the carpet around the drivers footwell and it made a nice difference in how the carpet laid in there. Looks better now.

Sliced the **** out of my finger and got blood all over the place, luckily the carpet and floor mat was wet from the steaming and it cleaned up.

I think I got the Can Bus fixed....well its at least not corrupting the can now.

Hope to get a bunch of the little stuff ironed out this weekend and maybe work on the tune a little bit.

Sean
 
The level of detail every project I've ever seen you do never ceases to amaze me.

Speaking of which, I can't wait to see this thing and sit in the back seat with Towery!
 
Lemme try again - with the rear part of the cage welded in - how did you manage getting the seatback in?

Its Magic =)

The level of detail every project I've ever seen you do never ceases to amaze me.

Speaking of which, I can't wait to see this thing and sit in the back seat with Towery!

Haha, Thanks man, its a blessing and a curse all at the same time.

Thx for making me go back and look again -- obviously, I couldn't see that the first pass.

I had to give it a few looks myself

You have to stick your hand back there to feel it in person, I laid it out at least 2 or 3 times before I actually made the cut in the seat, upholster pulled it off great with all things considered. I think I nailed the rear seat, roll bar look I was going for.

Very little progress on the car, picked up the deeper dish steering wheel and got it bolted on, much better clearance on the turn and windshield wiper levers.

Also got a bunch of little items buttoned up. Got the clip for the wiper motor installed. Rear passenger seatbelt indicator purchased and installed, final blank plate for the dash installed as well.



Took a little time Friday evening and picked up the hardware for the passenger (Actually it was the drivers seat) and got the seat bolted to the adapter and got it all bolted in.



Aside from a little fix on the carpet and the rear driver window the interior is buttoned up as well as it is going to be for now. Still need to get the door panels in for upholstery but that will happen in a few weeks, will only take him a day to knock them out.


I didnt have a ton of motivation this weekend so I got to stripping off all of the old trim (what was left on the car).

I had 4 of the 6 pieces on the car so popped them all of and got to work pulling the old trim clips.



Its hard to describe but from the time of it sitting around it built up some horrible crud above and below the trim on the paint. I tried everything I could in order to get it off, purple power, rubbing compund, clay bar, hard plastic scraper and I could not make a dent in it. I had a buddies steamer and thought what the hell, cannot hurt so I gave it a shot. Steamer with a brush on it worked amazing. I spent hours on the drivers rear quarter by hand. Had the passenger side all the way down done in 30 mins with the steamer.

You can kind of see what I am talking about in this pic.



Pulled all the logos off.



It was time for this to happen.....passenger side is unpulled/ unrolled.



Drivers side, is rolled, pulled and probably cussed at more than a few times. Front fenders are ****ty repaints so I have not been worried at all about keeping the paint perfect.

Great coverage on a 10" wheel and a 275 clearing the strut with about 1 degree of - camber, should be no problems up front.



Got to work with a little color sanding and lots of polishing. Turd is looking how it should in my head. Shiny but not nice.





This fender is the worst, color doesnt match, paint is all chipped and cracked but its whats on there and it got color sanded and buffed all in the same.



Took Sunday off from all car stuff and played in the snow with the new daily.



I need to button up the trim, install the roll steer correction stuff and bleed brakes and clutch and I could take it for a spin. Getting close.

Sean
 
No I only have one of it with the holes and slits up the seat back sorry.

sorry to rehash the seat but inquiring minds..

So did you remove material to create the 'bucket' or add material, or both?

appreciate your willingness to share how the sausage gets made.
 
sorry to rehash the seat but inquiring minds..

So did you remove material to create the 'bucket' or add material, or both?

appreciate your willingness to share how the sausage gets made.

Sorry man, I thought that all the info was out there.

So how the rear seat went was I first made my holes for the roll bar by careful measurements and drilling at the approximate angle to establish where the holes needed to be. I was pretty close on my guess.

