Atom's 2 door Amazon wagon Project:Headquarters

[Miroteknik]

Dash looks incredible, man. Expectation equals reality.

[quasi mofo]

Looks amazing!

[Atom]

So, I took some pictures and then I just got in a groove and stopped. Here’s what I did take. The first step in wrapping a custom part is to try and to note potential problem areas and come up with solutions in advance. Such as..

Where the vinyl comes around the end of the dash I’ll need A) a recess for the vinyl to lay flat with the surrounding area and B) a way for the two colors to interface with each other when the chrome strip ends. I laid some double back tape around the edge of the end caps (3M double back is about the same thickness as vinyl), then bondoed up to it. And I cut a slot for the two vinyls to “tuck” into.



The next problem areas are any deep recesses. The least stress you can induce to the vinyl the more likely it is to stay down. The solution there is to twist/pull the vinyl in other areas to create slack for tucking into the recesses (no pic, sorry)



Pocket areas with tight radiuses will almost never get vinyl down in them. The fix is to make an insert to fit in that will allow you to cut slots right up to the radiuses. I do this by machining plugs that are oversized for me to fill up to, but the low tech way would be to use whatever part you’re going to use in the final part, wrap it with masking tape, then put a strip of double back (to create vinyl space) and body up to that.

This is the glue I use (I buy it five gallons at a time, but you can get it in smaller sizes online)



One trick I do is to mask off areas that I’m not wrapping the first time so when I’m wrapping the first half I’m not fighting the vinyl sticking to where I’m not wrapping



Then my technique is to spray glue lightly (I use the $15 Harbor Freight paint guns) to both the part and the vinyl. Wait for it to dry completely. I mean completely. Then lightly spray a second coat on either the part or vinyl (usually the part) and then stick. When possible, I heat the vinyl from the back side. When you heat from the front you risk melting the vinyl before getting it all stretchy. By heating from the back you almost completely eliminate the possibility of “burning” the vinyl



I haven’t completely decided what I’m going to do on the end caps, but for now I just glued a piece of suede on



Custom loop carpet floor mats shown



Next is to re-upholster the door caps two tone with the chrome strip and finish the cluster surround trim

[Atom]

Niiiiiiice!

Send me one of those stickers

Sure! Just send me a self addressed stamped envelope.....(only the old guys will get that)

Do you have ducts under the dash for ventilation?

Yes, there’s footwell (front and rear) and defrost vents. I got rid of the dash locations. I never use them (don’t like air blowing on my face)

[quasi mofo]

I’ll put together a longer post once I get some better daytime pics tomorrow. Got dark fast today

Do you have ducts under the dash for ventilation?

[DawsonLiri]

Niiiiiiice!

Send me one of those stickers

[Atom]

I’ll put together a longer post once I get some better daytime pics tomorrow. Got dark fast today



Oh, and test stickers!

[Atom]

Hoping to possibly wrap the dash tomorrow AM! Pretty excited. I think I’ve got enough of the detail stuff completed to move forward. Pretty excited to check that off. I’ll still need to make the polished aluminum “chrome” strip.

[Atom]

seats look great, love the gold loopholes or whatever those are, reminds me of the pimped recaros in the Singer 911's

Grommets. Yeah, Singer uses them, Ferrari does too. They’re sort of a nod to vintage race cars. They used LOTS of them to aid cooling for the drivers (they also didn’t really have foam on the seats).

[Miroteknik]

seats look great, love the gold loopholes or whatever those are, reminds me of the pimped recaros in the Singer 911's

[Atom]

just read this whole thing form start to finish. excelente job my friend. so many skills, so well thought out. well done sir! cant wait to see more!

Doing my best. Thank you!

[C2_mad]

just read this whole thing form start to finish. excelente job my friend. so many skills, so well thought out. well done sir! cant wait to see more!

[Atom]

Set up the workshop after doing a fair amount of shoveling. Came up with a pretty good rattle can combo that got the seat color pretty close. Test fit the Nardi. Slightly smaller, so it blocks even more of the gauges for me. That’s why I added LEDs on the lower inner gauge bolt locations. They’re turn signal repeaters. From my driving position the turn indicators are 100% blocked. Now I need to make a top half cluster bezel.



The kids and I also took some storage bins I had and we built some snowball fighting forts.



The 11 year old is tall for his age, and the three year old is short for his age, so we tried to stage the wall height so it could work for both

[Kalin]

Dude you are a living legend! This car is ...... can't even discribe it. "INSANE" is just not good enough. Keep up the good work!

[Atom]

Just as an FYI, not everything magically works out for me. I am not going to have funds, or time, to get my front seats upholstered before I’ve got stuff to do this coming spring so I decided to paint/dye the front seats. I had some custom color mixed up and prepped/sprayed the seats. I know it’s not a solid long term solution, but I figured I could get one season out of it. Well, after getting it all done it felt “dry”. Not like how it usually is. I stuffed my arm up in the seat to remove the hangers I used while spraying and everywhere the seat wrinkled the paint cracked. I drug a nail across it and it flakes right off. FML. Now I need to strip off all the paint, re-prep and spray again. I won’t be using custom mixed paint this time (I’m blaming that material), but instead an off-the-shelf rattle can color. This is gonna be a pain in the a$$.