Interior

Here's a little glance at the junk I was looking at after I got the exterior assembled.  (Nothing was assembled in this pic, but the interior looked the same after it was!) I had parts for the doors laying around under all the stuff here....the original new quarter windows I had gotten, the boxes of sanding and buffing materials for the rubber, the three or four sets of door sill moldings....the ones coming off, and the different ones going on.  In addition there were boxes and bottles of parts and fasteners all over the place, and bits of wire and tape.  What a mess!!  I'd get started on one small aspect, then I'd find some part I was looking for the day before, and I'd go back to working on THAT project.  Basically I was going around in circles.  Sheesh!!!

Lowrider had a pretty good sound system in its day....the amps were premium Alpines (used here), and the rear speakers were 6x9 Infinity Kappa IIIs.  Infinity has gone a different way than I prefer now, so when I upgraded the decks in the GS and the wagon to Pioneer Premier, my friend Jag at Autohaus in Hayward, California, said I should try the matching Premier speakers.  He could give me an excellent deal on them, and they were high wattage, 4 way. I got them for a significant savings, as well as the decks, and they are quite good.  I moved them from Lowrider to this car, and got a pair of good Blaupuncts for the front doors.  The subwoofer was going to be a problem, though...there were no more free air subs available, according to my friend.  But Pioneer had a better idea.   They had come out with a pair of compact subs, a 10 inch and a 12 inch, that are about 3 inches deep.  To try the subs, Jag said he'd give me a great deal on the 12 inch....about 40% off.  I couldn't argue with that.  So I got it, and when Jag opened his own shop in Napa, I took the car to him to get the components hooked up, after I installed them.  It sounds awesome.  It took a bit of adjusting in and around the package tray to take care of the huge power and vibration potential...I needed to reinforce the tray with some wood stringers to strengthen it, otherwise the whole car would sound like a gang-banger's Accura  from West Los Angeles.  But BOY, can it put out the tunes.

This is the back side of the amp board, facing the front of the car.  I had to fasten it to the rear fenderwells, then run all the wiring from the front of the car to the back.  Lowrider had an additional battery in the trunk, which I am not going to utilize here....that was a hassle, and not worth the effort.  I'm also not going to move the main battery to the trunk....the car will not be required to perform hard enough to justify that expense and effort.  There is a 50 CD changer installed in the trunk...the same as Lowrider had.  Eva says CD changers are old fashioned, and so I feel totally justified in replacing it with a Pioneer HD deck in the summer of 2007, with GPS, XM, Bluetooth, and back-up camera installed.  Hey, she said my tunes were old fashioned.....right??

These are the two Alpine amps....they've been  giving me good tunes since the mid '90s. Back in 1997, when the installation was two years old, someone decided they wanted my stereo more than I did, when the car was parked in my driveway in San Leandro, California....the same driveway the '93 Cobra was stolen from.  I had left the doors unlocked (oops), so there was no body damage, but they had crimped the back seat around to get the changer out.  These amps were either too hard for them to get, or not visible from their vantage point, so they stayed.  Everything was covered, except the factory CDs in the deck. Grrrrr!! (That incdent prompted me to get a new desktop computer and my first version of CD Creator.)   So now I make all the CDs which go outside...the originals stay in the house. The left one (240 watts) is for the doors and package tray, and the smaller one (150 watts) is for the sub.

This looks kind of intimidating, I guess, but it actually isn't bad.  I guess all the parts of an engine spread out all over the garage is intimidating, too.  Anyway, I put two layers of padding under the carpet, for additional sound deadening....I like the quietness of the GS-300...and it seems to work.  There is less road noise than there used to be.  I ran the power wire, the red one, down the right side of the console, away from the speaker and CD changer wires over under the left doorsill.  The power comes off the starter solenoid, with a large fuse mounted on the strut tower, and the wire comes in through the firewall near the throttle cable.  There will be a different console in this car when it is done, and there will be power outlets in it for 12 volt devices, and maybe an inverter for 120 volts for small appliances for trips.

Here, ladies and gentlemen, we have an examaple of "Atlanta Rust".  The interior of the instrument panel has obviously never been exposed to any inclement weather.....right, Anthony??...and yet it is pretty rusty.  It's all just surface rust, but it still is there, and if left alone, would get worse over time.  It's pretty obvious we are making these cars last a LOT longer than the factory ever had in mind.  So, using what I had learned (not much!!) from my experiences masking the doors and deck lid, I decided I'd pop some Rust-Oleum into that area.  It might not make a lot of difference, but at least I'd feel better.

Here it is, all masked up.  It didn't take but a minute to get all the area I could see painted.  Like I said, it might not make much difference, but at least I feel better about it.  The double-din deck that Lowrider has been using will go in here, and later, when the new console comes along, this area will be empty, as the front portion of the console will angle towards the rear, down towards the shifter, making room for some significant hardware....aka GS-300.  At the present time, it looks like the majority of the console I will use will come from a BMW X5.  The significnat thing I want to do is mount the emergency brake next to me, so I can apply it with my right hand.  Mustangs have that sort of console, too...but they are a little cheap and chincy.  Eva's X5 has a very nice console (if a little wide).  I'll need to hit the BMW PnP in Sacramento when the time comes.

In this corner of the trunk area is where the CD changer will go.  Lowrider had a nice custom platform and cover made for it by the original installers.  Those items will be brought over to this car.

Here are the original radio parts from BD, which will go back into Lowrider when it goes to the museum.  This radio originally came from the factory in the Slorider wagon, and actually still works.  It may or may not play a cassette, but it will receive radio stations.  Amazing!!!  Lowrider originally had the factory CD player, but that system got swiped when Lowrider went missing back in the '95-'96 era.  From what I am hearing on the lists about durability of the factory sound systems.....no loss.  One thing the factory system DID have that I like is the ability to compress the audio dynamic range on a CD.  I will not get an aftermarket system that can't compress music, and that includes the new digital Pioneer GPS/HD system.  If it won't compress, the 50 CD system stays.

"Joseph"s Bed" A long time ago, on the SHOTimes list, Joseph Van Oss mentioned taking the driver's seat out and lying prone on carpeting (to smooth out the seat mounts on the floor) to facilitate working under the dash.  I had also done that in the past, during times when I was exploring ways to tighten the link in the steering....the one that gets loose (except for Ron Porter's '89) when the car is moved or driven without power steering.  I damaged the link in this car, back before it went to Mark's place for its engine, when it was at Costco getting its RE-730B tires.  The starter drive actuator arm broke, and the starter would spin, but the gear would not engage the flywheel.  I made the mistake of trying to push the car around to get it out of the way, before the AAA tow-truck arrived.  So now I have to go in and tighten that link, or replace it. I have a spare, and I have practiced removing a steering column from a donor car at PnP ....there are definitely more fun things to do than that!  I had a bit of work to do under the dash...working on the module tower, and running the stereo wiring up, over, and in front of the E-brake, fuse box, and pedals.  I was thinking of Joseph the entire time I was under there.....no, Joseph, not THAT way!! The carpet is the original from my green Fiesta, which Jim Koper now has, in Columbus, Ohio.

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