From there I lined up the outside of the holes (Closest to the outside of the car) in order to make the bucket areas as wide as possible.

I then took a square and got the seat back squared up and got a straight line marked out on the seat back.

From there I had to cut out the metal outer support of the seat, two rods per side. I cut out about 2.5" on the two rods so it could co over the seat. Note I just cut the rods not the foam.

This gave me an opening at the bottom of the seat that I could slide over the roll bar but still upholster and have it look finished.

So from there I cut with a big old bread knife up from the bottom to my hole and this go me the outside of the rear buckets.

I measured out and what would look good and drew it out on the seat back with a sharpie.

We removed the cover from the rear armrests and glued that foam into the opening. We put a few layers of foam on that to build up the center portion of the back to give it a little more shape.

Then we carved out about an inch of foam on the seat back and bottom where the bucket areas were going to go.

Even without any upholstery this gave us a conforming bucket look to the seat foams.

I wish I had more pics of the rear seat but think that this should give a better idea.

Sean
 
Had a chance to get a little bit of work done on the car after work last night after a rare chance of getting home early!!!!

Finished up all of the body work on the stainless trim. I made a small dolly that fit in the trim that allowed me to get inside and hammer out all of the dents, hammer, sand, hammer sand. Its not perfect but all things considered it looks killer.

These all got sanded, cleaned prepped and painted with SEM Trim Black.

Its a lot of work.

53 new OEM Clips from Ansel and we are in business.

Little bit more work with the steamer and a scrub brush and the sides of the car were looking good.



Trim all installed.





Paint on the car is ****, the roof has a bunch of dents right above the drivers door but its been totally buffed out and has a nice shine to it.

Also got the passenger fender all rolled and stretched to match the drivers side. It still has more room I can pull if needed.

First time this thing has looked somewhat put together since I have owned it. I like the Black GT trim on the car.

Searching for an e38 manual ECU right now but not having much luck.

Running out of **** to do on this thing.

:oogle:
 
Looks great, really coming together. Doesn't sound like new paint is in the plan, but you might consider losing that old black pinstripe altogether. I did this once before and it's an easy process with a cheap eraser wheel on a drill. Really cleans up the sides.
 
What year model is it again? It has slim bumpers but yet 5 panel taillights. ??

Ok, gonna guess 1980 but with late model bumpers added?
 
Looks great, really coming together. Doesn't sound like new paint is in the plan, but you might consider losing that old black pinstripe altogether. I did this once before and it's an easy process with a cheap eraser wheel on a drill. Really cleans up the sides.

Yeah it would be super easy to take off, two things are keeping it on there. Where I removed the Volvo and DL from the back of the car the adhesive had ruined the finish underneath it and the paint was very thin there, weird as I have never seen that happen in all the cars I have built.

The stripe is dark brown and I kind of like it, it kind of has a ****ty look to it that is fitting for the car in my opinion.

But reduces the highlighting of "brickness".....

Or bricknivity, if you like....

Brickness it is!!

Spent the night in the shop last night but mostly cleaning and organizing stuff as it kind of turned into a **** hole the last few weeks. I need to spend a little bit of time organizing things out there a little better. I would love a storage setup for my jacks, jack stands and a few other items. In Veneta I hung a bunch of 3/4" plywood on the walls and built some killer storage hooks to hold lots of stuff, I might do that at this house as well to get some things organized and off the floor. I hate stuff being on the floor with a passion.

Anyways,

I could not stand how the trunk lid looked with the VOLVO and DL ghosted on there so I did a bunch of smoothing and sanding on the logos, cleaned up and painted them and stuck them back on. I dont love it, but it gives a much more modern look to the old ****ty badges.



I can see the DL coming off in favor of some kind of LSX badge in the future, I love that the back of the car is totally unassuming though.

Happy Friday!!

Sean
 
You could repurpose one of the front fender/side badges for the decklid. 242DL with 5.3 below it, instead of 2.1. That was the approach I took for right side of the decklid.
 
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