Do you have aluminum door panels in your baja and they look dingy.

Take steel wool and buff them in a circular motion. It takes about 20 minutes per panel. Yes it is tiring. Then spray them with Kryon clear gloss paint. Makes them look really good again and hides some of the defects in them. Give it a try.

I love the headliner!

headliner looks awesome... I glued that buble stuff from Home depot to my roof before I had the headliner installed.. yours came out nice.. I am going to steal your idea.

Nice job on the headliner Tony.

VWBOAT

Love the look of both the doors and the brain protector.

The car had several gauges and they were in the place of the original dash panels and they were chrome. Not being a fan of chrome I replaced them with original style dash grills from Bug O Rama. The car had no radio so the big hole in the dash was where all the gauges would be relocated.

A little tracing and some aluminum and I made a panel and relocated the gauges in to where the radio was.

Looks good Tony.

John

Got the front speakers, kick panels, rear parcel tray with 6x9's and dedicated amp for iPhone/iPod installed.

Also, cut a custom carpet kit and will reinstall seats and seat belts tomorrow. That will finish up the inside.

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Got a few things done this weekend on the car.

Cut a carpet kit for the trunk. Need to get rid of the red paint (original color) and find a 135 spare for the car.



Cleaned up the engine compartment with some paint and a little wire loom.







Installed a transmission strap as well.



Picked up a rebuilt 1600DP and will start work on that this week.

WOW! That was fast!

You know, I always worry what people will to to my old cars; I'm glad to see it get even better!

I know a guy who wants to buy the seats

So I have been avoiding this project because the product is always wrong in some way. I purchased a decklid with the license plate area frenched in and was dreading the work because fiberglass stuff never seems to work out right.

First part was cutting the hole for the latch, which went surprising well, after one hour of shaping.



Next was working the area where the plate goes. Found this nifty LED light on amazon and with a few holes drilled it fit nicely. The Az plate is way too big so a little trimming is necessary to fit. There is NO WAY to put a license plate frame around the plate. NO ROOM. See what I mean about after market stuff!



Additionally, they don't put any clips on the inside to hold the power and ground wires. So a little fabrication with some aluminum and fiberglass, solution found!

Once everything dries it will be time to sand/prime and speckletone it like the engine compartment. Then off to get the outside painted to match.

x






A little black hi temp paint for the exhaust.



And the Cavalier seats found a home with the new carpet and shift boot.

wideopenmotorsports wrote:

Took on a custom headliner project today. Never tried it before and was a little worried. I am happy with the results. $15 in fabric, $7 in padding and $12 in spray adhesive. Turn bare metal into a nice neat and simple headliner.

Damn I hate the new Photobucket links!!!
I think they could be used with the whole url portion of the link removed down to just the [img] part.

Anyway...This looks like a nice project. When you started,I was afraid you were going to hack it into a Baja. Lately I've seen a bunch of really clean and complete stock VW bodies butchered into Baja Bugs which would have been way less expensive and easier to do starting with one of the great many Baja Bugs which are already laying around unwanted and unused. There aren't THAT many Bugs around anymore.

Could you tell the folks what the materials are that you used for this headliner? It looks great and is very close to what I've always envisioned for my Baja. I need to re-do mine and the old material is no longer available.

Also, what did you use for seat mounts for those seats?

Ok, a followup on the headliner question.

Fabric is a tweed type fabric from the clearance section at JoAnn's fabrics. I choose grey because it matched the seats. I used 1" thick cotton batting ( ask the lady at JoAnn's where it is) Basically it is padding used in making dresses and such.

Measured front to back and side to side. added 3" to each measurement. Cut fabric to dimensions measured and sprayed with 3M adhesive and let dry. Sprayed batting and let dry. Laid one over the over and it sticks together like a magnet. Trimmed batting to match fabric and then sprayed batting with adhesive.

Now the fun part. Spray roof of car and let dry. NOW, take fabric and allow for 1.5" of overlap at front and 1.5" each side. Push first 4 or 5" to roof while holding tension towards back window. Do this all the way to the back. Work side to side for only 4-5" at a time. When you reach the back just tuck in the edges all the way around with a plastic putty knife. You have a nice headliner with a little insulation.

SEATS: Chevy Cavalier or Pontiac Sunfire - if you are really tall just mount them to the floor. I added 2" spacers (metail tubing painted to match interior of car) in the back and 1.5" spacers up front. I am 6'2" and have plenty of room and still a person 5'5" could drive the car.

Mykul wrote:

I know a guy who wants to buy the seats

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