Farrar's car blog

[Farrar]

In other news, I am still looking for a set of used floor carpets for my DeLorean. As long as they are in decent shape I will be fine with them. Mine are rusty and I am not putting them back in. I can't afford new ones right now.

[stevedmc]

...and if having two people (sean & dermot) with similar avatars isnt confusing enough, enter Farrar.

What about me?

[dmc6960]

Ahh! Its the signature banners all over again!

[Farrar]

What about me?

There, there, now.

The awful weather here means I have no time outside with the car. I haven't even replaced the vacuum hoses yet, and those materials arrived weeks ago. So I have decided to see what I can do inside. I think I will take some measurements and start working on a console redesign. It's been in my head for a while, and I have most of the parts I need, but I need to get things firmly on paper with actual numbers attached so I can begin making stuff.

It occurs to me that if I make the console go all the way to the floor (which I would like), plus kick-panels which do the same, I would only require a longish piece of carpet to go from the footwells to behind the seats. Until I have the money for real carpets from Houston or another vendor, I could always just cut something to fit between the kick-panels and the console. It wouldn't look great, but it would work as a stopgap measure and possibly get me to Orlando.

For kick-panel construction, I am reading up on small-scale fiberglass fabrication. Does anyone have a good book or other reference material they could recommend for this? Thanks!

[Farrar]

I have come down with some sort of sickness, but I can still get things done inside. Today, I finished cleaning and conditioning one of the seats. Just for the sake of comparison, here's a photo.

SANY0116.jpg

Obviously, the cleaned and conditioned one is on the left.

I think I last cleaned and conditioned the seats last summer -- while in the car, though. The leather is a lot thirstier than I expected: I had to keep reapplying conditioner before I could successfully "remove the excess with a dry cloth." The excessive shine goes away after a little while, but I do like the way the Mother's cleaner and conditioner makes the black leather black again.

Edit: I see that it's time to clean my camera lens! Sorry about that.

[sean]

I have come down with some sort of sickness, but I can still get things done inside. Today, I finished cleaning and conditioning one of the seats. Just for the sake of comparison, here's a photo.

Obviously, the cleaned and conditioned one is on the left.
.

Edit: I see that it's time to clean my camera lens! Sorry about that.

Looks good! Get well, the pollen has been kicking my ass lately, all kinds of congested for the last week or so.

[jawn101]

I have come down with some sort of sickness, but I can still get things done inside. Today, I finished cleaning and conditioning one of the seats. Just for the sake of comparison, here's a photo.

SANY0116.jpg

Obviously, the cleaned and conditioned one is on the left.

I think I last cleaned and conditioned the seats last summer -- while in the car, though. The leather is a lot thirstier than I expected: I had to keep reapplying conditioner before I could successfully "remove the excess with a dry cloth." The excessive shine goes away after a little while, but I do like the way the Mother's cleaner and conditioner makes the black leather black again.

Edit: I see that it's time to clean my camera lens! Sorry about that.

Which did you use? The Mothers, or Skidmores, or something else? They look really nice so I will use whatever you did.

[Farrar]

Looks good! Get well, the pollen has been kicking my ass lately, all kinds of congested for the last week or so.

Thanks! I think it is partly lack of sleep. I got home from last night's gig at about 1:15am and had an omelette for supper (thank heaven for the 24-hour diner in my neighborhood), then slept for 10.5 hours. Feeling better already.

Which did you use? The Mothers, or Skidmores, or something else? They look really nice so I will use whatever you did.

I have always used Mothers. I am a bit anal-retentive about cleaning -- in my opinion it's not clean until the rag comes away with nothing on it. Therefore, I had to use the Mothers leather cleaner a few times in certain areas -- I think the previous owner had problems getting to the sides of the seats, for example. I cleaned the seat, then had lunch, and then did conditioning runs waiting five minutes between applications. So this took a few hours. It's definitely not a "touch-up" product that you would just take to the car show and use at the last minute, but I can say I have had good results with their products so far.

Edit: Now that I think of it, the leather might have been so difficult to clean due to salt water. I really need to fix my air conditioning.

[Farrar]

Got nothing done today, but got these together for y'all to look at. It's what I plan to do with my console and kneepads after I am all done.

Here's what we all know and love:

console1.jpg

And here is how I want mine to be.

console2.jpg

Not much of a visual change, but lots to be done literally "behind the scenes."

[jawn101]

Got nothing done today, but got these together for y'all to look at. It's what I plan to do with my console and kneepads after I am all done.

Here's what we all know and love:

console1.jpg

And here is how I want mine to be.

console2.jpg

Not much of a visual change, but lots to be done literally "behind the scenes."

What are the up/down arrows? The window switches?