Someday the car will go to the body shop for paint. In the meantime I reassembled
the grille but left the mesh off. That mesh has sharp edges, great for slicing your hands. Installation (and removal) of a 62 grille is difficult
due to access, and 2X as difficult with an AC car. For now it looks fine without the mesh.
There was a slight leak at the transmission which turned out to the transmission filler tube. I removed it and was
pleased to find the O ring had distorted and was the cause. A new O ring fixed things with the filler tube but the pan still has a small slow leak. We will live with it.
The carpet in these F G H cars -- The F and G
use black carpet, the H uses gold. The club (George Riehl, Ken Mack, Michael Burke) researched this subject
in 1995. While the G carpet has a pile height of
.375" and was available anywhere, the black F carpet has a different pile (.500")
and could not be found. The H carpet is a .375" pile but the color was
unique and could not be found. So the club took on
a project to have F and H carpet custom made. We had a batch made and sold
kits through the club store. 34 F kits were sold with the last one being
sold in 2002. 16 H kits were made, the last sold in 1999.
Each F kit consisted
of 5 yards of 72" wide material. The H kit was 5.5 yards; slightly more because the front seat
backs also needed material.
A layout was provided to show how the kit
could be cut into parts. A while after the last kits were sold, we approached
the manufacturer for another production run. They would not make another and no
other sources were found.
I bought several carpet kits back then and still had one I could use on
this car. I recently learned that Quirey has the F G H carpet sets available. The Quirey carpets are
cut and sewn. I have to think it is much easier to buy their kit than the way I am doing it from 72" yardage.
Let's see what we can do to carpet the consoles. I came across a front and rear
console out of an H that still had original carpets I could use for templates.
I had a spare F console with carpet and found there is a difference in the carpet
cut at the front end. The H uses a piece with snaps whereas the F and G use carpet.
I decided to start on the rear console first. I cut blanks and tried assembly. I thought I
could lay the carpet and the top trim with its 5 bolts would capture and retain.
There is no way to align the carpet with each of those 5 bolts and align the bolts in their
rails. I glued the carpet to the console at the top, punched holes in it for the 5 bolts and let
it sit. Then I wrestled the top trim on with the 5 bolts. Once done, it did a very good job of
capturing the carpet.
The front console carpet is much easier. There is only 4 bolts and the trim does not have the center dip
that the rear has. I ended up using no glue. Just installed all 4 bolts on the top trim holder
super loose so I had max space and then wiggled carpet into it. Tightened the bolts to clamp down and
the carpet is secure.
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