A bracket with Rivnuts, welded to the door. The door panel slides over it and then when the armrest bolts on, it pulls the panel in tight so it doesn't rattle.
With the armrest installed.
Looking up from the bottom of the armrest.
Backside of armrest.
Same process of sealing up the front armrest extension.
2 steps forward...1 step back. No fun if we don't share the mis-steps.....
I struggled with the look of how the arm rest cut off the speaker at the bottom but I really like the how the arm rest sits on top of the door bar when the door is closed. It really looks good when you are inside with the door closed. Probably making a big deal out of a non-issue, but thought a little return on that speaker opening might finish off the look. It didn't work, as you can see. Looks bad and while I knew I was going to have to modify the speaker grill, it just made that fit way to tight.
Cutting that lower section off today and going back to just letting the arm rest do it's thing. Once it's covered with black leather, it will mostly disappear anyway.
Here is the driver door with the arm rest done. I'll make the pass side like this today.
The door pull will get done black later but just had to ditch the blue anodizing now! Easy Off oven cleaner eats it quick. Definitely doesn't leave a pristine Al finish so I wouldn't count on it if you want useable bare Al but good enough for just removing the anodizing.
The two right most metal brackets are welded to the door so they solidly anchor the armrest and make for no flexing when the door is pulled closed.
Somehow drilling 6 holes in that metal bracket makes it lighter!!
Finishing the center console. I wanted to use some factory parts as the basis of design here. Not sure I would do this again as blending plastic, fiberglass and MDF presents some challenges that most obviously just solve by doing this out of metal. But I'm down the path so I'm sticking with it.
All of this will get covered with leather but one of the problems I haven't been able to solve is getting any glues or filler to stick to this plastic. I've been using a plastic welder and plastic filler rod which works great for getting the general shape down but smoothing is difficult. Would be great to use body filler but it doesn't stick. I've tried every version of plastic glue I could find. Nothing sticks, might as well be putting the glue on wax cause it just peels off.
Not a real big deal as the leather will hide most of the imperfections, just would make shaping this easier.
Started a while ago with some used parts sourced from the junkyard and some new (cup holders) from eBay. Morphing it all together over the next few weeks.
I built that rear piece (gray) long ago. The EStopp is under that area.
Started a little storage area under the waterfall.
Beginning the waterfall.
Here is the start of changing the center console shape. Started with the swoop (drivers side) and modified it to go straight. This will make sense later but you can see where the plastic welder was used to reweld the section flat after I cut it and then used heat to flex it flat. The welding process works real easy but as you can imagine, the plastic doesn't sand very well so smoothing it would be awesome with some filler. Anyone have any thoughts?
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
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